The Corpse on the Gurney

[Watser?]

Tom Engelhardt points out the obvious that nonetheless does not seem to get any mention in the press: if the surge is the big success it is made out to be, how come we keep getting the most pessimistic predictions about when Iraq will be able to stand on its own feet again?

The other day, as we reached the first anniversary of the President's announcement of his "surge" strategy, his "new way forward" in Iraq, I found myself thinking about the earliest paid book-editing work I ever did. An editor at a San Francisco textbook publisher hired me to "doctor" god-awful texts designed for audiences of captive kids. Each of these "books" was not only in a woeful state of disrepair, but essentially D.O.A. I was nonetheless supposed to do a lively rewrite of the mess and add seductive "sidebars"; another technician then simplified the language to "grade level" and a designer provided a flashy layout and look. Zap! Pow! Kebang!

During the years that I freelanced for that company in the early 1970s, an image of what I was doing formed in my mind -- and it suddenly came back to me this week. I used to describe it this way:

The little group of us -- rewriter, grade-level reducer, designer -- would be summoned to the publisher's office. There, our brave band of technicians would be ushered into a room in which there would be nothing but a gurney with a corpse on it in a state of advanced decomposition. The publisher's representative would then issue a simple request: Make it look like it can get up and walk away.

And the truth was: that corpse of a book would be almost lifelike when we were done with it, but one thing was guaranteed -- it would never actually get up and walk away.

That was in another century and a minor matter of bad books that no one wanted to call by their rightful name. But that image came to mind again more than three decades later because it's hard not to think of America's Iraq in similar terms. Only this week, Abdul Qadir, the Iraqi defense minister, announced that "his nation would not be able to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012, nor be able on its own to defend Iraq's borders from external threat until at least 2018." Pentagon officials, reported Thom Shanker of the New York Times, expressed no surprise at these dismal post-surge projections, although they were "even less optimistic than those [Qadir] made last year."

According to this guesstimate then, the U.S. military occupation of Iraq won't end for, minimally, another ten years. President Bush confirmed this on his recent Mideast jaunt when, in response to a journalist's question, he said that the U.S. stay in Iraq "could easily be" another decade or more.

Folks, our media may be filled with discussions about just how "successful" the President's surge plan has been, but really, Iraq is the corpse in the room.

...

[Adam]

Not be be a big Cynic McCrankypants or anything, but as far as I can tell, The Surge is a rollicking success.

Remember, The Surge was announced in a political climate where the idea that the US should begin planning to withdraw troops from Iraq in the near to mid term was becoming popular. It was an effective excuse to demand yet another Friedman Unit or two from the public before we seriously contemplated withdrawal. So, given that the unspoken goal of The Surge was to stave off demands that the US leave Iraq? Mission accomplished.

[Watser?]

It is a big success for what it was intended to do, yes, which as you point out had nothing to do with Iraq and everything with the US.

[godfry n. glad]

Originally Posted by Watser?

It is a big success for what it was intended to do, yes, which as you point out had nothing to do with Iraq and everything with the US.

The problem is, no one should ever give the American public "connect-the-dots" puzzles. They just can't handle them.

[California Tanker]

Tom seems to have gone beyond cynicism to downright intentional negativity.

For example, look at his comment implying that US troops reducing their presence in Anbar is a bad thing. I can't, offhand, parse this. When the Brits stopped a lot of their rural patrols in Basra's rural areas, this was deemed a good thing, and people complained "why can't the Americans do this? Look, the British have done it!" The Grand Plan, last I heard, was that eventually Coalition troops take less of a front-line-role in security, handing over to Iraqis. Nobody seems to be complaining about this concept. Except for Mr Engelhardt who, somehow, decides that this is a Bad Thing (TM) and supports his negative viewpoint. Does he wish us to retain our high-presence patrols in Anbar, perhaps? If so, to what end? And just what is wrong with flying UAVs around? They're a perfectly good tool, and the more that are in use, the more effective the counter-insurgency will be.

By 2018, the country will -- supposedly -- be able to control its own borders, one of the more basic acts of a sovereign state

It is also one of the more difficult acts of a sovereign state. One can't just buy a couple of battalions of ex-Hungarian tanks and ex US APCs, teach soldiers how to shoot a rifle, and expect them to perform adequately against the Turkish or Iranian militaries. This is compounded with the fact that much priority of effort is going to the internal security role: If you're patrolling streets, you're not practicing brigade-level mechanised combat. Tom mentions Pentagon officials at 'not being surprised'. Heck, I'm not a Pentagon official, and I'm not surprised. The only target I'm interested in is when the internal violence in Iraq drops down to something more approximating tolerable levels. (You're now going to ask me what is a tolerable level; as it's a perception issue, it's when people regain confidence. Out of curiousity, I just extrapolated the murder rate in Detroit to a population the size of Iraq: Detroit appears to be twice as dangerous as Iraq was last month, what does that tell you? Other than that we need to invade Detroit). Why did the number of US troops killed increase this month? Probably because a new offense was launched. When these happen, casualties go up. The equivalent of 25% of last month's casualties were caused when someone set off a booby-trapped house. Would he have rathered that the offense not be taken, to allow the insurgents to continue their work unabated? Or perhaps, we could have saved US soldiers' lives by simply putting a GBU-16 1,000lb bomb on the house. Oh, wait. The use of air delivered bombs is also an issue for him.

