quote:

Scotty, please feel free to share with us what soldiers think about the surge. I think I've asked you to do so once or twice already. (And I don't mean the "we're making progress" press-release-speak you already tried to pass off as what soldiers are saying.)

If you were over there patrolling the streets, what would your comments be? They talk about what they see, and what I told you earlier is what they see. Can you even understand?

Suppose you tell me what you think they see everyday.

I ask you to share with us what soldiers are saying about the surge, and yet again you can't or won't. Scotty, I'm sorry to say it looks like your bluff has been called here. It seems that either the guys clam up when they see you coming, or what they say isn't so positive.

quote:

I ask you to share with us what soldiers are saying about the surge, and yet again you can't or won't. Scotty, I'm sorry to say it looks like your bluff has been called here.

I say BS you got your answer. Whether you accept it or not is your problem. You can't spin out of this one.

quote:

I'm sorry to say it looks like your bluff has been called here.

Why don't you tell me another joke. My Grandson is about to go to Iraq, and he is with people everyday that are coming and going there.

I know many myself, and along with the people that he knows, I feel that I have a good feeling about what they see and say.

I hope your grandson does well and stays safe, Scotty.

Thank you, NNN. I appreciate that.

Iraq body Count Running at Double Pace

STEVEN R. HURST | August 25, 2007 04:44 PM EST | AP

BAGHDAD — This year's U.S. troop buildup has succeeded in bringing violence in Baghdad down from peak levels, but the death toll from sectarian attacks around the country is running nearly double the pace from a year ago.

Some of the recent bloodshed appears the result of militant fighters drifting into parts of northern Iraq, where they have fled after U.S.-led offensives. Baghdad, however, still accounts for slightly more than half of all war-related killings _ the same percentage as a year ago, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press.

The tallies and trends offer a sobering snapshot after an additional 30,000 U.S. troops began campaigns in February to regain control of the Baghdad area. It also highlights one of the major themes expected in next month's Iraq progress report to Congress: some military headway, but extremist factions are far from broken.

In street-level terms, it means life for average Iraqis appears to be even more perilous and unpredictable.



The AP tracking includes Iraqi civilians, government officials, police and security forces killed in attacks such as gunfights and bombings, which are frequently blamed on Sunni suicide strikes. It also includes execution-style killings _ largely the work of Shiite death squads.

The figures are considered a minimum based on AP reporting. The actual numbers are likely higher, as many killings go unreported or uncounted. Insurgent deaths are not a part of the Iraqi count.

The findings include:

_ Iraq is suffering about double the number of war-related deaths throughout the country compared with last year _ an average daily toll of 33 in 2006, and 62 so far this year.

_ Nearly 1,000 more people have been killed in violence across Iraq in the first eight months of this year than in all of 2006. So far this year, about 14,800 people have died in war-related attacks and sectarian murders. AP reporting accounted for 13,811 deaths in 2006. The United Nations and other sources placed the 2006 toll far higher.

_ Baghdad has gone from representing 76 percent of all civilian and police war-related deaths in Iraq in January to 52 percent in July, bringing it back to the same spot it was roughly a year ago.

_According to the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization, the number of displaced Iraqis has more than doubled since the start of the year, from 447,337 on Jan. 1 to 1.14 million on July 31.

However, Brig. Gen. Richard Sherlock, deputy director for operational planning for the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said violence in Iraq "has continued to decline and is at the lowest level since June 2006."

He offered no statistics to back his claim, but in a briefing with reporters at the Pentagon on Friday he warned insurgents might try intensify attacks in Iraq to coincide with three milestones: the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S., the beginning of Ramadan and the report to Congress....

Well, if Gen. Pace says that, we should believe him, because he ought to know; he's on the ground there, you know. Besides, why would he lie to us?

quote:

Originally posted by DorianGreyed:
Under the leadership of Petraeus, troop morale is up and concrete things are being accomplished. Civilian fatality rates have been reduced by approximately a third since the surge began, and July was the lowest U.S. casualty rate in 2007. - Scotty's link.

Petraeus was correct in what he said. For the last 12 months they were losing on average 2,093 Civilians a month. If you start with the day the "surge" started, 16 July 07 thru 31 July 07, there were only 718 Civilian Deaths and Iraq Police/Military was only 77 for the month of July 07.

Now, for the month of Aug, there is 1313 Civilian deaths and Iraq Police/Military was only 60 Deaths, when on monthly average they used to lose 204.4

As for US soldiers that died of Hostil actions, in June it was 93 dead, July 41 and August 41.

