Scanlyze

The Surge is Working?

The Surge is Working?

The Opinionator by Tobin Harshaw on the New York Times has a peculiar article suggesting that US Democrats are under attack due to the supposed success of “the surge”. The piece leads with a quote attributed to Karen Tumlty, which says, in part, “It’s the Democrats who are being put on the defensive over the war.”

The column goes on to quote a number of selected statements from obscure “moderates” closing with: “Where the strategy was first to argue that the military surge would not work, the Democrats seem to be ready to acknowledge — behind closed doors that is — that they were wrong,” from Michael van der Galien. If you have access to Times Select, you can read this compendium of preposterousness at http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/22/spinning-the-surge/

There are a number of logical refutations submitted to the column. One, by ‘Rosemary Molloy’, reads,

Gee, all this “republicans did this,” “democrats said that” is confusing. Guess the only thing I quite understand is that we’re killing people. We. Are. Killing. People. These aren’t wild dogs we’re talking about–they’re PEOPLE! And we’re killing them.

My response follows:

The surge is working? The evidence would seem to suggest to the contrary. Consider the top headlines which come up upon searching, newest first, on the Times website on ‘Iraq’ today: ‘Times Topics: Iraq‘, ‘Black Hawk Fails and Crashes, Killing 14 U.S. Soldiers‘, ‘Cue the Film Awards Season and Strike a Somber Note‘, ‘Armored Trucks’ Delivery Delayed‘, ‘Army Officer, Others Indicted on Bribery‘, ‘25 Killed in Clash Northeast of Baghdad, Iraqi Police Say‘. You reported today that the capital, Baghdad, is receiving 2-6 hours of electricity per day as opposed to 24 hours per day before the war. The ‘surge’ is not sustainable; if this is success, what will the inevitable failure look like?

See: Democrats Refocus Message on Iraq After Military Gains
Militias Seizing Control of Iraqi Electricity Grid

Copyright © 2007 Henry Edward Hardy

23 August, 2007 - Posted by scanlyze | defeat, failure, Iraq, New York Times, news, peace, politics, propaganda, scanlyze, surge, war, Washington Post