Learning about the Surge

Watch this interview with John Roberts of CNN. They say the surge is working and we're catching Al Qaeda operatives. But Senator Casey still says his vote against the surge is the right move. And then Sen. Casey says that President Bush's stay the course policy is failing.

First of all, it's not stay the course in the sense he's talking. The military has re-grouped and re-manned (the surge) and they are changing tactics.

The problem, as Senator Durbin (D-Ill - someone I have liked from what I've read and what I knew of him when I was there) says - is political. The Maliki government that was placed in Iraq (voted in, or what have you) is not proving to be the uniter it promised to be. But uniting people ("I'm a uniter, not a divider") is never as easy as politicians think it's going to be. Damn free will, people think for themselves and see through the garbage. The sects of Iraq must be seeing through some of the garbage promises that are being made.

Does this mean the surge is failing? No, exactly the opposite. The surge is meant - at least in part - to limit terrorist activity that was grown in the region. It was meant to secure Baghdad to allow the government to function free of IEDs.

General Patreaus's report is due in September. The Today show and Matt Laeur (am I constantly miss spelling that? I feel like I am?) spoke with Senator McCain this week and said that no matter what was in the report, momentum in Congress was for a troop pull out, so the surge success wasn't going to affect when we leave Iraq.

Unbelievable. "Change course Mr. President! Change course!" and he did. He sent more men (which they'd also been demanding) and the military changed tactics. There were earlier failures in the pre-planning, most of the blame for which gets laid at Rumsfeld's door, and now we switch and now it doesn't matter.

I believe completely and with 100% conviction that if we leave Iraq to suffer the way we left Vietnam we will be hated with even more vitriol than we are now. Leaving will not help our Muslim relations, our Arab relations. So you have to wonder, when the "cut and run" crowd are yelling from the rafters ... what exactly is their goal? I know, I know ... it's to leave Iraq. But why? Because our policy isn't working? Because we're stretched too thin?

I for one eagerly await the report to see what our men and women have been able to accomplish. And if they say that it's not working and change is needed ... I believe them over every pundit and Congressmen.