Contrary to the military's claims that coalition casualties are falling, a claim that is being parrotted in the as-usual servile and unquestioning mainstream press, including this article from McClatchy, coalition deaths in Iraq have risen sharply. For the last three months during which the "surge" has been in full force, American deaths totalled 261, which compares with 169 killed in the same period last year. That translates into a 54% increase in American troops killed in action year-on-year. In August, 81 Americans were killed, a 25% increase over the number killed in August of 2006, and only slightly lower than the deadliest August- August 2005. And according to icasualties.org the British suffered 19 killed during the same period compared with just two deaths in the comparable three month period last year. So taking into account total coalition killed in action, the number of deaths during the past three full months of the "surge" has increased by nearly two thirds: 109 (+64%).
The McClatchy article, written by Nancy Youssef, which was reprinted in today's Greenwich Time, is titled, "Combat Deaths in Iraq Decline; Reasons Aren't Clear,". Yet the reason is abundantly clear, especially if the reporter had taken a close look at his own bar graph he included with the article: combat in Iraq is seasonal. During the blistering summer months of July and August when the mid-day heat exceeds 110 degrees, even the locals take a break from killing.
Shorter Lieberman: If all Iraqis are united in calling for the US to end the occupation, then that means the surge is working, and therefore we can't pull out now.
Meanwhile, back in liberated Iraq, the anniversary of Saddam Hussein's overthrow was marked by only one sign of public response: In the Shiite holy city of Najaf, hundreds of thousands gathered to burn American flags and otherwise denounce the United States. "Yes! Yes! Iraq. No! No! America," chanted demonstrators organized by cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, reported the BBC. "We were liberated from Saddam. Now we need to be liberated again. Stop the suffering. Americans leave now."
What part of "leave now" doesn't Lieberman get? Speaking of the rally called by Sadr to blast the Americans as Iraq's "archenemy" and to demand "that the occupiers withdraw from our land," Lieberman surreally sought to find a silver lining of support for U.S. policy: "[Sadr] is not calling for a resurgence of sectarian conflict. He's striking a nationalist chord. He's acknowledging that the surge is working," he said.
Ugh. What tortured logic. Ponder that sentence for the sheer mendacity of its optimism, which conveniently ignores the fact that the nationalist chord is a stridently anti-American one. Yes, there were Sunni clerics in the Najaf march and Sadr's followers heeded his call to wrap themselves, literally, in the Iraqi flag while shunning sectarian slogans--but what united them was the demand to end the U.S. occupation, which Lieberman so fervently supports.
So apparently the surge is working ... to unite all Iraqis against us. As Hazim al-Araji, one of Sadr's top Baghdad representatives, described the by-all-accounts massive rally: "There are people here from all different parties and sects. We are all carrying the national flag, which is a symbol of unity. And we are all united in calling for the withdrawal of the Americans."
What irony: The final refuge of the scoundrels who sold us on this war, Lieberman included, was that although it could not be justified by claims that Saddam had WMD or an alliance with al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden, the invasion would implant American ideals of democracy on Iraqi soil. What is being implanted instead is a virulent anti-American and anti-Israeli nationalism, Sadr's current cause, competing with a smoldering sectarian civil war, which this multitasking demagogue has also fueled. Yet, spinning like a top, Sen. Lieberman desperately finds solace in a resurgent Iraqi nationalism based on hatred of the United States.
Chris "Both Ways" Shays' cynical flip-flops on the Iraq War have become breathtakingly blatant. Last August, Mr. Shays returned from his fourteenth trip to Iraq and announced that "the only way we are able to encourage some political will on the part of Iraqis is to have a timeline for troop withdrawal." Shays added that he supported a one year timetable for withdrawing most of our troops from Iraq. Yet just two months after insisting that he advocated a timeline for withdrawal, Shays came out in strong support for Bush's "surge" that is sending tens of thousands more young Americans into combat, and voted against the Democrats' anti-surge resolution (HR 157, roll call #97, February 13, 2007).
I was listening to Colin McEnroe the other day on my way home from work. He had on a woman whose name I did not catch, but one of them commented that Joe Courtney had NOT heard from anybody who was against the Bush escalation in Iraq.
That shocked me, as I had written Courtney a lengthy email on Jan. 9 demanding that he do everything in his power to stop the escalation, even citing prior examples of Congress stopping wars, or preventing escalations.
However, the point is that Courtney has only heard from people who support the escalation and we need to do a better job getting our message out.
With even some of its most ardent proponents telling us that Bush's Nixonian escalation "surge" in Iraq will result in an immediate upswing in U.S. casualties, Joe Lieberman is saying, "Oh what the heck. Let us have some fun. What's the worst that could happen? A few more thousand dead? BFD. None of them will be my kids."
Over the weekend, I caught a snippet of CSPAN's coverage of the McCain/Lieberman "surge" party at the American Enterprise Institute. . . .Lieberman was praising Bush as a "great leader" for bucking American opinion, as expressed in the 2006 election, in his determination to double down in Iraq. Lieberman then said something incredible:
Even those opposed to the surge, he said, "ought to at least let us try it."
"The worst that could happen," he continued, is that this policy could become another partisan flashpoint in Washington.
The man's callous disregard for the price other people's families will have to pay for his warmongering leaves me gobsmacked. Anyone else want to have a go?
Greg Sargent makes a great catch regarding Joe's recent meetings with the military in Iraq. Anyone who reads this site knows the content of Lieberman's awful op-ed in the WaPo. Here's the putrid apex of the steaming pile:
After speaking with our military commanders and soldiers there, I strongly believe that additional U.S. troops must be deployed to Baghdad and Anbar province -- an increase that will at last allow us to establish security throughout the Iraqi capital, hold critical central neighborhoods in the city, clamp down on the insurgency and defeat al-Qaeda in that province.
