WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Satellite images taken at night show heavily Sunni Arab neighborhoods of Baghdad began emptying before a U.S. troop surge in 2007, graphic evidence of ethnic cleansing that preceded a drop in violence, according to a report published on Friday.

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN1953066020080919

The “Surge” was essentially a political gimmick designed to quell violence in specific areas and create the impression that the United States was still in control. As Obama has pointed out, it hasn’t done anything to promote long term stability, it hasn’t quelled the huge tensions between Sunni and Shiite faction, and hasn’t strengthened the Iraqi government’s ability to govern. The notion that America is now “winning the war” in Iraq is ridiculous — a short term reduction in violence does not constitute anything other than that — a short term reduction in violence (although 53 people were recently killed in a spate of suicide bombs).

This article, by Ben Cohen, also questions John McCain’s selling “of the “Surge” like a used car dealer, and questioning anyone’s patriotism if they dare oppose him.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-cohen/why-the-media-fears-john_b_115494.html

[T]he main reason that violence in Iraq has declined to the still-hideous levels of 2005 is probably that Shiite militias, inadvertently enabled by U.S. troops, carried out a successful mini-genocidal campaign of ethnic cleansing against Sunni residents in Baghdad. Once you’ve killed or expelled all those who belong to the evil tribe, there’s no reason to keep killing. For McCain to praise the surge as leading to “victory” in Iraq is like praising a foreign power for “pacifying” Rwanda by alternately backing the Hutus and the Tutsi. (It goes without saying that McCain has nothing to say about the moral responsibility we bear for the nightmare in Iraq.)

For the factors that led to a lower level of violence in Iraq — the completed ethnic cleansing, the increase in U.S. troop strength, bribery, Sunni revulsion at al-Qaida’s horrific tactics, the Mahdi Army’s decision to stand down — represent the reverse of the simplistic, raising-the-flag-on-Iwo-Jima vision trumpeted by McCain and the Bush administration. When America has made progress in Iraq — and all claims of “progress” must be measured against the fact that the war we started essentially destroyed the country — it has been primarily due not, as war mythology would have it, to U.S. troops killing evil jihadists, but to far murkier factors — the unintended consequences of ugly actions, canny political maneuverings, and back-room deals with deeply flawed players.

In this well-written article, Kamiya concludes that McCain’s best hope for winning the upcoming election is that “neither the media nor the American people possess much memory.”

http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2008/07/29/mccain/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/03/20/iraq.main/index.html

the media — and even a number of Democrats — are swallowing this triumphalist nonsense whole, and washing it down with a pitcher of revisionist Kool-Aid. The result: a collective case of political amnesia. Everyone seems more than happy to forget what the president’s own stated goal for the surge was: to create “the breathing space [the Iraqi government] needs to make progress in other critical areas.”

But here we are, 18 months later, and McCain and the GOP are being allowed to change the goal. . . . [E]ven though Bush originally claimed that “a successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations,” the surge is now being judged exclusively on the success of “military operations.”

Here’s Huffington’s full post.

[I] would also like to note the false analogy between war supporters and surge opponents. The war is a strategic decision. The surge is a tactic. Actually, it’s a triage decision. It’s the answer to the question, what’s the best way to stop the bleeding?

Here’s the full link.

The administration lacks an updated and comprehensive Iraq strategy to move beyond the “surge” of combat troops President Bush launched in January 2007 as an 18-month effort to curtail violence and build Iraqi democracy, government investigators said yesterday.

While agreeing with the administration that violence has decreased sharply, a report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office concluded that many other goals Bush outlined a year and a half ago in the “New Way Forward” strategy remain unmet.

Here’s the full article from the Washington Post.

In short, a wonderfully successful “surge” can perfectly consistent with a disasterous Iraq occupation. In fact, that is exactly what we actually have.