The next six months in Iraq will,,,,,,,,..ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

in other words, the surge has failed.

what a shocker....

The security gains are real.

There has been almost one U.S. casualty per day so far this month. Some security gain!

Sounds to me like more of the same. What's the next great idea from our military? Refighting the Vietnam war?

If we persist in our efforts to thwart Iraqis desire for full sovereignty, and to thwart their desire to profit from their own oil, expect the security situation to deteriorate. We need to listen to our own hollow rhetoric about wishing to help the Iraqis, not to the interests of a few greedy interest groups (oil companies, defense contractors etc).

So things there are almost sort of ok as long as we stay there forever and spend billions. Great.

"continued dissatisfaction among Iraqis over essential services such as water, electricity, sanitation and healthcare and said government officials in Baghdad "lack the ability" to advance needed rebuilding projects."

But, as far as what matters...the security gains are real.

Who cares how many Iraqi lives are miserable as long as we've temporarily got them under control?

Needs more lipstick and she'll be a prom queen.

Oh my gosh, no instant sucess because the U.S sent thirty thousand more troops. Nothing short of a miracle would satisfy people to busy being smug about shouting for peace and insisting that all we have to do is forgewt about Iraq and the problem will go away. As far as this war being all about oil, and profit and the interests of corporate America, yeah, just a mere trillion dollar expernse so that we could give ourselves access to oil that we already had access to. Unscrupolous french oil companies were cleaning up in Iraq during Oil for Food, the U.S. definetly could have been doing the same but actually chose not to. Live in the real world, where progress is hard but important everyone.

The purpose of the surge was to provide some breathing room for political and social reconciliation so that U.S. troops could get the hell out. THAT HASN'T HAPPENED. The violence is down to 2005 levels, which is still pretty damned violent.

The surge was to be for an extremely limited amount of time because this whole war and occupation is bankrupting us. We can't keep it up, the troops are needed elsewhere, the Taleban are taking back Afghanistan, and the House just approved last week the largest military spending bill to date ($162 billion), with NO STRINGS attached.

Has everybody lost their goddamned minds?

The "security gains" blah blah blah blah...

I guess if you mean we can rape women, torture kids, and kill innocent men in the name of "security", sure - there are gains.

Of course, these same war crimes are what prevent the "political progress", @sshole, so trumpet the "gains" all that your tiny-brain will allow.

Geeee... when are the stooooopid people gonna get it?

Oh, and let's not forget the DEPLETED URANIUM weapons - the gift that keeps on giving. There are horrible, unnaturally high birth defects there now and the land has been poisoned for many many generations.

Yup, "real progress" there, bucko...

Why won't they "just get along" and be friends?????

The template for Iraq is not Korea but El Salvador, unlike what numbnuts John McCain says, where the U.S. funds a right-wing government that slaughters thousands of civilians.

So, the hospitals suck. Water and electricity are scarce. The populace thinks their leaders are a joke. Suicide bombings continue to make headlines. The army and police are corrupt, inefficient, poorly trained and armed and unable to function independent of the U.S. military. Ethnic tensions are rife but declining a bit only because neighborhoods are cleansed and some have tired of killing each other or run out of targets. Foreign contractors run rampant, immune to any laws governing ethical, civilized conduct or accepted norms of behavior. And we're blowing a few billion$$$ a week on all this praying one day it is a bit less of a clusterfuck than it is today. Marvelous!

from Juan Cole's blog today:

A city council member in Mada'in (Salman Pak) abruptly opened fire on Americans who had been in a meeting with him. He killed 2 US troops and wounded 4 other Americans. He had been in India recently because Sunni-Shiite tensions made it too difficult for him in Mada'in. He had only been back one week as councilman. Although there is speculation that he was unstable, my own suspicion is that the continued US military occupation was just too hard for him to take. India has an anti-colonial atmosphere, after all. Here is some of what McClatchy reporters overhead the people of Mada'in say in the aftermath:

' Anti-U.S. sentiment remains widespread, with many locals viewing the American presence as an intrusion. As news of Ajil's killings spread, some residents hailed him as a hero. Several uttered his name and added, "God rest his soul," and a taxi driver at the scene pointed to the bloodstains and said, "the pigs deserved this." '

Asking the DoD to stabilize Iraq is like spackling leaks in the Hoover Dam.

What I find fascinating is the way we wrecked the country and paid folks to "rebuild". Often what was rebuilt was redestroyed. A never-ending cycle of destruction.

God Bush Iraq!

But, but, Michael O'Hanlon said everything was OK...

I guess those ungrateful people can't appreciate what devastation, looting, poisoning and partition have done for them.

