Teh Surge brings on Magick Era of Time Travel!
Both Kevin Drum and Spencer Ackerman point out that various ninnies on the Right are attacking Obama for noting that many of the positive developments now attributed to teh Surge by McCain and other Iraq War enthusiasts in fact appear to have occurred not only separately and independently from the Surge, but also months before the Surge strategy was announced and even longer before it was embarked upon. Responding to NRO Obersttwit Andy McCarthy’s comment:
Does Obama think the Sunni Awakening and the Shia militia stand-down are somehow separate developments from the surge and the brilliant performance of American forces? If he really thinks that, it’s dumb.
* February 2006: Muqtada al-Sadr orders an end to execution-style killings by Mahdi Army death squads.
* August 2006: Sadr announces a broad ceasefire, which he has maintained ever since.
* September 2006: The Sunni Awakening begins. Tribal leaders, first in Anbar and later in other provinces, start fighting back against al-Qaeda insurgents.
* March 2007: The surge begins.
Say what you will about the surge, which does indeed deserve a share of the credit for reducing violence and increasing security in Baghdad. But it pretty obviously wasn’t related to either the Shia militia stand-down or the Sunni Awakening, since both those things began before Petraeus took over in Iraq and before the surge was even a gleam in George Bush’s eye.
Responding to Presumptive Republican Nominee and non-geographer John McCain’s fatuous attack on Obama claiming that:
I don’t know how you respond to something that is as– such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarlane [phonetic] was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that’s just a matter of history.
Ackerman points out that Colonel McFarland himself was explaining the success of the Anbar Awakening to Pam Hess of the UPI in September of 2006, several months before teh Surge was announced by Bush:
I think al Qaeda has been pushed up against the ropes by this, and now they’re finding themselves trapped between the coalition and ISF on the one side, and the people on the other.
Leading Ackerman to conclude:
For McCain to say that the Anbar Awakening is the product of the surge is either a lie or professional malpractice for a presidential candidate who is staking his election on his allegedly superior Iraq judgment.
I’m voting for the fuck up rather than the lie, personally.
Unless it can be demonstrated that teh Surge is so magic it can go back in time and cause the Anbar Sheiks to shift their allegiances, coerce Sadr to reign his militias, and then declare a ceasefire.
In which case I want teh Surge to go back in time again and put $100,000 on the Giants to win the Super Bowl, before the season started.
