Surge is Working

[Absalom Grimes]

I reckon you all will get a kick out of this image. It depicts all of the senior Al-Queda captured or killed in 2007. You can't argue with success.

[Jack Bauer]

I reckon you all will get a kick out of this image. It depicts all of the senior Al-Queda captured or killed in 2007. You can't argue with success.

It seems like every time I click by Fox News I am seeing about some senior Al-Qaeda figure in Iraq killed or captured. Apparently every jihadi is a senior operative. When I think senior Al Qaeda, I think like, I don't know, Bin Laden, or Zarkawi, etc.

This whole thing is simply an exercise in updated Vietnam body count strategy.

Btw, would officers in the U.S. military be considered "senior"? If so, a collage could be made of U.S. military officers killed by hostile (enemy) action, and it would be much, much larger with many more faces and names.

[Happy Hacker]

It seems like every time I click by Fox News I am seeing about some senior Al-Qaeda figure in Iraq killed or captured. Apparently every jihadi is a senior operative.

Fox News is such a neocon tool.

[Frank]

Assuming our government isn't lying to us, I wonder if those men joined before or after the Iraqi invasion.

[Angler]

It seems like every time I click by Fox News I am seeing about some senior Al-Qaeda figure in Iraq killed or captured. Apparently every jihadi is a senior operative.

I seem to remember a period in which the "second in command" was being repeatedly killed. Does that ring a bell with anyone else here? LOL, it was being reported practically every month that such-and-such airstrike has killed so-and-so, second in command of al Qaeda in Iraq(TM).

Speaking of high-level deaths, the Iraqi guerrillas recently killed a Colonel with a mortar:

http://www.al.com/news/huntsvilletim...l=1&thispage=1

[todd gack]

For that picture to be any indication of the surge's success, you would have to prove somehow that those men would not have been apprehended had the US decided not to send more troops. And for all we know, those faces could be random Iraqis they picked up off the street.

[Bordeaux]

The surge isn't working and the invasion and occupation of Iraq remains a failure of gargatuan proportions. Even if those "Al Qaeda" guys were killed, it took the lives of over 4,000 American soldiers and 30,000 severely wounded when all it would of took was a few well paid Iraqi mercenaries to snipe these guys dead.

In any case "Al Qaeda" is a fiction anyway and Fox News is a Sovietesque Propaganda tool to dupe Americans into believing whatever the government wants them to believe.

[Angler]

Welcome to OD, todd.

For that picture to be any indication of the surge's success, you would have to prove somehow that those men would not have been apprehended had the US decided not to send more troops.

True, and it would also have to be proved that the lull in violence would not have occurred if the surge had not taken place. Yet it's a known fact that the US was buying off many Iraqi guerrillas.

And for all we know, those faces could be random Iraqis they picked up off the street.

Entirely plausible in light of our government's proven deceptiveness.

[Faust]

Angler,

The so-called “Surge” was working pretty well, till the poorly planned and thought out preemptive attacks on the Shiite militias. But the main reason why “Surge” worked was due to diplomacy not fighing. They talked the Iraqis into not attacking us and not supporting Al-Queda, who had worn out their welcome with Iraq. The US Army also passed around a bit as cash too. Then US sent in more men to make sure things stayed peaceful. The lull in violence was already starting before troop levels went up. The operation actually worked better than I thought it would. I will say recent events have up done much of what was gained. I don’t believe the Iraqis were the ones who decided to start the preemptive attacks on the Shiite militias. The US likely planned this foolishness, destroying what had been gained in the “Surge.”

[Gregz]

I seem to remember a period in which the "second in command" was being repeatedly killed. Does that ring a bell with anyone else here? LOL, it was being reported practically every month that such-and-such airstrike has killed so-and-so, second in command of al Qaeda in Iraq(TM).

Well as they say in war truth is the first casualty.