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Delegate Gridlock & The Myth of the Surge
Share / Recommend - Comment - Print - Thursday, Feb 28 2008, 12:54AM
I'm in Israel and Palestine through Saturday -- and am finding some interesting stuff on the internet as I fight jet lag.
First of all, Slate has a fascinating Delegate Counter that allows one to go through all of the states left in the Democratic primary process and plug in assumptions about performance. It distributes the delegates -- and then kicks out totals. I may be doing something wrong -- but I can't seem to get either Clinton or Obama to a win using any realistic figures on how they'll split primary voters.
On another front, I have already held the view that the so-called "success of the surge" may be a function of Enron-like accounting and spin -- and agreed with Andrew Bacevich's recent assessment. But for a more powerful treatment of this -- and a look into how we may be arming our adversaries tomorrow, read Nir Rosen's "The Myth of the Surge" in Rolling Stone.
-- Steve Clemons
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Reader Comments (8) - post a comment
Say the surge is working often enough and it works its way into the public consciousness and is taken as fact.
I have heard over the course of several weeks, snippets, one-liners on NPR, that moderate bastion of news and views preserving the toes of shiny shoes nationwide, proclaiming such things as, "the surge, largely credited with the recent down turn in violence," or "the success of the surge," making no mention of Sadr's cease fire, or the Awakening counsels in connection with marginal improvements. Sure, they have done segments on these events and to extent of their contribution, but the underlying message in the one liners, and innuendos is the surge is working, for all the faults of the administration they appear to have been right on this one...
As I pointed out three days ago, when I posted a link to Rosen's piece on the "Oscar" thread, none of the candidates are calling Bush out on this latest deception titled "the success of the surge".
I guess its just far more desirable to inherit a "success" than a failure, even if its a mythical success. What does it tell us about the candidates? That they intend to continue misleading us, and "change", apparently, doesn't include telling us the truth.
What did we expect? The Bush administration's tactic is to dial back the war until the election is over. And they will do anything they can to make it less of an issue for Democrats and more of an issue for Republicans, so McCain talk about how brilliant he was engineering the surge.
The disturbing part is that US taxpayers (our children) are being saddled with debt to pay off the militias. US taxpayers will be called on to protect the oil forever, so that Big Oil gets to keep the profits. Since oil only costs $1/barrel to produce there, why don't they pay off Iraqis directly, perhaps buying their hearts and minds in the process? Ah, but that smacks of Venezuela, where the government redistributes income to the poor. That would be a terrible precedent. Much better to borrow to pay off war lords, so they can become oligarchs who think like the ruling class here.
Dear Mr. Clemons,
Please be bold enough to meet with Hamas leaders while in occupied Palestine. I find it very disheartening that so many policy people advocate direct talks with groups such as Hamas, yet they themselves are to cowardly to do so. I don't know whether you advocate talking to Hamas in general, but you would make an important contribution to peace to meet with them formally.
Best of luck,
Joe
The warhorny neocons who gleefully pronounce to a credulous press corps that "the surge is succeeding" and that we are now "winning" in Iraq do have something of a point. We are, in a purely tactical sense, "winning" in Iraq. If we choose to continue pouring enough lives and treasure into Iraq, we can ensure that we are "winning" forever. The problem is, that no matter how many lives are squandered there, we will never have won. War eternal lies well within our grasp, but a victorious peace is nothing more than a mirage tormenting the imagination of our unhinged or craven national leaders.
Surge sucess = oil bids concession on Cheney's terms.
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