The Truth About The Surge

"We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders . . . to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds . . .  (and) . . .  we are mired in a stalemate that could only be ended by negotiation, not victory."

That's not a quotation from Barack Obama.  Or even Dennis Kucinich.  

Walter Cronkite said it during the CBS news broadcast of February 27, 1968 in response to the Tet Offensive launched by the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese Army against U.S. and South Vietnamese forces on January 30th.  Although the communists sustained immense casualties over the eventual nine-month campaign (some 75-85,000 troops were killed in action), the 6,328 allied forces killed proved more than the American public was willing to stomach.  Cronkite, the "most trusted man in America," was as responsible as anyone for the public's ultimate rejection of the government's Vietnam policy.

On February 28th, the day following Cronkite's proclamation, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara resigned.  Back in Saigon, Generals Westmoreland and Wheeler determined that an additional 400,000 U.S. troops would be required to effectively respond to the communist surge.  This would necessitate the mobilization of the military's reserve forces -- a total commitment to the conflict in Vietnam.  Critics argued that it would only result in an uptick in communist forces and an increasingly bloody stalemate on the ground.  Clark Clifford, the new Secretary of Defense, as well as Dean Rusk, McGeorge Bundy and Walt Rostow -- all former hawks on the war -- advised President Lyndon Johnson to pursue a policy of disengagement.  On March 31st, Johnson announced a halt to the bombing and his decision not to run for a second term of office.

Cronkite's words could just as easily have been applied to the current war in Iraq.  The American people were hoodwinked into supporting our neoconservative administration's hubristic determination to spread democracy and American influence in the region through the administration's fear-mongering, exaggerations and outright lies.  The forged "uranium from Africa" document,  the fabricated "senior-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda," Iraq's phantom possession of chemical and biological weapons -- all strategies to deceive the public into backing the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Unlike Lyndon Johnson, however, George W. Bush has never wavered in his conviction.  In January of 2007, when the war was at its nadir, he proposed a surge of 20-30,000 troops to his own council of wise men, the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  They opposed the increase, with the outgoing head of Central Command, General Abizaid insisting that adding troops was not the answer.  

So who was right?

Well, let's crunch the numbers.  The current confirmed death total of U.S. forces for the Iraq War is 4,104.  In 2003, there were 486 troops  killed in action.  In 2004, the number rose to 849.  2005 - 846.  2006 - 822.  Bush announced the surge in January of 2007.  The death count for the entire year was 902.  So far this year, 201 American soldiers have died.  30,000 U.S. men and women have been wounded in Iraq -- 7,200 of them since the troop surge began to work its magic.  On Tuesday, a bomb in a Sadr City district council building blew up two American soldiers and three civilians working for the army.  Oh, and six Iraqis also died in the blast, if that does anything for you.  On Monday, a security guard assigned to an Iraqi politician opened fire on a group of American soldiers, killing two of them.

If this surge is a success, I'd hate to see Bush and Senator Surge himself, John McCain's standards for failure.  Come to think of it, I'm not sure any such measures exist.  The New York Times details a Government Accountability Office report released Monday claiming "the American plan for a stable Iraq lacks a strategic framework that meshes with the administration's goals, is falling out of touch with the realities on the ground and contains serious flaws in its operational guidelines."  It further claims that the administration "broadly overstates gains in some categories, including the readiness of the Iraqi Army, electricity production and how much money Iraq is spending on its reconstruction."  Any decline in daily attacks rests not on improved Iraqi security performance and a developing political system, but on "the American troop increase, a shaky cease-fire declared by militias loyal to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, and an American-led program to pay former insurgents to help keep the peace."

In other words, when the administration tells us, "the surge is working - just look at the statistics," they're cooking the books.  According to Bush, the surge had two goals:  to give the new Iraqi government breathing space to promote sectarian reconciliation and to provide security throughout the country by putting an end to sectarian violence.  Judging by the events of the week to date, as well as the 1,103 troops killed since Bush over-ruled his generals, can anyone really believe the surge is succeeding?  Or that McCain's vision of some type of long-term presence on Iraqi soil is a good idea for our national security interests?

David Brooks does, for one.  His Tuesday column in the New York Times trumpets the surge's success and its opponents resultant lesson in humility.  He lists their stages of denial as the surge has played out:

"First, they simply disbelieved that the surge and the Petraeus strategy was doing any good.  Then they accused people who noticed progress in Iraq of duplicity and derangement.  Then they acknowledged military, but not political, progress.  Lately they have skipped over to the argument that Iraq is progressing so well that the U.S. forces can quickly come home."

As if any of this "skipping" could hold a candle to the world-record long jump required to clear the canyon dug by Bush, Cheney and the rest of their cabal's collection of fairy tales and prevarications they spun to justify their intentions.  Brooks is apparently untroubled by the reality that we have spent 4,104 American lives in blood and over $548 billion in treasure to date in pursuit of the neocon ideal of what would be, in effect, an Iraqi protectorate from which we can keep our hand on the oil pump.  He is an apologist for a morally rancid policy that makes no more sense now than it did last January.  Or than it did in the spring of 1968 when, during the height of the Tet Offensive, Clark Clifford wondered:

"How do we avoid creating the feeling that we are pounding troops down a rathole?"

You do it by getting the hell out.  

November seems a long way off.  Especially to those kids who'll be enjoying the surge's success in the meantime.

