Is the Surge Working?

I think you have a great point here. There are many other places that deserve our help and Sudan should be at the top of the list. I guess the only answer is that we can't go everywhere but that should not stop us from saving those we can.

We are already in Iraq so it is a moot point now but before going into any country we need to have clear objectives, achievable goals, and a sound exit strategy. If we had those when we went into Iraq we would not be there today.

Solmalia, Bosnia, Iraq, Afganastan, - that same principle should apply to any of them. If we have the ablity to help we should.

If God gives you the ablity to help someone else and you don't I believe you risk loosing what God has given you. I believe that principle can be applied to individuals or nations.

 

So far due to our help 650,000+ Iraqis are dead and in the future we'll be helping tens of thousands more to die or be disabled from 3,000 tons of DU contaminating their environment.

2 million Iraqis have fled the country and have become refugees, 600,000 are displaced inside the country. What moral justification can there be for all this, Saddam was a ruthless dictator? Bad as he was he didn't kill, disable and displace that many people in all the years he ruled but it only took us four years of helping. Is that what we call protecting the innocent now?

I think we've helped and protected the Iraqi people enough.

 

Clinton's administration ended over 6 years ago. At some point GW has to stand up and say this is what I've done. What he has done is incite an unsupportable invasion of a sovereign nation and the war is degenerating into a civil war which was obvious from the beginning.

 

Bill Clinton may have helped to unleash global terrorists but it was a couple earlier republican administrations that funded trained and supported them. All Bill did was help to unleash the rabid dog that Bush Sr. and crew raised from a pup. Let's hear some of this good news coming out of Iraq now and how it compares to three million plus dead and suffering Iraqis.

 

Not even close.

 

You are probably correct, as 650,000 seems like an extremely high estimate.

Here is one site that I think is fairly balanced and says that 100,000 Iraqis have died. This same number was repeated many times doing a Google search.

 

Bill O'Rielly is that you? :laugh:

I already posted the Lancet Report above.

The British government was advised against publicly criticising a report estimating that 655,000 Iraqis had died due to the war, the BBC has learnt.

Iraqi Health Ministry figures put the toll at less than 10% of the total in the survey, published in the Lancet.

But the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said the survey's methods were "close to best practice" and the study design was "robust".
Another expert agreed the method was "tried and tested". SOURCE

Les Roberts, one of the report's authors said: "It may not be extremely precise, but it gets us into the ball park."

Professor Gilbert Burnham, another of the report's authors and an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said: "We're very confident with the results."
And other epidemiologists supported that view. Ronald Waldman of Columbia University told the Washington Post that the survey used a method that was "tried and true" and that "this is the best estimate of mortality we have." SOURCE


The research compares mortality rates before and after the invasion from 47 randomly chosen areas in Iraq.
The figure is considerably higher than estimates by official sources or the number of deaths reported in the media.
It is vigorously disputed by supporters of the war in Iraq, including US President George W Bush.
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health estimate that the mortality rates have more than doubled since the invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein, causing an average of 500 deaths a day. SOURCE

Updated Iraq Survey Affirms Earlier Mortality Estimates
Mortality Trends Comparable to Estimates by Those Using Other Counting Methods
As many as 654,965 more Iraqis may have died since hostilities began in Iraq in March 2003 than would have been expected under pre-war conditions, according to a survey conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. The deaths from all causes—violent and non-violent—are over and above the estimated 143,000 deaths per year that occurred from all causes prior to the March 2003 invasion. SOURCE

On both sides of the Atlantic, a process of spinning science is preventing a serious discussion about the state of affairs in Iraq. The government in Iraq claimed last month that since the 2003 invasion between 40,000 and 50,000 violent deaths have occurred. Few have pointed out the absurdity of this statement.

There are three ways we know it is a gross underestimate. First, if it were true, including suicides, South Africa, Colombia, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia have experienced higher violent death rates than Iraq over the past four years. If true, many North and South American cities and Sub-Saharan Africa have had a similar murder rate to that claimed in Iraq. For those of us who have been in Iraq, the suggestion that New Orleans is more violent seems simply ridiculous.

Secondly, there have to be at least 120,000 and probably 140,000 deaths per year from natural causes in a country with the population of Iraq. The numerous stories we hear about overflowing morgues, the need for new cemeteries and new body collection brigades are not consistent with a 10 per cent rise in death rate above the baseline.


And finally, there was a study, peer-reviewed and published in The Lancet, Europe's most prestigious medical journal, which put the death toll at 650,000 as of last July. The study, which I co-authored, was done by the standard cluster approach used by the UN to estimate mortality in dozens of countries each year. While the findings are imprecise, the lower range of possibilities suggested that the Iraq government was at least downplaying the number of dead by a factor of 10. SOURCE

The consequences of downplaying the number of deaths in Iraq are profound for both the UK and the US. How can the Americans have a surge of troops to secure the population and promise success when the coalition cannot measure the level of security to within a factor of 10? How can the US and Britain pretend they understand the level of resentment in Iraq if they are not sure if, on average, one in 80 families have lost a household member, or one in seven, as our study suggests? SOURCE

 

There were protests before the surge, to be honest.

 

It's only a few wacky far left anti war protesters. Lucky for them they aren't protesting the World Trade Organisation in NY or Seattle. They'd probably be tear gased and beaten by the black face masked new freedom squad.

 

Probably. Like we agreed, we're not there. But I'd sure hate to start setting foreign policy by watching protests.

 

Some don't, that's evident. Think that's reason enough ? What if we leave, and they start demonstratin for us to come back ?

 

Some reports are saying "tens of thousands" were protesting, Reuters, Washington Post, NYT, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Daily Star says...

Others like the Official Website Of Multinational Force - Iraq and CENTCOM say 5,000 to 7,000 as do some blogs. Gateway Pundit, Redstate says...

The Weekly Standard says...

Photos.

No mention of the three trillion dollars still missing from the Pentagon though. Guess that's not "news worthy".

Back to the "surge".

SOURCE

 

Well of course they don’t want us there. It is their country you remember. The truth is we don’t want us there either. Now I think the war in Iraq was necessary and that we have a safer country and a safer world because of it, but I would love for us to be out tomorrow. The only thing is I know that if we leave in defeat we will be throwing away the sacrifice of all those American (and other allied nation’s) soldiers. If we accept defeat then they fought and died for nothing. I want to get us out of Iraq as bad as anyone. I just want to leave in victory.

However, I have a hard time believing the line that the insurgents want us to leave. As soon as the country is secure and the new government can keep the peace we will be gone. If the insurgents really wanted us to leave all they would have to do is bury their guns and wait about 6 months. If the violence stopped I don’t believe we would be there 6 months from now. Am I wrong? Or can the Iraqi people not see this?

 

Al Sadr (he of the Shiite death squads) called for the protests, and it's obviously his followers who responded. After all, the US troops are crimping his style.

I'm wondering how many Shiite protests were allowed under Saddam's rule btw.

 

SInce the "extra-secure" Green Zone was hit, with the Iraqi Parliament being bombed today, looks like the answer to whether it is working is a resounding "NO!".

 

al-Qaida: comming to you soon

The answer is 'yes', the Ramp-up is working.


here:

http://oklahomacity.cox.net/cci/new...=article&id=D8OFAMVG0&_action=validatearticle

it says:

He is accused of joining al-Qaida and conspiring
to bomb European tourist resorts and U.S. government
facilities and military bases overseas. The FBI
said Thursday their investigation of Paul
spanned four years, three continents and at least eight countries.

If we don't fight al--Qaida in Iraq & Afganistan,
we will surely fight it door to door near
your house.