McCain says Obama wrong on surge

The surge has succeeded," said McCain

Now where have I heard this before? Mission Accomplished...thats it. The "surge" was not just about violence and the whole package has not been delivered.

This is what John McCain considers "Success":

http://uk.reuters.com/article/gc05/idUKANW52445120080715

38 killed, 74 wounded in 8 separate attacks within a 24 hour period.

29 US soldiers were killed in Iraq last month.

This isn't "success" it's just less dramatic failure.

The surge was supposed to create breathing room for Iraq politicians to come together. Thus far the only thing they agree on is that they want a timeline for US withdrawal.

What's a "a nationwide civil-military campaign plan"?

The draft? Martial law?

What kind of campaign is McCain planning for the military nationwide?

I see my ole buddy Bill R. is just as wrong as ever. Funny, that in three months, the same Loony Lefties spew the same incorrect garbage.

The surge is working, both militarily and in regard to advancement of the Iraqi government. Violence is way down, Al Qaeda in Iraq is on the run and the Iraqi people are taking an increasingly role in settling their destiny.

McCain is correct. Obama is wrong. Obama hasn't even met with Gen. Petraeus yet, nor has he even spoken to the general that I am aware of.

As usual, Obama has no clue, nor do his robotoc disciples.

Obama hasn't even met with Gen. Petraeus yet, nor has he even spoken to the general that I am aware of.
Posted by: John D | July 15, 2008 12:29 PM

Please enlighten us to what Gen. Petraeus said to you that qualified you to say the surge is working. But it is good to hear from you again.

Oh yay!! Little Johnny D is back, back to spewing garbage, venom and vitriol. Little Johnny D, if the surge is/was a success, why are you pro keeping our soldiers over there? Wasn't the surge implemented to allow for orderly withdrawel? Please be specific in your answer and refrain from using empty platitudes and vague talking points.

Yes little Johnny D is back and wrong as ever:
Military deaths have been rising since last fall, and the first half of this year has already been deadlier than any six-month period since the war began more than four years ago. According to iCasualties.org, 531 US service members have been killed since Dec. 1, an average of more than three deaths a day ...”

The escalating pace of US lives cut short and others devastated by serious injury, and the uncounted, far higher toll of Iraqis killed or wounded, is the result of the Bush administration’s “surge” of some 30,000 additional combat forces. The escalation was launched last February in the teeth of mass opposition to the war expressed in the Republican rout in the November mid-term elections

In a number of recent speeches, Bush has warned that the ongoing military escalation will mean a rise in US casualties. In addition to the nearly 4,000 American soldiers already killed, 25,378 have been wounded, according to official figures.

So Johnny boy, so glad in your mind the surge is working. Working towards a record of Iraqi and US casualties!!!

Moreover Johnny, the dangers facing captured US soldiers have been immeasurably heightened by your Bush leagues repudiation of the Geneva Conventions, its establishment of concentration camps such as Guantánamo, and its use of torture against Iraqis and others detained in the so-called “war on terror.” War crimes and atrocities such as Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, Haditha and Mahmudiyah (where American soldiers raped and murdered a 14-year-old girl and killed her sister and parents) have encouraged similar reprisals against US soldiers!! Not to mention fueling a new generation of jihadist for years to come! So this illegal war of yours just might possibly last 100 years as your McCain wants it!

Obama has scrubbed his website of anything negative he previously had up there on his previous positions on the surge.

That's because it's a new day, so he has a new position! Wonder what it will be tomorrow, if a new poll comes out.

We have 140,000 troops occupying Iraq and yet Iraq still has a puppet gov't propped up by us and a puppet military propped up by us.
If you put 140,000 troops anywhere in the world the LEAST you should expect is a drop in violence. The whole point of the troop escalation ("surge") was to give the Iraqi's time to get their stuff together and they haven't, in fact they've told us to leave their country more than once now....meanwhile, the real war on terror (Afganistan) is falling a part because of Bush and McCain's uncalled for, "excellent adventure" in Iraq.

The fact that McCain calls himself a "foreign policy expert" is a complete joke.
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0PysDhbvwA
-

"first you assess the facts on the ground"

Then you blatantly lie about it and tell everyone how safe the Baghdad market is. Now we should trust you?

The cease fire with the Madhi Army and the negotiated truces with local Sunni leaders were probably more important to the reduction in violence than "the surge", but those agreements lack the required soundbite/slogan value so critical to any Bush Admin program.

Obama has removed all his anti-surge statements from his web site and now claims he always thought the surge was working. My how the little worm turns...

Jeff do you even read previous posts? The facts are layed out fo ryou slow readers. The surge has caused more deaths than before! While official politics and the media in the United States are focused largely on competing plans for salvaging the American occupation from the debacle it confronts in Iraq, little serious consideration is given to the historic catastrophe that has been inflicted upon Iraqi society itself.

Although no definitive figures can be given on the total number of Iraqis who have died as a result of the US war and occupation—including those killed in the invasion and subsequent armed violence and those whose lives have been cut short by disease and hunger, particularly among the young and old—every serious estimate places the excess death toll between several hundred thousands and one million human beings.

Iraq, once among the most advanced countries of the region, has been reduced, in terms of basic economic and social indices, to the level of the poorest countries of sub-Saharan Africa.

What is involved is the systematic destruction of an entire society through the unleashing of violence and criminality on a scale not seen since Hitler’s armies ravaged Europe in the Second World War.

American society itself is suffering deadly consequences from this war. The number of US soldiers killed in Iraq has topped 3,400, with every indication that the casualty rate is climbing as the Bush administration’s “surge” sends combat troops into the densely populated and overwhelmingly hostile neighborhoods of Baghdad.

