Question about the "surge."

[jasmine621]

Isn't Anbar Province safer because it has been ethnically cleansed?

[baldguy]

1. The escalation of the war by the Bush Administration made it safe for genocide to occur.

[rasputin1952]

2. The only thing that will make any part of Iraq safer...

is for the Iraqi's to stand up and we stand down.

From a tactical point of view, it was essentially a bust. It was telegraphed long before it happened, and most of the "targets" simply left the area, or went underground.

From a strategic point of view, the potential for disaster is extremely high. Without Iraqi's standing up for their own security, nothing will come of this except more violence. The mores of the present society do not give up things lightly. The leadership in many Muslim factions keep the remembrance of 1000 year old Crusade going, and the societies that have come from that area continue to use 750 year old "grudges" as excuses to kill people that "offend" them. The culture has to shift, and that is unlikely. What we have done, is qualify a deep mistrust of Western ideology just by being in the area.

I despise people like Osama bin-Laden, but he told essentially the truth when he said 9-11 was "retaliation" for American military personnel in Mecca and other Saudi cities/states. So strategically this was just another blunder.