One of the repeating themes I heard in RNC speeches was that we are winning in Iraq, that the surge fixed it, that things are going very well....

...but it looks like Petraeus doesn't agree. I knew "the surge" wouldn't be temporary...

I concede the Republicans win on the Surge. Very few Americans are paying enough attention to the situation in Iraq to discern the difference between cause and effect, timing and happenstance.

So violence is down and it happened at the same time as the Surge. The Republicans lucked out on this, and there's nothing we can do about it.


Fortunately, most progressives and Dems also have ceased paying attention to Iraq ... so Barack can change the subject easily enough to the suckfest that is America in the 21st Century.

???

The violence is down because of the surge. The reason Petraeus wants to leave the troops there longer is because lowering troop levels - as in the opposite of the surge - could result in an increase in violence. It was certainly not luck....it was the administration finally listening to what commanders were asking for and McCain was for a couple years before it happened.

I pay very close attention, and I think I might just know about cause and effect and timing vs. happenstance. Just because there is disagreement doesn't mean it is due to ignorance on the opposite side of yours.

And for the first time, McCain has a measurable lead. Zogby has him up 4, Gallup has him up 3, and USAToday has him up 10 (that's likely voters....I believe the other two were registered). More importantly, the base of McCain is now excited....I have actually become a solid McCain supporter. He still wouldn't have been my first choice, but I am no longer reluctant to vote for him.

ok, real or imagined, they win.


you say potato, i say tomato.

I'd be interested to know why.

Yes, more troops means less violence. So the surge is forever, eh?

No. The Anbar province was recently turned over to Iraqis to head up operations, but they'll need time with us there as backup.

No doubt it isn't happening as fast as anyone would like (it being going under complete Iraqi bontrol). But it is happening.

I'll answer the McCain question when I have a bit more time.

And so, did we need more troops to turn over Anbar to the Sunni? Once the place was already ethnically cleansed, who's left to kill anyway?

How many more brigades were required to arm the folks who used to shoot at us? How long will the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend last anyhow?

What does any of the violence reduction have to do with the surge except for coincidental timing?



(Actually, I think some of the violence in Baghdad was quelled by the presence of more troops at the start of the surge ... but as you can tell from my somewhat rhetorical questions, I don't think it's been responsible for the overall reduction in Iraq violence.)

How can something within the margin of error be a measurable lead?

In urban warfare where the enemy hides among and behind the general populace, it is necessary to do a building by building search for weapons, enemy combatants, terrorists, etc, to get them out. This require vast numbers of troops. It is much simpler to keep them out than to get them out. Therefore, after time and dangerous work, the Iraqis have taken charge there to keep out the elements.

The violence reduction has to do with what I just described. Once the hidden combatants have been eliminated, they don't have the man power (or woman power of child power or whatever) to have the suicide bombings as they don't have the capacity to get the necessary explosives to the desired targets.

This is why so many of these suicide bombings occur at checkpoints. It's the only way they can attack because they no longer have anything (or at least it is vastly reduced) inside the controlled areas.

I didn't say it was outside the margin of error. It is the first time he has been above a virtual tie in either of those polls.

The 10 point USA Today poll is certainly outside the margin of error.