Perhaps the best thing is the ultimate patition-one family per cell.

But, but, Michael O'Hanlon said everything was OK...

I guess those ungrateful people can't appreciate what devastation, looting, poisoning and partition have done for them.

Perhaps the best thing is the ultimate partition-a giant prison with one family per cell. Then the surge will have achieved it's goal-no violence and a stable government.

it's nice to know that iranian agents like william and orwell are still here, encouraging the US to advance iran's interests through our ongoing splendid little adventure in iraq. good work, lads!

...“Iraq remains a mixed bag and will continue to do so in perpetuity, to be quite honest,� (NYT 6/23)

So, we DO have perpetuawar afterall.

My apologies to the citizens of Iraq who are not responsible for the mess.

I predict an ever-widening conflict. Not until our government imprisons 75% of the planet will I feel safe!

The problem is.....aren't some Iraqis getting really pissed off by now? Enough to wish the same fate on the US?

Time for a sensible foreign policy. This military mindset sucks bigtime...and is ruining our own economy. Name ONE positive out of this war?

Oh my gosh, no instant sucess because the U.S sent thirty thousand more troops.

Funny, that's exactly what Bush (and now McCain) promised us from this policy. The surge was intended to stabilize Iraq and promote the political process. This hasn't happened, therefore, the surge is not working. Are you saying "give it another 6 months"?

The problem is.....aren't some Iraqis getting really pissed off by now? Enough to wish the same fate on the US?

Excellent observation. Iraqis who want us out of their country (even factions of the government) can't do so by conventional means because of our superior military might. So asymmetrical warfare is their only option. And the minute an Iraqi bomb explodes on U.S. soil the wingnuts will howl that we now we REALLY need to stay in Iraq forever so we can finally "defeat" them.

And the self-perpetuating cycle of insane violence will spiral on....

President Bush announcing the surge:

To establish its authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November. To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis. To show that it is committed to delivering a better life, the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs. To empower local leaders, Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year. And to allow more Iraqis to re-enter their nation's political life, the government will reform de-Baathification laws, and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution.

PC libs like Bush will never understand that universal human values are Islam, corruption, and the subservience of women. It'll take a long colonization to change their universal human values into Anglo-American universal human values. McCain's hundred years of Crusade are probably not a bad estimate.

ISTM that the LA Times article focused more on the negative than the positive in these two reports. This thread has focused more on the negative in the LA Times article. E.g., consider these two paragraphs:

Both reports cite dramatic improvements in security, and officials say the number of attacks is continuing to plummet. On Monday, Lt. Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the No. 2 U.S. military commander in Iraq, said that the number of attacks had fallen from an average of 1,200 per week in June 2007 to 200 per week this June.

"Iraq is a much better place than it was a year ago across the board, politically, economically and from a security standpoint," Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday. "But we are not at the sustainable point yet, we are not at the irreversible point yet."

I think a fair summary of these two reports is that the surge has succeeded beyond most people's expectations and Iraq has a good chance of becoming a stable democracy.

Yep, a puppet, corrupt govenment ready to take over--more spin, spin, spin from the wise of men of Washington!

We have destroyed Iraq. It will be a failed state (it never was a nation), probably forever now. The oil pie in the sky imagined by Cheney and company will never materialize, and it doesn't really matter anyway as oil was the last century's fuel source.

Gee, and to think all this could have been avoided if we'd simply let Saddam "retire," as he offered to do, to a third country.

There is no way we want to give credit to anyone in the military for accomplishing anything. Posted by: Orwell on June 24, 2008 at 10:01 AM

It is the actions of this war and where they are leading that is being discussed, not the patriotism or sacrifices of those who have been directed to perform the actions.

What you trolls are attempting to do is exploit patriotism for the sake of guilting intelligent people into not questioning the growing compilation of evidence that shows that our leaderships spoken goals for this war have very little in common with the actual actions taken on the ground.

Iraq is a much better place than it was a year ago across the board, politically, economically and from a security standpoint," Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday.

too bad he has no demonstrable evidence of the political or economic progress. I guess ex-lib will take his word for it.

I think a fair summary of these two reports is that the surge has succeeded beyond most people's expectations and Iraq has a good chance of becoming a stable democracy. Posted by: David

After billions of dollar, 3,000+ Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis killed, ethnically cleansed neighborhoods, a government that isn't talking to each other, and religious militias merely waiting us out, you think that this is a platform for democratic success in a country and region of the world that has never experienced elective politics and is generally hostile to the concept? What a fucking moron. People like you have not only abetted the destruction of Iraq but are at the forefront of destroying America as well.

There is no way we want to give credit to anyone in the military for accomplishing anything.