I see a lot of criticism in that article, but very little of a constructive nature. He is correct that the figures indicate that all is not as rosy as some would have us believe, but without putting forward any alternative courses of action (he does accept that even the veneer of normal life should be protected), it's a wonderful rant but pretty pointless.

NTM

[Watser?]

Originally Posted by California Tanker

Tom seems to have gone beyond cynicism to downright intentional negativity.

For example, look at his comment implying that US troops reducing their presence in Anbar is a bad thing. I can't, offhand, parse this. When the Brits stopped a lot of their rural patrols in Basra's rural areas, this was deemed a good thing, and people complained "why can't the Americans do this? Look, the British have done it!" The Grand Plan, last I heard, was that eventually Coalition troops take less of a front-line-role in security, handing over to Iraqis. Nobody seems to be complaining about this concept. Except for Mr Engelhardt who, somehow, decides that this is a Bad Thing (TM) and supports his negative viewpoint. Does he wish us to retain our high-presence patrols in Anbar, perhaps? If so, to what end?

It's all a matter of which Iraqi's you hand things over to. Anbar has not been handed over to the Iraqi army or police but to a tribal/ethnic militia that is almost guaranteed to cause trouble in the future. This looks like a good idea in the short run, it's pretty much a disaster in the long run.

Originally Posted by California Tanker

It is also one of the more difficult acts of a sovereign state. One can't just buy a couple of battalions of ex-Hungarian tanks and ex US APCs, teach soldiers how to shoot a rifle, and expect them to perform adequately against the Turkish or Iranian militaries.

The Turkish military (and the Iranian to a lesser degree) didn't pose a threat to the Iraqi borders until very recently. The US failed to keep Kurdish PKK and PEJAK from attacking Turkey and Iran form inside of Iraq.
Anyway, the point is that despite all this nonsense about the surge being a great success, the timetable for Iraqi independence keeps getting extended.

Originally Posted by California Tanker

This is compounded with the fact that much priority of effort is going to the internal security role: If you're patrolling streets, you're not practicing brigade-level mechanised combat. Tom mentions Pentagon officials at 'not being surprised'. Heck, I'm not a Pentagon official, and I'm not surprised. The only target I'm interested in is when the internal violence in Iraq drops down to something more approximating tolerable levels. (You're now going to ask me what is a tolerable level; as it's a perception issue, it's when people regain confidence. Out of curiousity, I just extrapolated the murder rate in Detroit to a population the size of Iraq: Detroit appears to be twice as dangerous as Iraq was last month, what does that tell you? Other than that we need to invade Detroit).

Other than that you need to invade Detroit? Not a damn thing. People are still fleeing the country, the only reason some are coming back is because Syria and Jordan are making it way harder for them to stay, plus they are running out of cash.

Originally Posted by California Tanker

Why did the number of US troops killed increase this month? Probably because a new offense was launched. When these happen, casualties go up. The equivalent of 25% of last month's casualties were caused when someone set off a booby-trapped house. Would he have rathered that the offense not be taken, to allow the insurgents to continue their work unabated? Or perhaps, we could have saved US soldiers' lives by simply putting a GBU-16 1,000lb bomb on the house. Oh, wait. The use of air delivered bombs is also an issue for him.

His point in mentioning the fact that US casualties went up was that that is the only thing the US press notices. It doesn't matter how many Iraqis get killed, nobody gives a crap. The US press only knows Iraq exists when US soldiers are dying.

Originally Posted by California Tanker

I see a lot of criticism in that article, but very little of a constructive nature. He is correct that the figures indicate that all is not as rosy as some would have us believe, but without putting forward any alternative courses of action (he does accept that even the veneer of normal life should be protected), it's a wonderful rant but pretty pointless.

NTM

The alternative course of action is pretty obvious: get the hell out, you are not doing anything remotely constructive over there in any way.

[seebs]

Sometimes, there's not much constructive to say.

[chunksmediocrites]

The reduction of violence in Iraq, and Baghdad especially, has more than a little to do with Sunnis and Shiites basically completing their efforts of killing or running off anyone not Sunni in Sunni-majority neighborhoods, or anyone not Shiite in Shiite-majority neighborhoods. With areas now sectarian-controlled and with little or no overlap, yeah, violence has dropped quite a bit. So what happens to those 2.5 million Iraqi refugees outside Iraq, and the 2.3 million displaced inside Iraq, especially those who come back to find their home taken and their neighborhood now closed to their sect?
Does that mean the Iraqi government and the police forces can now run things? Does that mean that the Iraqi parliament can pull together, considering almost half the MPs have left in protest? Does that mean when the Iraqi Government says it wants Blackwater to leave, they actually do? Does that mean the economy will be rebuilt, despite Paul Bremer's sale of all the Iraqi banks to foreign investors? Despite Bremer's removal of all tariffs and quotas -resulting the Iraqi markets to be flooded by cheap foreign goods, and effectively destroying what little of the local economy was left after two wars and a decade of sanctions, including farming? Does that mean the opium poppy crops in Iraq isn't a sign of a state continuing to fail? Or would that be the estimation of almost a third of the resources spent in Iraq going lost, unaccounted for, and stolen?

