Ok then mmarsh, what is your response to these figures being released by the military which show that the amount of violence in Iraq has decreased sharply over past months starting in late June?

Originally Posted by Damien435

Ok then mmarsh, what is your response to these figures being released by the military which show that the amount of violence in Iraq has decreased sharply over past months starting in late June?

I'll have 3.

1. The surge is not responsible for the # of attacks going down. The number of attacks going down, has decreased sharply in other years and its always come back up. The lowest period was actually in June-July 2006! The surge this year did not break that record. The reason there are fewer attacks now is because of Diplomatic discussions between the warring clans in Iraq, not because of the surge.

I admit, this is study doesn't take in to effect 2007, but it does show the fewest # of attacks was actually in spring 2005. I'll try and get some more updated figures to include 2007. But I will tell you that the surge did not break the 2005 record.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002169.php

2. The number of attacks per month has gone down during the surge thats true. BUT the number of civilians killed in those attacks has actually gone up slightly. More civvies have been killed this year than last year. Look at the chart from the AP at the bottom.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004116.php

Of course that is if you can trust the Patreaus report at all, which according to the September polls most Americans DO NOT. When you see INDEPENDENT studies such as the GAO you get a different picture. The days of Americans naiivly swallowing Bush talking points is over.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/19448.html

3. Basic insurgency tactics 101. If your a guerrilla fighter, and the enemy moves reinforcements into an area, you go to ground or you redeploy. The Vietnamese were pros at this during the Vietnam War. We didn't defeat the insurgents, thats just propaganda. They just went underground -but they'll be back. You read any modern insurgency tactics from the Swamp Fox Marion to Quantrill, to Mosby's irregulars, to Merrills Marauders, to the Vietcong, to the Taliban you'll see its a very standard tactic.

MMARSH - when you quote stats from a site that features the following:

you realy need to sit back and examine your arguments before typing away...
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I rolled with the #1, because anybody can provide 10 different sites featuring 10 different poles supporting their posiiton on the surge.
I looked at #2 and thought - who cares? What relevance does that have to US Congress's job rating? Are you seeking a correlation between civilians killed and the rating? If so - I can agree with you to a point. What I mean is, if the US were to bomb a village tommorow and kill o'l Osama, do you think the press would focus on Osama - or the 100+ civilians that were killed as a result of being in the vicinity?
Wow - #3 - lets just say #3 produced one of those itches you just can't scratch... There are few men who truly know "basic insurgency tactics 101." Come to think of it - a few of them wear a green beret or a trident -
What are your qualifications - or is this just your humble opinion?

1. The guy that wrote that book won the Pulitzer prize on another critique he did of Bush for the Boston Globe. So I tend to trust his research over say...yours.

2. Which brings me to something I have noticed. Anything you disagree with you view as untrustworthy or bias. Thats very narrow minded view, but then thats the whole problem with conservativism isnt it? The Unwillingness to explore opposite or different ideas. I might as well stop then, because there is nothing you are going present to you will accept. I don't expect you to agree with me, you certainly won't change my mind, but when someone doesn't even want to listen and just dismisses everything as 'conspiracy' and 'assumptions' well, I have better things to do.

3. I thought I was pretty clear of where I based my facts from, its called HISTORY. History is all about watching trends. For example you'd be surprised how a perfectly laid ambush in Tuetenburg Forest destroyed 3 entire Romain Legions and that many of same tactics that gave the Germans the victory can be found in other modern engagements like in WWII, Vietnam and even today in Iraq. The trends are not difficult to discover, you just need to turn off FOX NEWS and read a book. Another interesting thing about HISTORY is to learn about people keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again throughout the centuries because they are too ignorant to study History. Of course, our President doesn't like to read which is a shame because if he did, we probably wouldn't be in such a mess in Iraq if he had. My suggested reading list would have been the Crusades, the British expeditions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the French in Algeria as well as the Soviet War against the Taliban. All of which illustrated the folly about Western countries conducting large campaigns in the Middle and Far East. -they all ended badly, as will this one.

And the thing about ALL of these attacks, with the exception of the crusades, the euros were not attacked at their home countries.