Another 30,000 American military personnel have been wounded or injured, many of them grievously. Undoubtedly, hundreds of thousands more will suffer the psychological effects of having participated in a dirty colonial war.

The war’s daily drain on the US economy is estimated at over $300 million, with predictions that its total cost could top $2 trillion.

There is an even greater cost, however, in terms of the damage done by this criminal war to the political, social and, indeed, moral health of American society. The Iraq war—all of the tired propaganda about the “war on terrorism,” the struggle for “democracy” and the “liberation” of the Iraqi people notwithstanding—is a failed attempt by America’s financial elite to further enrich itself and secure its continued global hegemony through the naked theft of Iraq’s oil wealth.

Every section of the US political and corporate establishment, all branches and levels of government, both major political parties, and the mass media are all implicated in massive war crimes. Criminality on such a grand scale cannot go unpunished without grave implications for the future of the American people and, indeed, all of humanity.

Taken together, US operations in Iraq have amounted to sociocide—the deliberate and systematic murder of an entire society.

John D is correct: the surge is working. Scot Blakely, where are you getting your information? Is that 2008 information or 2006 information? Three deaths a day in Iraq? How can that be when May saw around 20? Ever since the surge was enacted last August, deaths and injuries and attacks have been down; for U.S. servicemen and women as well as for the Iraqis.
Seems clear the folks on the Left and the Obamabots in general have a problem accepting good news in Iraq.

Greentrees, did you read the post or skim it the usual Bush manner? Average of 3 deaths per day. The surge is not working as even Bush said more casualties would come of this. Whatever! As long as you right war loonies continue to pander for this illegal war our economy is sinking faster than your party is!
2 trillion dollars to destroy a complete society and cover the costs of re-building and medical treatments for casualties. How nice of you to over spend and borrow from China so your children will be in debt!

Saying the surge is working is the same as saying the "Going-Out-Of-Business Sale" was a great success. The initial, underlying failure was and will always be a failure.

For all his vaunted experience, McCain lacked the judgment to see the disaster for what it would be. If he gets credit for supporting the surge, he gets blame for lacking the common sense to see that starting the war was a terrible idea.

• Troops in Iraq - Total 154,734, including 145,000 from the US, 4,000 from the UK, 2,000 from Georgia, 900 from Poland, 650 from South Korea and 2,184 from all other nations
• U.S. Troop Casualties - 4,116 US troops; 98% male. 90% non-officers; 80% active duty, 12% National Guard; 74% Caucasian, 10% African-American, 11% Latino. 18% killed by non-hostile causes. 51% of US casualties were under 25 years old. 70% were from the US Army
• Non-U.S. Troop Casualties - Total 313, with 176 from the UK
• US Troops Wounded - 30,316, 20% of which are serious brain or spinal injuries (total excludes psychological injuries)

• Spent & Approved War-Spending - About $600 billion of US taxpayers' funds. In June 2008, President Bush signed a bill approving about 200 billion more for 2008, which will bring the cumulative total to close to $800 billion.

Seems clear the folks on the Left and the Obamabots in general have a problem accepting good news in Iraq.

Posted by: Green Trees | July 15, 2008 4:14 PM

Green Jeans,
Maybe now it's safe enough for you and Jeff and the rest of the Republican chickenhawk brigade to actuallly sign up for duty and back up all of your tough guy talk, no?
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1UYquKlfT0
-

I think it's amazing how much credit is given to the surge when the Sunni revolt against Al Queda had just as much to do with the decerease in violence.

You people are aware that Obama now says the surge is working, right? Edited his Web site to make sure it reflected the facts on the ground as they exist. And he credits gains in Iraq to the surge, which he is now maneuvering to claim was a strategy he never belittled. Just making sure that you folks understand your candidate has left you on this issue.

Oh, and if Obama gets credit for opposing the invasion as a state senator in 2002, then he should also get criticized for lacking the judgment to see that the surge would work and for belittling it and criticizing the very military commanders whose opinions the junior senator from Illinois now claims he respects.

that the surge would work and for belittling it and criticizing the very military commanders whose opinions the junior senator from Illinois now claims he respects.

Posted by: JB | July 15, 2008 7:45 PM

Really, is that why old man Mcbush is copying all of Obama's foreign policy?
-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/15/is-obama-forcing-mccain-t_n_112890.html

When you have 140,00 troops occupying a country (Iraq), you are not winning anything and NOTHING is working.

I see the Dufus Swamp Censors are at their stupid, little games again. Scot Blakely said there has been an average of three deaths a day since the surge began and that that the deaths have been up since it started, which is false.

So, I provided several links to point out the error of his ways. Typical Swamp Censors, afraid of the truth. So, we'll try this again.

Scot, John E., these links say otherwise to your fantasy beliefs:

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/06/gns_ied_iraq_062308/

And while this Philly paper works to hide the good news, it can't:
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/national/20080710_Violent_deaths_down_66__in_Iraq.html

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/01/mideast/iraq.php

John Green D Trees,

Could you do us all a favor and please edit your own post. It's pretty shameful writing from someone who claims to be an Editor.

Hint: Comma splices and run-on sentences.

Thanks.

John Green D Trees, Bubba? That's a new one! As usual, you make no sense.

Anyway, I'm watching TV while sparring with you nitwits. Could care less about run ons or commas.
Now, is it Bubba? Or Anonymous? Or John E? Off the meds again?

Hello, everyone. After reading all these entries, I sure wouldn't want to be in the same room with the whole batch of you... getting a little hot around the collar are you? Sarcasm does not win friends for your side, it only encourages the opposition. Ya''ll have a nice day now. And smile.