Cross-posted at Passive Ranting.
The silly parsing of Clinton and Obama's claims that the surge is showing improvement, or that the surge is working, or that Surge! is their favorite laundry detergent is interesting only because we can then watch rabid supporters try and one-up each other with graniose claims of "OBAMA LOVES BUSH!" and "CLINTON WANTS SURGE TO CONTINUE!"
These claims are obviously not based in reality. They are the words of politicians parsed, twisted, rearranged, cut and clipped and then quoted out of context to try and make a point. While it's fun to watch the Supporters scurry around, copying and pasting as quickly as possible, they are doing their fellow kossacks and the Progressive movement in general a grave disservice, and in fact are being entirely complicit with the Bush administration's agenda.
Let me be blunt: the surge -- and even more importantly, the Iraq War -- is an amazing success.
Yes, an amazing success. And the parsing, petty, partisan bullshit we see here in the majority of diaries that contain a candidate's name in the title are obscuring the successes.
The point of the war in Iraq was never to win a clean, decisive victory. It was never to get in, take care of business in an efficient manner, and get back home. Nearly every person who had even an inkling of knowledge about war insisted on 300,000 - 500,000 troops for the initial invasion. Those generals were completely ignored and we went in with a fraction of those troop levels.
Think about that. Really think about it. We have generals with a lifetime of experience and knowledge about invasions, wars, fighting, and the capabilities of the US military nearly without exception agreeing on those numbers above. Generals warned the warmongers what could happen with insufficient troop levels, but were completely ignored.
The surge's main architect along with General Petreaus and others have said that the surge needed similar numbers to get a handle on the insurgency (for some damn fine talking points on this, visist Bob Johnson's diary from yesterday). They were ignored as well, and a mere 20,000 - 30,000 troops were deployed.
Look at all of that right there. We have military experts, generals, people who have been in the army or involved with it for years and years (let's leave the surge's architect Fred Kagan out of those descriptors, if we may) being completely ignored. They laid out the numbers required for success, and we went ahead with mere fractions of those numbers.
The Iraq War and the surge were never meant to succeed in the reality-based definition of the word. The goals of the administration were never to actually "win" wars or quell insurgencies or to spread Democracy.
The War in Iraq was planned, designed, and executed to be an abysmal failure of military action. The agenda of the Bush Administration was to make the war a long-term prospect that would drain our resources and endanger our troops for years and years, as well as establish permanent bases in Iraq for future wars.
We've often said the administration was incompetent, pathetic, stupid, etc. etc., because of the repeated failures here at home and in Iraq, but that's really letting them off light. They are extremely competent at incompetently running countries and wars. That's what they set out to do.
It was never about 9-11 (as we know); it was never about spreading Democracy (as we know); it was never about any of the reasons they gave us (as we know).
It was always about two things: money and aggression.
The money went to Haliburton and the other well-connected corporations that reaped the benefits that grew from the blood of innocent Iraqis and our troops, and will undoubtedly find its way into the pockets of Bushco's favored staffers and workers as they enter the glorious world of "consulting" for these bastard corporations.
The Iraq War is a massive fiscal success for the people it was always intended to benefit. Some of them may be investigated, some may go to jail for a couple of years, but they have made millions as our troops have died. Why would they "succeed" in the conventional sense when that means the money will stop pouring in?
The second "thing" the war was always about is the more insidious of the two. War for Money is disgusting, obviously, but War for War is even worse.
The minds and voices who Bush most closely listens to are aggressive in an almost primitive sense, screaming and howling as they bludgeon their enemies with rocks and clubs. These people crave war the way a starving man craves food. It's a need that gnaws in their souls, drives everything they do and say.
To them, America is not a benevolent country, it's not a beacon of light and fairness throughout the world, it's not a country that should lead by example. It's a means to endless wars, to endless bloodshed, to endless aggression. To them, the only worthwhile endeavor is to be as strong and overtly violent as possible.
Wars mean they are strong, killing means they are right and just. "Winning" the war in the conventional sense runs counter to their goals. Why win when you can simply continue to kill? Why bother ending wars when you can conduct one war in such a way as to increase the likelihood of future wars?
In the sense of money and aggression, the War is a tremendous success.
As Bob Johnson correctly pointed out, the surge is simply a means to buy time, to delay. This allows the war to continue, sacrificing Iraqis and our troops as the profiteers make profits and the warmongering aggressors get their bloodhsed.
Now, how does all of this tie into my intro?
Two reasons.
First, Democratic candidates are actively trying to find different ways to criticize the war and the surge, and all of these ways are based on the success or failure of said war and surge. But as I've mentioned above, we're not dealing with success and failure in the conventional sense of the words.
These are new meanings. Selfish and sadistic meanings that have nothing to do with troop safety, American safety, the War on Terror, Democracy in Iraq or any of the other wonderful "reasons" we were fed about the War and the Surge.
This is an important point because the Democratic candidates are not using these new definitions when discussing the War and the Surge. They look at levels of violence, numbers of insurgents captured or killed, etc., which has never been the purpose of the Administration and their cabal of money-hungry and bloodthirsty allies.
The Democrats need to realize this and react accordingly.
Second, and most important to our purposes, those who criticize candidates for their words on the War and on the Surge are cultivating the mistaken belief that we're dealing with "success" in the conventional sense. They are perpetuating that myth and allowing the Administration to simply look incompetent rather than what they truly are.
Let me put this bluntly:
The War in Iraq is a success and is actively achieving its true purpose. The Surge is a success and is working as intended.
That purpose and those intentions are not what we normally understand them to be, and we need to stop playing into the Administration's hands by allowing our candidates and our words to perpetuate the myth.
We are not dealing with goals of success and winning wars in the conventional sense, and we need to remember that before we talk of notions of "success" and "winning the war."