In Baghdad and Ramadi, I found that it was the American colonels, even more than the generals, who were asking for more troops. In both places these soldiers showed a strong commitment to the cause of stopping the extremists. One colonel followed me out of the meeting with our military leaders in Ramadi and said with great emotion, "Sir, I regret that I did not have the chance to speak in the meeting, but I want you to know on behalf of the soldiers in my unit and myself that we believe in why we are fighting here and we want to finish this fight. We know we can win it."
Never mind the fact that the actual quote Lieberman chose to include in his piece said nothing about wanting more troops. Or that, as has also been discussed here and here, less than 40% of respondents in a Military Times Poll support the commander in chief's handling of the war -- and less than 40% also support escalation. No, since our men and women in uniform have a "commitment to the cause of stopping the extremists", it is only logical in Lieberman's mind that they must therefore support the McCain-Lieberman doctrine. Sargent noted how untrue this was, and now provides the proof:
And now some more evidence has surfaced that strongly suggests Lieberman's claim may simply be an outright falsehood.
The evidence is buried at the end of a Washington Post article about GOP division over the possibility of an escalation. It turns out GOP Senator Susan Collins went to the same meeting with these commanders that Lieberman. Here's how she characterizes these meetings to the paper:
[John] Sununu declined to say what he thinks about more troops, but one of his colleagues from the Northeast, Maine's Collins, said she was flatly opposed to the idea after discussing it with commanders and Iraqis during a trip with McCain, Graham and Lieberman.
"I don't think the addition of new American troops in a situation plagued by sectarian strife is the answer," Collins said. "I think more American troops will present more American targets."
This couldn't be clearer. Collins was in on the same discussions with the commanders that Lieberman was. And she emerged from those meetings "flatly opposed" to an escalation.
Yet Lieberman has now twice said that those conversations persuaded him of the rightness of his own call for an increase.
This is a chilling look into the twisted landscape that is the psychology of Joe Lieberman. We all have a little man or woman inside our head that relates the external to the internal. (Some of us have more than one person rattling around inside our skulls). I think Joe Lieberman's little man is a cross between the chickenhawk and the nearsighted Mr. Magoo, seen here walking off of a precipice.
Below the fold is a short play I wrote based on what I imagine the conversations must have been like.
I never cease to be amazed by the willingness of journalists and their editors to have a headline and lead that stand 180 degrees from the body of a story. Expect Dodd, like Harry Reid, to be victim to MSM reports today that they support a troop surge in Baghdad along the lines of what has been proposed by Joe Lieberman and John McCain. Of course, Dodd has not committed to that and in fact holds an opposite position (Reid's stance is tied to an ability to withdraw troops in the near future). Regardless, the Courant today cast Dodd as supporting a surge before clearly contradicting the notion in great depth. Unfortunately, people remember headlines, not the seventh paragraph.
Dodd Could Back Buildup
WASHINGTON -- Two key Democrats, including U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, said Sunday they could back a temporary increase in the number of U.S. troops in Iraq - but only if that surge was for a very short period and specifically helped end American involvement.
The caveats contained at the tail end of the sentence suggest that Dodd is willing to move forward with a surge as long as it is done with good intentions. But Dodd's actual position isn't based on the end goals of a surge. He said that there would have to be unity between Shia and Sunnis before he would support a surge.
Afterward, Dodd told reporters in a conference call, "Show me some demonstrable evidence that they're coming together as a people - Shias and Sunnis, sitting down and recognizing that they have an obligation to come together as a people - then I'd be willing to support some additional people if we needed it in order to get the job done."
Dodd, a possible 2008 presidential contender, added that he was not making a pitch for extra troops the cornerstone of his Iraq strategy.
"In the absence of the demonstrable evidence of that [unity]," Dodd added, "I will not be supporting surges in troops. That's a phony argument in my view; that's just delaying the inevitable."
Given that Iraq is consumed by a civil war between Shia and Sunni factions, Dodd's caveat is prohibitive. Unity between Iraq's warring parties is as likely to stop in the short term to allow for a US troop surge on Dodd's terms as, say, the Maliki government volunteering to pay the salaries of US troops sent over in a escalation. It just isn't going to happen.
The English language is one that allows for multiple clauses in sentences. Dodd's surge-prohibitive caveat comes in the same sentence with a reference to increasing a surge in troops. It should be clear to anyone fluent in English that Dodd has explicitly not endorsed a troop surge. He has effectively said that he will not support a troop surge. He has called a troop surge a "phony" way to delay "inevitable" need for American withdrawal.
Dodd's statements make it clear that he is opposed to escalating the war in Iraq. Hopefully the press will not continue to misrepresent his position as one in support of a troop surge.
Update:
I'd add that Dodd would have been better served to not even make a statement that suggested he was in support of a troop surge in even an unachievable scenario if that's what he thought. Stating an equivocal position as he had even if it is valid and sensible opens the door for misinterpretation along the lines of what the Courant has in their lede.
Dodd would have been wiser to say something along the lines of "I do not believe there is any achievable scenario in the foreseeable future where increasing the number of troops in Iraq makes sense." Granted, I believe this statement has the exact same meaning as suggesting that he would only support surging the troops in Baghdad if Shia and Sunni factions found unity and a cessation of violence. My phrasing eliminates any potential for misinterpretation in the media that would lend support for the McCain/Lieberman plan to escalate the war.
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