So, like the General said "Civilian fatality rates have been reduced by approximately a third since the surge began, and July was the lowest U.S. casualty rate in 2007."

quote:

But this year's civilian death monthly totals show that every single month, with the exception of August, is higher than the corresponding month last year. (I pointed this out earlier in this thread, but someone seems to have ignored it.)[QUOTE]

No one egnored it, the problem is the "surge" started on 16 July 07. It is real simple to figure out, just count the dead Civilians, Iraqi and US soldiers and then look back words at what it was before the "surge" begain.

Also, because you didn't like the figues for US troops on the first site you went to another and got a bogus number. That first site give you all the numbers for everything, no need to go to globalsecurity.org.

Iraqi Deaths

Jan-06 590 Jan-07 1711
Feb-06 688 Feb-07 2864
Mar-06 901 Mar-07 2762
Apr-06 808 Apr-07 1521
May-06 969 May-07 1782
Jun-06 738 Jun-07 1148
Jul-06 1063 Jul-07 1458
Aug-06 2733 Aug-07 (partial) 1196
Sep-06 3389
Oct-06 1315
Nov-06 1741
Dec-06 1629

Source: http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx

And US figures show almost exactly the same thing. Month by month, this year has been worse than last year. This year, there have been about 250 more US deaths than last year for the same time period.

US Military Deaths in Iraq

2006..............2007
January 61.....January 82
February 53....February 81
March 30.....March 75
April 74.....April 102
May 69.....May 121
June 59.....June 98
July 42.....July 75
August 65.....August (partial)42
September 70
October 100
November 63
December 105

Source: globalsecurity.org

Of course, I used actual numbers rather than someone's opinion.

quote:

Originally posted by Scotty:

quote:

Read the full article properly, Scotty. It's interesting. Will is no fan of Bush.

I could care less about Bush. Don't you see that we are talking about the surge working, and the military. Your hatred for Bush puts blinders on your eyes, and a brain block.

Maybe I should star misspelling words, and use incorrect English, because that would be your next defense. You are certainly unable to accept any truth about Iraq. Could it be because it may help the GOP, like Hillary just said a terrorist attack would do?

Politics over Country?

It is that Culture of Corruption in the Democratic party that is causing this.

quote:

Originally posted by Scotty:

quote:

I really don't think so. Your opinion is not supported, for example, by the overwhelming majority of quotes from regular soldiers we've seen on this thread, nor by that article written by seven assorted sergeants

Are you serious? Do you think that you have the overwhelming support of the troops? I never laughed so hard. Do you actually know what the majority of the troops think of the left?
You would want to hide under a rock.


Military progress and political progress are two different things.

Yea, they keep bring in everything else to cover them on being wrong about the surge. The just don't realize the surge can work as it is, without what is going on in the Iraqi Government.

quote:

Originally posted by DorianGreyed:
I think Scotty is just unwilling to accept the conclusion that we are going to lose this one, too, and it really bothers him that all the cowardly Liberal peace-loving Commie-pinko Left were right about what Iraq was going to be like. Similar to what George Galloway said to the US Senate, everything we said about Iraq was right, and everything the administration said was wrong. No WMDs, no al Qeada link, no 9/11 link, no cakewalk, $1 trillion, and 4000 US lives for what? bush increased world-wide terrorism with his action, our border security is still a joke (less that 10% of all shipping inspected), we lost the sympathy that we had after 9/11, we lost a great deal of world respect, the national debt has gone up $3 trillion since bush took office* (58%), and we still haven't caught a 6'5" Saudi with a long beard and a failing kidney who was behind 9/11. (How many people match this description? In the early 70s, the government had satellite photos identifying a bearded Jewish hippie in crowd of hippies in New York, Abbie Hoffman. And we can't find Osama?)



*Currently - $8.983 Trillion

Historical Debt Outstanding - Annual 2000 - 2006

09/30/2006 8,506,973,899,215.23
09/30/2005 7,932,709,661,723.50
09/30/2004 7,379,052,696,330.32
09/30/2003 6,783,231,062,743.62
09/30/2002 6,228,235,965,597.16
09/30/2001 5,807,463,412,200.06
09/30/2000 5,674,178,209,886.86

Source: http://www.savingsbonds.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt.htm

The most important measure of the deficit is not the size in dollars, or even the size in dollars after adjusting for inflation. The most important measure is the size relative to the nation’s economic output, what economists call Gross Domestic Product or GDP. And in fact, the current projected deficit was equaled or exceeded in four years during the Reagan administration and two years in the term of Bush’s father.

quote:

The just don't realize the surge can work as it is, without what is going on in the Iraqi Government.

A 'surge' without political progress would actually be an escalation leading to permanent occupation.

quote:

Originally posted by newnickname:

quote:

The just don't realize the surge can work as it is, without what is going on in the Iraqi Government.

A 'surge' without political progress would actually be an escalation leading to permanent occupation.

This comes from ]b]"The Liberal Handbook"[/b], Chapter 5, page 6, paragraph 3. "When it gets more evident that the "Conservative" is winning the argument, change the [b/"GOAL POST"[/b].