Hillary Who?

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, runner-up in the race to be the Democratic presidential nominee, may want to be vice president.  Or she may not.  She may prefer to consider the prospects of Supreme Court justice, cabinet member, Senate Majority Leader or the pursuit of a distinguished legislative career as the junior senator from New York.  All options are on the table and the world waits breathlessly.

Oh, and on Tuesday, a black man was presumptively nominated to be President of the United States.

As a news item, I realize it pales it comparison to uncovering the answer to that timeless question, "What does Hillary want?"  Judging by the media coverage, you'd think most of the eighteen million who voted for Hillary, as well as a good chunk of Obama's eighteen million supporters, were cashing in sick days and vacation time to stay home and monitor the minute-by-minute vicissitudes of Hillary's future prospects.

Who gives a rat's hindquarters? 

She's no longer the story and the sooner the media acknowledges that, the better off we'll all be.  There's a concept known as Q quotient.  It's the attractiveness, and therefore marketability,  of a celebrity.  Well, just before 10 p.m. Tuesday night, when Obama surpassed the 2,118 mark in total delegates, Hillary's political Q quotient dropped by about fifty percent.  She's still on the A list but, let's be honest, the gap between nominee and runner-up is the distance between Mozart and Salieri.  

The Democratic Party is now Obama's Party.  He unleashed a blitzkrieg when he announced his candidacy for president on February 10, 2007 in Springfield, Illinois.  In less than than sixteen months, he went from being a freshman Midwestern senator to the undisputed face of his party.  We had grown so accustomed to the Clinton brand since 1992 that the abrupt shift in power seems all the more seismic.  Less than a year and a half ago it was unthinkable that Hillary would be on the vice-presidential short list and that Bill would have been reduced to albatross status.

But Barack Obama, the Zen Master Assassin from Chicago's South Side, by way of Jakarta, Indonesia and Honolulu, Hawaii, wrested the party from their grasp in front of our eyes.  It was like watching a ninja pluck the still-beating heart from his enemy's chest.  He moved quickly today to follow up on his primary victory, installing his strategist Paul Tewes at the DNC to oversee fundraising.  The DNC announced it will no longer be accepting contributions from federal lobbyists or political action committees, bringing it in line with the Obama campaign's policies.

It's hard to see Obama tapping Clinton for his VP.  While it's impossible to predict definitively her net value or drag on the ticket, Obama can make a strong argument that he doesn't need her.  

She has substantially higher negatives than any other candidate, thereby assuring a more motivated opposition from both the Republican base as well as Clinton haters in both parties.  

While roughly a quarter of Clinton's supporters claim they will vote for McCain in the general election, past evidence suggests this may be a heat-of-the-moment threat.  Since 1992, less than 10% of Democrats and Republicans have crossed party lines when voting for president.  How many women will actually vote to effectively overturn Roe v. Wade in November because they feel somehow cheated or disrespected by the Obama campaign is very much open for debate.  (Appalachia, not so much.  Obama might have to write off that vote although it wouldn't hurt him in some of the swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania to venture into a few hollers to say howdy.  Although, when over twenty percent of voters in Kentucky's primary admit that race was a factor in their decision, even the Scranton Scrapper herself riding shotgun isn't going to bring in the hillbilly vote.) 

In addition, the Clinton Circus travels complete with its own baggage car.  Does Obama really want to deal with that drama for the entirety of his presidency?  How comfortable is he going to be that the Clinton's aren't pursuing their own agendas in the backrooms of Georgetown and Foggy Bottom that they already know so well?  

Speaking of Clintons, plural, Bill might be a Veep deal-breaker all by himself.  Would he be able to pass the inevitable vetting process, what with his undisclosed list of donors and his murky business dealings around the world since he left office?  Would he even want to risk the humiliation?  And, if he did come through the process cleanly, of what value are assurances from the Clintons that he would remain in New York, concentrating on his foundation and piling up frequent flier miles on Air Burkle?  Does anyone really believe that the Big Dawg could actually be kept on a short leash for the next eight years?  

Most importantly, Obama needs to enter the battle with McCain from a position of strength.  He's already saddled with the classic Democrat mantle of "soft on defense," exacerbated by his perceived eagerness to negotiate with anyone who owns a table and two chairs.  Plus, he's Harvard-bred, he dines on salmon and broccoli, he prefers tea to beer and he bowls the way most voters play polo.  The last impression he needs to give is that Hillary dangled her support as so much political capital and managed to strong-arm her way onto the ticket against his effete, elitist will.  

Besides, after watching McCain's performance on Tuesday (Gail Collins of the New York Times captured it perfectly), it's difficult to imagine Obama losing -- I don't care if he picks Mike Gravel.  The contrast between the two candidates could not have been starker.  McCain would be the oldest candidate ever elected president.  His message is incoherent.  He supports the Iraq War, in direct opposition to somewhere between half and three-quarters of the American people.  He's selling Iran as America's most dangerous enemy, the same Iran that has inarguably been the largest beneficiary of the very same Iraq War he defends.  He supports Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy although, to be fair, he admits that he doesn't understand economics.  And he's pushing lobbyists out the back of the Straight Talk Express like ballast off of the Titanic.  

Hillary, besides being yesterday's news, is the least of Obama's worries.  I think his biggest obstacle is going to be overconfidence.