It’s funny how what is “obvious” to a Neocon is rarely actually true. I HAVE had experience with government contracts. And what you said may be true some of the time, but I found that dealing with the government can be a little difficult, because of the QA standards, but really is no different than dealing with any other large instituion, public or private. They’re all the basically the same.

But no serious person can deny that most of the original contracts, and most that are still in place, were bidless and handed out to friends of the Bush administration and GOPers on the Hill. You’d have t be a liar or completely ignorant of the situation to say otherwise.

JMJ

Yea right, thats what I said. “If” ?

You pulled that right out of your arse just to try and turn around something you said that was really dumb.

Be nice if once you included all the facts;
“The main pupose of the surge was to secure Baghdad by entrenching troops and setting up what is bascially a maze of tall walls throughout the city to restrict and control movement and transportation and separate hostile neighborhoods.”

The surge began with a major operation to secure Baghdad which was codenamed Operation Imposing Law, which started in February 2007. But only in mid-June 2007, with the full deployment 28,000 additional U.S. troops, could major counter-insurgency efforts get fully under way.
Then,
Operation Phantom Thunder was launched throughout Iraq on June 16, with a number of subordinate operations targeting insurgents in Diyala province, Anbar province and the southern Baghdad Belts.

Also,
The additional surge troops also participated in Operation Phantom Strike and Operation Phantom Phoenix, named after the III “Phantom” Corps which was the major U.S. unit in Iraq throughout 2007.

So you see Jersey, once again you are caught being disengenuous by intentionally omitting information.
Your claim in your first post that the clearing iof Anbar was due solely to the people themselves. Also whats disengenuous was your claim that we did not chase Al Queda out as they were not there during the initial engagements.

“Al Qaeda was driven out BEFORE the surge by the Awakening. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the surge. Also, the Iraqis, tired of our occupation and being dragged into our fight with Al Qaeda simply quieted down. The surge had nothing to do with that.”

So I guess our marines didnt know who they were shooting at in Anbar ?

I have read documant after document of accounts supporting Iraqis who volunteered info as to safe house locations and weapons caches belonging to Al Queda.
I guess they were all hired actors as some sort of conspiracy based propoganda ?

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/

Blogger and independent reporter Michael Yon, who has been embedded with the troops in Iraq for years, had suggested the surge strategy before it was formalized. In his book, Moment of Truth in Iraq, Yon argued that Petraeus had turned defeat into victory in Iraq and that the surge had succeeded. Historian Larry Schweikart argued in his book America’s Victories: Why the U.S. Wins Wars, that the surge’s success, in part, came from the incredible casualties the U.S. military inflicted on al-Qaeda in Iraq and on the “insurgents” from 2003 to 2006—some 40,000 killed, about 200,000 wounded, 20,000 captured, and nearly 10,000 deserted. Those levels of attrition on an enemy the estimated size of al-Qaeda were substantial and deeply damaging, not only to the terrorists’ efforts in Iraq, but had the effect of depleting them worldwide. Moreover, Schweikart argued, virtually all estimates of enemy casualties were severely undercounted (as are all numbers of guerilla casualties) given the inability to know identify bodies which were completely annihilated by explosives or to count carcasses dragged away, as well as how many would die later after attempted medical treatment by other Al Queda sympathizers. By virtually every indicator, not only did the surge work, but it had broad implications that the American Congress, especially the Democrats, were not even considering.

Really funny how after we send in all these troops things quiet down. Hmmm. conspiracy ?
Coincidence ?
I doubt it.
And yea, I talk to soldiers who sometimes just dont get it.
But most of them do not feel the way your friend does.

JMJ

You neocons really should at least take the time to educate yourselves about the war statistics so at the very least you have some idea what you’re talking about on rare occasion. You’re pols incessantly lie to you and you have no clue they’re doing it. They play you guys like cheap, plastic recorders.

As you can see from the above link, violence began to drop precipitously long before the full deployment of the 28,000 “surge” troops in June of 2007. The main pupose of the surge was to secure Baghdad by entrenching troops and setting up what is bascially a maze of tall walls throughout the city to restrict and control movement and transportation and separate hostile neighborhoods. This can hardly be thought of as some great victory. The minute those walls come down and those troops withdraw, all that pent up hostility will erupt anew - and maybe even worse. The “surge” is really a seige. Seiges can’t go on forever. That’s a well-known military fact of life.

And no, those well-over 4000 troops did not die “for nothing,” they died for obscene oil and bidless government contractor profits.

JMJ

I have had this debate with you before and have no desire to refresh the memory of a stubborn child with the statistics and facts I have shown you of Iraqis who are returning to their homes, what missions in what towns and provinces our troops have succeeded in and on and on.
I dont care to engage with someone who will not deal with rational facts that are a matter of common knowledge simply because he is so partisan and full of hatred he cant see straight.

What your last statement is saying in essence is that our 4000 + troops all died for nothing and that the results of the surge are simply collateral effect of ethnic cleansing.

In your blind hatred for our president you have managed to insult the vision and goals of our men in uniform.
I would love to see what would happen to you if you got in some Marines face and tried to pass that pile of crap off on him. I would pay good money

JMJ

I’n not explain much more to than the fact that violence is down 80%.

Also, here we go with the double standards on the left.

#1) The Iraqis have not stepped up to the plate.
#2) It was the Iraqis who cleaned up Anbar, not the US.

Although Bambi could not just come out and say the surge worked and did say said that the Iraqis have not stepped up to the plate, I will agree with him that the Iraqis are not doing their part.
Which can only then leave the credit to our troops.

JMJ;
“Worked at what?”

Enough with the childish questions designed only to envoke ridiculous conversations to explain the obvious.
In all of 5 1/2 years you’ve not one good thing to say about anything connected to Bush and as soon as any progress is made in Iraq you are too quick to give the credit to anyone but Bush and our troops.

Grow up.