I give the US military credit for destroying Fallujah, destroying clean water, destroying electricity generation, bombing civilians and preventing the will of the majority of Iraqis to select patriotic leaders who would insist the foreign invaders leave. The US military has done a wonderful job implementing the Israeli Palestinian Solution to completely destabilize Iraq and justify their continued occupation of it.

Oh I just can't wait until Prez Obama won't get out of Iraq either because the poor Iraqis have no infrastructure and it would be cruel and inhuman to leave, and lets face it, if Obama will lie about the FISA bill, Obama will lie about everything else too.

So Kevin was certainly right about a couple of things – Obama won’t get us out of this war in Iraq and we don’t know him at all, and didn’t know him before electing him as the nominee. We are so screwed.

Kevin, even if you believe that "the security gains are real" - whatever that means - doesn't it give you any pause at all that what you're talking about is an ongoing crime against humanity being committed by your own government? Or do you really believe that an unprovoked invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation is something other than a war crime? Please advise.

The problem in Iraq is due to the fact that we have spent untold brazillians of dollars there. The sad truth is our own POTUS doesn't even know how much a brazillian* is! In a nutshell, that's why we are fighting a global perpetuawar.

(PS does anyone remember 9/10/01 when the Pentagon was being asked to account for ~25% of unaccounted for spending?) I bet we waste 50% of funds now in Iraq alone. The fleecing continues...all in the guise of security.

(my apologies to folks who live in Brazil)

The Pentagon and Bush administration reports always read like cut and paste jobs that could have been written any time over the last five years. Juan Cole gives a more sober assessment.

"McCain's hundred years of Crusade are probably not a bad estimate."

Yeah. The "real" Crusades lasted about that long, so we have some historical precedent. They worked about as well as our "New Crusade" in Iraq.

(Also called the "NeoCrusade" in reference to the neocons who started it and promulgate it still today.)

If the surge worked, then the troops can come home, right? I mean, that's what "worked" means -- mission accomplished, the war can wind down ...

The surge is working! The press only reports the bad news! Iran is the new threat! The surge is working! The press only reports the bad news! Iran is the new threat! The surge is working! The press only reports the bad news! Iran is the new threat! The surge is working! The press only reports the bad news! Iran is the new threat! The surge is working! The press only reports the bad news! Iran is the new threat! The surge is working! The press only reports the bad news! Iran is the new threat! The surge is working! The press only reports the bad news! Iran is the new threat!

But...But...I just heard on National Petroleum Radio that everything was hunky-dory there!

I know joel hanes is being sarcastic, but I actually agree with him. That is, I expect the American troop level to be reduced in the near future. If that doesn't happen, I will join the cynics here and stop believing in major security gains.

"ex-liberal" wrote: I expect the American troop level to be reduced in the near future.

No points, "ex-liberal"; of course American troop strength will be reduced in the near future, as we don't have the troops to sustain the "surge."

If that doesn't happen, I will join the cynics here and stop believing in major security gains.

The troops are getting withdrawn regardless, "ex-liberal." And for the zillionth time, the stated goal of the "surge" wasn't security gains per se, but to create enough stability for a political solution to arise. By the Administration's own metrics, the surge has failed, leaving dishonest neocon tools like you to spin a natural reduction in violence as "major security gains." The surge succeeded only in provinging the administration political cover to punt the disaster of Iraq into the next Administration's lap.

Another example how "ex-liberal" changing his handle in tacit acknowledgement of his lack of credibility hasn't changed the bad-faith argumentation that lost him his credibility in the first place.

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times notes today how Iraq has changed for the better with the help of the surge:

With the help of the troop surge ordered by President Bush, the mainstream Sunni tribes have liberated themselves from the grip of Al Qaeda in their provinces. And the Shiite mainstream — represented by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and the Iraqi Army — liberated Basra, Amara and Sadr City in Baghdad from both Mahdi Army militiamen and pro-Iranian death squads....

And because Iraqis now have their own narrative of self-liberation, it appears to be giving more legitimacy and self-confidence to the Shiite-dominated Iraqi Army and the Maliki regime. It also seems to have emboldened the Sunnis to take part in the next parliamentary elections — after having largely boycotted the last round. The Kurds already liberated themselves and had that self-confidence.

"ex-liberal" provides yet another example of his bad-faith argumentation: Thomas Friedman of the New York Times notes today ...

"ex-liberal," no one is swayed by your using Kevin's site to spout your neocon propaganda. Friedman has, if anything, less credibility about Iraq than you do. Seriously: Why do you bother?

And more importantly, why do the moderator(s) continue to tolerate your bullshit?