Now, what does this mean you ask? Well, that is easy, we all know the 'surge' is working, but you add politics to it in an effort to prove the 'surge' isn't working, when along, we know the military has nothing to do with the politics of the Iraqi Government. To sum it up, your saying we can't make Iraq safer unless the Government does this or that.

I guess if the Iraq Government get their act together, then again you will add to the 'surge' another wall in order to prove it isn't working.

Charles, the term "surge" itself describes something temporary. If the purpose of the surge is not to create just enough order for just long enough to allow political progress, then what could the purpose of the surge be? To kill all the bad guys? Impossible.

If the point of the surge isn't to help secure political progress in Iraq, then what on earth do you think the point of the surge is? How would you define success for the surge without reference to the political situation on Iraq?

Didn't you get any theory of war in your training? Military action without some larger, strategic, political goal is just killing people and blowing things up.

If you separate military action from its larger context, you could describe the Charge of the Light Brigade as a glorious success; they reached and over-ran the Russian guns, didn't they? The fact that it was a pointless mistake, and they had to come, decimated, straight back to their own lines is just a quibble, eh? Just changing the subject.

And we don't "all know that the surge is working". It seems to be working in some places (maybe just ethnic enclaves) and not others. It's not possible to say at the moment that the surge is working.

It is clear that there has been little or no political progress in Iraq since the surge began. The country is factionalised and lawless. The point of the surge was to create a breathing space so that that situation could start to be fixed. If no one is starting to fix that situation, then the surge cannot be said to be working. Of course the US army can't make Iraq safer unless the Iraqi government does something. A small foreign army can't build a nation on its own.

How would you define success for the surge without reference to the political situation on Iraq?

quote:

Charles, the term "surge" itself describes something temporary. If the purpose of the surge is not to create just enough order for just long enough to allow political progress, then what could the purpose of the surge be? To kill all the bad guys? Impossible.[/guote]

The argument is whether the surge is working or not. We know it is working. Attempting to define the word surge as temporary, is bull. Look it up. Again, we all know the reasoning behind the surge, but that has nothing to do with what Scotty and I are arguing about. The argument is about whether the surge is working, that is all. You keep adding to argument or changing the goal posts.

quote:

If the point of the surge isn't to help secure political progress in Iraq, then what on earth do you think the point of the surge is? How would you define success for the surge without reference to the political situation on Iraq?

Again, you're trying to make a point that Scotty and I are not talking about. Again, we both agree that the surge is working. That is all, any of this other crap is irrelevant to what Scotty and I are saying, which is, is that the 'surge' is working, period!

Didn't you get any theory of war in your training? Military action without some larger, strategic, political goal is just killing people and blowing things up.[/quote]

Try sticking with what Scotty and I are saying, which is, the 'surge' is working. Everything else you have posted is a defection from what Scotty and I have agree about, which is, that the surge is working.

quote:

If you separate military action from its larger context, you could describe the Charge of the Light Brigade as a glorious success; they reached and over-ran the Russian guns, didn't they? The fact that it was a pointless mistake, and they had to come, decimated, straight back to their own lines is just a quibble, eh? Just changing the subject.

The surge, the surge.

quote:

And we don't "all know that the surge is working". It seems to be working in some places (maybe just ethnic enclaves) and not others. It's not possible to say at the moment that the surge is working.

The surge doesn't have to be working everywhere, because we don't have troops everywhere. Whether the surge is working or not, is not defined by the number of places our troops are.

quote:

It is clear that there has been little or no political progress in Iraq since the surge began. The country is factionalised and lawless. The point of the surge was to create a breathing space so that that situation could start to be fixed. If no one is starting to fix that situation, then the surge cannot be said to be working. Of course the US army can't make Iraq safer unless the Iraqi government does something. A small foreign army can't build a nation on its own.

Again, we don't need to know the purpose of the 'surge' as it relates to Politics. The purpose of the surge was to quell the violence in Iraq, and so far that has happened.

quote:

How would you define success for the surge without reference to the political situation on Iraq??

Just as we have been defining it all along. Scotty and I have posted numerous bits and pieces of information from Leaders, Soldiers, Senators, Congressmen etc. You're just going to have to accept our answers, and if you don't, and ask again, you will continue to get the same ongoing answers from us.

quote:

Just as we have been defining it all along.

The definition of success, or victory, posted by you (actually Scotty) does make reference to the political situation:

"Short term, Iraq is making steady progress in fighting terrorists, meeting political milestones, building democratic institutions, and standing up security forces.

Medium term, Iraq is in the lead defeating terrorists and providing its own security, with a fully constitutional government in place, and on its way to achieving its economic potential.

