So..the surge is working... so they say.

[berni_mccoy]

I have moderate friends telling me that the surge has worked to reduce violence in Iraq. One pointed me to the monthly casualty figures for soldiers:

Feb-07 3,014
Mar-07 2,977
Apr-07 1,821
May-07 1,980
Jun-07 1,345
Jul-07 1,690
Aug-07 1,674
Sep-07 848
Oct-07 679
Nov-07 287

It's a powerful meme that you can expect the RW talking heads and neocons to be blabbering about from now until the election. My response was threefold:

1. It's too bad Bush had to take over 4 years to realize more troops were needed as originally requested by the Pentagon (original request was around 450 thousand soldiers). 3800+ soldiers have had to die.
2. The surge ran from Jan through August. Violence was at it's peak during the surge. Now that it is over, the violence is subsiding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Phantom_Thunder#The_Operation_ends
3. The British government reports the main drop in violence is due to pull-out of troops (Basra violence down 90%: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gkx-3oYeFwuWKCusr2jrojs98w8wD8SULV8O0 )

Don't let your moderate friends buy the RW lying points. The initial phase of Lying Elephant is taking hold on them. We must be diligent in squashing the catapulted propaganda.

[zabet]

1. I figured they were just

running out of people to kill.

[Disturbed]

2. The "Surge" was spozed to give the Iraqi Govt. time to

consolidate & bring about conciliation between the waring factions. That has not be done. So far the Surge is a failure. The waring factions are biding their time until this "Surge" runs it's course.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

4. I believe you relayed this point in a previous post,

and you are spot on! We are fed so much crap... that it becomes overwhelming. Your easily relay-able refutation is greatly appreciated.

[annabanana]

3. Haven't they announced that every two weeks for the last 4 months?

Why is this announcement any more accurate than the rest?

[TheFarseer]

5. 2 things to consider

I just refuse to believe 160,000 troops is so much better than 140,000 troops, but casualties are down so that leads me to think -

1) General Petraeus has a strategy that is having some effect. I have heard of some things that have been tweaked that I could see having an effect including better ways to find IEDs and cooperating with militias.

2) Al Sadr has told his people to hide out until we go away. So maybe he has the real power. As soon as the coast is clear, all those people will come out and do what they were doing before the surge.

[StClone]

6. So Neo-wingers are now shooting themselves in the foot 287

times a month rather than 1,674. A trillion dollars to learn a lesson that we predicted. Genius.

[upi402]

7. Army desertion rises 80% since Iraq invasion; 11- 2006

http://icasualties.org/oif/
AP

[ThoughtCriminal]

8. The numbers provided are unreliable

Matches number from this site:
http://icasualties.org/oif/

Those figures are "Iraqi Security Forces and Civilian Deaths Details"

which the site notes:
"Iraqi deaths based on news reports. This is not a definitive count.
Actual totals for Iraqi deaths are higher than the numbers recorded on this site."

I doubt that it is a reliable gauge at all.

The same site shows that pre-surge military death rate was actually lower (2.39 vs 2.88 /day)

[Selatius]

9. The surge is not sustainable, not without breaking the US Army.

At some point, you're going to have to decrease the tempo of operations or risk pushing units being deployed many times down below the level of readiness for combat operations.

You don't send worn out and demoralized troops into battle, do you?

[mmonk]

10. The immorality of the whole thing is the problem

and the lies and the lives lost.

[Poiuyt]

11. al Sadr has ordered a 6 month moratorium on fighting from his Mahdi army

He did this at the end of August. Wait until early next year and see what happens.

We have also been paying the Sunni insurgents to fight al Queda instead of us. So much for "We don't deal with terrorists."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/7/31/0205/56759

[Disturbed]

12. Iraq won't be much of an issue durig the General Election.

The Busholini Regime will make sure that the US Casualties are way down & a War with Iran
may be going on.