Yes. There is much else to be said about the "success" of the surge: part of it was the completion of ethnic cleansing of Baghdad, part of it was Sunni militias giving up, which was at least as much driven by what others were doing as by what the US was doing; part of it was a turn to diplomacy and accommodation by the US, making peace with Sadr and some of the Sunni groups. But, unfortunately, "success of the surge" was largely swallowed by mainstream discourse, which helped produce the stupid surge in Afghanistan.
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 9:44 AM, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote: > Ross Douhat writes: > >Hagel was ... was dead wrong (as was Obama) to then assume that the 2007 > surge — a salvage job, but a brave and necessary one — would only make the > situation worse.< > > what Douhat misses is that a major element of the "success" of the > surge was the success of ethnic cleansing by Shiite groups against > Sunni groups in Iraq (according to Juan Cole). > > > Robert Naiman wrote: > > In particular, I'm hoping that some Senators will press Brennan in open > > session about the Human Rights Watch/Washington Post push to get the CIA > out > > of drone strikes, which some press reports have suggested that Brennan is > > sympathetic to. > > I'm still wondering why the identity of the agency in charge of > terrorist bombings (drone-strikes) matters. But then again, since I > haven't been actively involved in defending the rights of > Palestinians, my questions don't matter at all. They are dust in the > wind. Ignore this paragraph. > > there's also the question of how various lobby groups such as Human > Rights Watch may use their political capital to defend Hagel, so that > Brennan is unscathed. > > -- > Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your > own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org [email protected]
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