Oh you're over here too? If not, shut the hell up. You have no idea what you are talking about. I'm all for getting out of here too, many of us are, but the reason the surge is working is because the enemy is smothered and we are doing our jobs.
I'm sure you're doing a good job, but the fact of the matter is that much of the opposition simply hasn't been on the field during the period of the surge:
(1) As the previous guy said, the CIA/DoD are making payments to militia heads, to support them, and hunt down supposed opponents (whether they are real opponents or not, is another story. But the fact is money is changing hands), and
(2) Muqtadr Al Sadr has had his Mahdi Army on a self-declared cease-fire since August 29 (possibly ending late this month)
Here's an article supporting Point 1:
" Fortuitously and at precisely the right time, the main Shia militia group, the Mahdi Army, declared a cease-fire. That moderated both Shia-on-Sunni violence and Shia-on-American violence. However, although a cease-fire was declared, the Mahdi Army was neither disbanded nor disarmed. They are ready to go into operations against Americans or the Sunnis, whenever it is deemed necessary by their leaders.
Perhaps more ominously, in order to make up for an unavoidable shortage of American soldiers for the surge (they simply were not available), the Petraeus plan called for co-opting the Sunni militia that had previously been killing Americans. To do that, the
U.S. forces have been funding, arming and training Sunni militias to work side by side with American troops against al-Qaida in Iraq. "
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/p...20080120/FEATURES15/801200317/1030/FEATURES15
That full article is worth a read. The author is an ex-CIA Station Chief.
And we all know how well such picking sides and arming them works, in the Middle East, don't we? It worked out just swell with bin Laden.
Weren't the Sunni militia the ones that we were fighting when we started this?
Here's an article supporting Point 2:
Here's a story from Lebanon's major daily, the Daily Star. Why quote a Lebanese paper? Because the American Yahoo version of the VERY SAME story (from Agencies) is
censored. The section in
bold - all the messy, "inconvenient" bits of the story, where people actually get hurt, and it reflects poorly on the war - have been censored. Yahoo link at the bottom, for comparison, if you don't believe me.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=88805
Sadr orders Mehdi Army to maintain cease-fire - for now
Compiled by Daily Star staff
Friday, February 08, 2008
Hard-line Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr ordered his feared Mehdi Army on Thursday to maintain its six-month cease-fire as members of the militia clashed with US and Iraqi soldiers in Baghdad. Sadr's spokesman Salah al-Ubaidi said the cease-fire, which expires later this month and has been vital to cutting violence in Iraq, should continue to be observed until militia members are told it is over or has been renewed.
Some members of Sadr's bloc are pressuring him not to extend the August 29 freeze on the Mehdi Army's activities.
"Any member of the Mehdi Army who conducts violent acts during the cease-fire, the Sadr office declares they will no longer be part of the Mehdi Army," Sadr said in a statement read to Reuters by Ubaidi.
He said Sadr had issued the statement in response to rumors the cease-fire was about to come to an end. He declined to say whether it would be extended when its term lapses.
Attacks across Iraq have fallen by 60 percent since June 2007 after a series of security crackdowns. A return to hostilities could seriously jeopardize those gains.
A new report by the International Crisis Group think tank said the respite offered by the cease-fire was "exceedingly frail" and that Sadrists - many of whom complain they are targeted by security forces - remain extremely powerful.
"Among Sadrist rank and file, impatience with the cease-fire is high and growing," the report said.
US troops raided Baghdad's largest Shiite slum early Thursday and arrested 16 people, US and Iraqi officials and witnesses said. The American military said one person died.
The military also announced the death of a US soldier killed by a roadside bomb a day earlier in western Baghdad.
In Sadr City, the US said it was targeting "criminal elements" responsible for mortar and EFP attacks on US and Iraqi troops. EFPs, or explosively formed penetrators, are sophisticated roadside bombs that fire a molten slug capable of piercing even the most heavily armored military vehicles.
Two people were wounded in the nighttime raid, and one of those subsequently died, US Navy Lieutenant Michael Street, a military spokesman, said in an e-mail.
Police and residents said that US soldiers in humvees, backed by helicopters, sealed off a block of the neighborhood and raided four houses. The front-door lock on one of the houses was shattered by gunfire, and 22-year-old Arkan Abid Ali was shot in the chest and wounded, witnesses said.
Diaa Shakir, 20, said he heard gunfire coming from inside houses US soldiers had entered, as he watched the operation from the window of his home nearby.
Ali was one of 16 Iraqis, including three teenage boys, detained by US forces, an Iraqi police officer said on customary condition of anonymity.
Two women and an elderly man were also wounded and taken to Sadr City hospital, he said. It was unclear which of the wounded had died.
Sadr City is home to about 2.5 million of the Iraqi capital's poorest residents. Overwhelmingly Shiite, the neighborhood has also been a base for the Mehdi Army loyal to Sadr.
Sadr, who led two uprisings against US forces in 2004, ordered the Mehdi Army cease-fire so he could reorganize the splintered militia. Ubaidi has said Sadr is gauging the mood of senior figures before deciding whether to extend the truce.
[LASTNYMLEFT: THE REST OF THE STORY IS NOT OVERLY RELEVANT TO MY POINT, SO IT'S NOT NECESSARY TO READ BELOW HERE. I INCLUDED IT JUST TO PROVE THAT THE CENSORED SECTION WAS FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE ARTICLE]
Washington has been urging Iraq to take advantage of improved security and move ahead with a series of laws aimed at reconciling majority Shiite and minority Sunni Arabs.
However, several of those laws, including the 2008 budget and another that would release thousands of mainly Sunni Arabs from Iraqi jails, remained deadlocked.
"The delay in the budget is harming everyone," Iraq's Shiite Vice President Adel Abdel-Mehdi told a news conference.
Votes which had been expected on Thursday did not take place. Lawmakers have refused to ratify the $48 billion budget because of disputes over allocations, mainly the 17 percent for the largely autonomous and stable Kurdistan region. Some lawmakers it was reported walked out of the session.
Taha al-Luhaiba of the Sunni Arab Accordance Front said a vote could take place Sunday or Monday, but Muna Zalzah, a finance committee member from the Shiite Alliance, feared the budget might not be voted on for at least another week.
Some fear that failure to pass the budget would hold up vital spending at a time when Washington is urging the government to take advantage of improved security and jumpstart the oil-dependent economy.
"Even if the Parliament voted today, the budget would not be implemented until March. We have lost a lot of time," Abdel-Mehdi said.
The law that would free prisoners who have not been charged with or convicted of major crimes, like murder or treason, is also seen as a step toward reconciliation because most of the 23,000 people held in Iraqi jails are Sunni Arabs.
Freeing prisoners has been one of the preconditions for the Accordance Front, the main Sunni Arab bloc, to return to Cabinet after it quit last month, fracturing Premier Nuri al-Maliki's Shiite-led unity government.
But Luhaibi said new disagreements had delayed that law, with his bloc wanting it expanded to include provisions for new trials for prisoners who may have made forced confessions. - Agencies
The censored, American version of the story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080207/ts_nm/iraq_dc_10