Longer term, Iraq is peaceful, united, stable, and secure, well integrated into the international community, and a full partner in the global war on terrorism."

It seems you can't define success for the surge without reference to the political situation in Iraq.

quote:

The purpose of the surge was to quell the violence in Iraq, and so far that has happened.

Firstly, the surge alone cannot quell violence in Iraq. For violence to be quelled, sustainably over the longer term, there needs to be political progress. What would be the point of expending all this effort and all these lives to quell violence for a couple of months, just to have it resume when the surge is over?

Secondly, it's far from clear that violence has been quelled. 'This year's U.S. troop buildup has succeeded in bringing violence in Baghdad down from peak levels, but the death toll from sectarian attacks around the country is running nearly double the pace from a year ago.'

quote:

Originally posted by newnickname:

quote:

Just as we have been defining it all along.

The definition of success, or victory, posted by you (actually Scotty) does make reference to the political situation:

"Short term, Iraq is making steady progress in fighting terrorists, meeting political milestones, building democratic institutions, and standing up security forces.

Medium term, Iraq is in the lead defeating terrorists and providing its own security, with a fully constitutional government in place, and on its way to achieving its economic potential.

Longer term, Iraq is peaceful, united, stable, and secure, well integrated into the international community, and a full partner in the global war on terrorism."

It seems you can't define success for the surge without reference to the political situation in Iraq.

That answer was in reference to the question of "Not than any of them have been able to explain what success would consist of - a shia theocracy, an IRA style Sunni rebellion, a never-ending banana republic with a permanent army of foreign occupation?"

The above definition of success was defined by the "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" publised on November 30, 2005. As you see, it was well before the surge.

quote:

The purpose of the surge was to quell the violence in Iraq, and so far that has happened.

Firstly, the surge alone cannot quell violence in Iraq. For violence to be quelled, sustainably over the longer term, there needs to be political progress. What would be the point of expending all this effort and all these lives to quell violence for a couple of months, just to have it resume when the surge is over?[/quote]

You making a prediction that the surge won't work, and want me to make a guess. I am really not into what if's.

quote:

Secondly, it's far from clear that violence has been quelled. 'This year's U.S. troop buildup has succeeded in bringing violence in Baghdad down from peak levels, but the death toll from sectarian attacks around the country is running nearly double the pace from a year ago.'

You have move the goal posts again! Your providing stats with nothing to do with 16 July 2007 (day 'surge' began till present and what General Petraues said. As I recall, the General said "since the surge stated".

You're quibbling about statistics. It's not clear that violence in Iraq is being reduced by the surge - whenever the surge started and whenever you start counting from.

Success or victory for the surge cannot be separated from political progress. The idea is absurd. If you want to, somehow, make a distinction between those short term goals for victory in Iraq, and a definition of success for the surge, that means that you haven't defined success for the surge except to say that is is to "quell violence".

Which takes us back to the point - for violence to be quelled, sustainably over the longer term, there needs to be political progress. What would be the point of expending all this effort and all these lives to quell violence for a couple of months, just to have it resume when the surge is over?

Your attempts to divorce the surge from its context are silly. Not even Bush & Co are trying to do that, and certainly not the people in charge of the surge.

I have been away for the past 4 days and so have not been following this thread. I have just spent the past hour and one half catching up. This argument seems so pointless; each side talking right past the other with nothing being decided.

My son has been informed that his Army Reserve Engineer unit may be sent to African to build a Forward Operating Base (FOB) for a unit whose mission is attempting to slow the spread of international terrorism (something like this story describes, though he will not be in this particular African nation. The orders are not definite at this point and I believe the reason for the ambiguity is the uncertainty of military funding by Congress. (funding uncertainty).

quote:

My grandson will be going to Iraq in September, and I feel a little better today than I did a month ago about his safety. Scotty

My best wishes to him and my prayers for his safety.

Our military personnel are putting everything on the line in an attempt to protect us from the threat of terrorists. The main purpose of the surge according to President Bush as described in his January 10, 2007 address to the nation is to provide time for the government of Iraq:

quote:

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.

In my mind, the success of the surge must be based on the political progress of the Iraqi government. So far, we've seen little or no political progress.

In that same speech the President also added:

quote:

In these dangerous times, the United States is blessed to have extraordinary and selfless men and women willing to step forward and defend us. These young Americans understand that our cause in Iraq is noble and necessary -- and that the advance of freedom is the calling of our time. They serve far from their families, who make the quiet sacrifices of lonely holidays and empty chairs at the dinner table. They have watched their comrades give their lives to ensure our liberty. We mourn the loss of every fallen American -- and we owe it to them to build a future worthy of their sacrifice.

I agree with the desired result, but I disagree with the method he is using to reach the goal. By placing so much of our military in Iraq, the war on terror suffers in other parts of the world.

Dwight