The issue of foreign policy in the US, and the Iraq war in particular, has dominated the conversation between the people in the US and their representatives for so long now,that it is only natural in an election cycle that some attention be returned to domestic issues. If I was cynical enough, I would say foreign wars are partly to secure the 30% of the world's resources the US population (5%) uses; and partly to avoid dealing with domestic issues. remember before 9-11, when the failure of the war on drugs, the burgeoning prison system, the WTO and globalization's race to the bottom, the crumbling US infrastructure, and even a little attention on the environment were big on the agenda?

The other cynical part of me wonders if the politicians of the pro-business parties would ever willingly bring our troops home- with unemployment numbers up, what would they do with all those veterans back and returning to work, in a weak economy?

My fear is the strategy in Iraq will be the same as how they dealt with the drug war, and the war in Afghanistan- "No time for the past, people- there's a new crisis now involving massive military spending, no-bid contracts that requires we act quickly before anyone fact-checks our story so that democracy can be brought or freedom or some other good word to this place that is not one of our allies like that military dictatorship, or like that monarchy run by Islamic fundamentalists, or like that militarily aggressive nation with 70+ nukes I mean what nukes? that will greet us as their saviors in return we will take their resources and install a nice pro-western, pro-business puppet with Liberty and Justice for all except for anyone we want to detain without trial or decide to torture, and except for applying laws to anyone in the executive branch.

Good times.

[California Tanker]

Originally Posted by Watser?

The alternative course of action is pretty obvious: get the hell out, you are not doing anything remotely constructive over there in any way.

I think we're just going to have to radically disagree on that one.

The other cynical part of me wonders if the politicians of the pro-business parties would ever willingly bring our troops home- with unemployment numbers up, what would they do with all those veterans back and returning to work, in a weak economy?

There's going to be no massive demobilisation, the military's still not yet reached its target strength. Guardsmen returning home will either re-start their businesses if they are self-employed, or return to their jobs which have legal protection: They're not going to suddenly all show up on the unemployment line because they can't find a job.

NTM

[Caligulette]

They might show up at the hospitals and mental health agencies to help combat the traumatic brain injuries and/or PTSD. Those who can afford it, that is, financialy or career-wise.

[chunksmediocrites]

Originally Posted by California Tanker

There's going to be no massive demobilisation, the military's still not yet reached its target strength. Guardsmen returning home will either re-start their businesses if they are self-employed, or return to their jobs which have legal protection: They're not going to suddenly all show up on the unemployment line because they can't find a job.

NTM

Returning the Guard, even if you do so over a year or more, still solidly increases unemployment. The people currently working the jobs the Guards are returning to, will then be unemployed. 22,000 + jobs sounds like a hit to me. I was being over-cynical though in suggesting that keeping unemployment down would be a political motivation to prolong troop deployment.

[California Tanker]

A large number of Guard jobs are held open without hiring a replacement, the workload is simply redistributed to others. This is what's happening in my case when I vanish later this year. Guardsmen who are self-employed do not generally hire replacement staff. I think the number of temporarily hired workers to fill in the remaining gaps would be small enough that it won't be a major factor in the unemployment lines.

NTM

[Watser?]

There's an article in the WaPo today called Surge to Nowhere:

Look beyond the spin, the wishful thinking, the intellectual bullying and the myth-making. The real legacy of the surge is that it will enable Bush to bequeath the Iraq war to his successor -- no doubt cause for celebration at AEI, although perhaps less so for the families of U.S. troops. Yet the stubborn insistence that the war must continue also ensures that Bush's successor will, upon taking office, discover that the post-9/11 United States is strategically adrift. Washington no longer has a coherent approach to dealing with Islamic radicalism. Certainly, the next president will not find in Iraq a useful template to be applied in Iran or Syria or Pakistan.

According to the war's most fervent proponents, Bush's critics have become so "invested in defeat" that they cannot see the progress being made on the ground. Yet something similar might be said of those who remain so passionately invested in a futile war's perpetuation. They are unable to see that, surge or no surge, the Iraq war remains an egregious strategic blunder that persistence will only compound.

And here's one from the AP, Discontent Surges in Iraq:

BAGHDAD (AP) — In the depths of a strangely cold winter in the Middle East, Iraqis complain that the lights are not on, the kerosene heaters are without fuel and the water doesn't flow — and they blame the government.

And with the war nearing its fifth anniversary, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is feeling the discontent as well from the most powerful political centers in the majority Shiite community.

It's a pincer movement of domestic anger that yet again could threaten al-Maliki's hold on his Green Zone office.

[godfry n. glad]

Per chunks commentary...

Recently seen bumpersticker seen here in Puddle City:

Don't piss the US off, or they'll bring democracy to your country.