I have heard all four candidates say, on a number of occasions, that “the Surge” worked in Iraq. McCain says it proudly, as a former military man, especially one who has been a full fledged supporter of the war, would say it. Obama says it somewhat reluctantly, admitting it the way I would expect from one of the few Senators who voted against the war in the first place. But, they both agree that the “Surge” worked. So, let’s look at that claim.
First of all, what is a “surge,” at least in military terms? Simply put, it means reinforcements. It means sending in more troops because the number of troops you have on hand is insufficient for the successful completion of their mission. For hundreds, if not thousands of years, commanders — in similar situations — have contacted headquarters and asked for reinforcements. I doubt seriously if you would ever find a record of the CO of the 101st Airborne at Bastogne back in ’44 asking General Eisenhower for “a surge.” “Ike — we need reinforcements” was probably closer to what was said.
But just as we are now calling the “bailout” a “rescue,” we call the need for more troops in an attempt to pull G.W.B’s balls out from the fire in Iraq as “surge.” And why did we need those reinforcements in the first place? I figure it must have been for crowd control. We needed more MP’s in particular to control the masses of cheering Iraqis thanking us for rescuing — or is that “bailing out” – their country. I jest, of course. And now we hear from Bob Woodward — of “All the President’s Men” fame — that it was not the Surge, but a top secret special ops campaign to target and eliminate (a Washington word for kill) the leaders of the insurgents as well as any Al Queda bigwigs that might still be in Iraq that has resulted in the marked decrease in violence in Iraq, although we might want to ask the 100 plus folks killed in bombings during Ramadan about that reduction.
Instead of the “surge,” let’s talk about the “reverse surge,” a fancy word I have coined for “withdrawal.” Let’s talk about how we are going to get the hell out of Iraq and let the Iraqis, with their 400,000 man US trained and equipped Army and police force run their country and handle their own security. Let’s see if they can find a way to spend some of their $80 billion surplus, so that we can perhaps save the $10 billion a month we are spending there and use it to help our people. And, if as some people claim, our departure will result in the Shiites and Sunnis butchering each other in a violent and vicious civil war (which really started back in the 8th century CE) and the descent of a 5000 year old civilization back to the totalitarianism it has known for 4998 of those years — so be it. I am not an isolationist, but, sorry, it just aint our job.