We're on a surge to nowhere...

By Libby

Cernig in a post that should be read in full, flags a Financial Times editorial that lambastes the Bush administration and the ridiculous testimony of Crocker and Petraeus, all of whom continue to insist that the surge is a "success." Read more at the post but here are a couple of the more pithy quotes.

The claims made by President George W. Bush and an increasingly reedy chorus of neo-conservative boosters for the “surge” of US troops in Iraq have long been ludicrous. The multi-sided ethno-sectarian conflict fuelled by the occupation has not been “turned around” and strategic success – whatever that now means – is nowhere in prospect.

...there are no signs the surge can deliver enduring gains. It is not even clear how much longer it can keep Iraq in its present holding pattern, a bloodsoaked gridlock of militia rule fragmenting the country. [...]

Widespread perceptions that the surge is a smashing success may be because the US media changed the subject. Since Mr Bush announced the surge, Iraq coverage has fallen four-fifths and become more upbeat, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. That may be about to change – with consequences in the presidential campaign, especially for Senator John McCain who insists that the surge is working.

It is not. It has yielded none of the political compromises Iraqis must make in order to continue living together. On the contrary, the US is inadvertently encouraging factional intransigence.

For myself, I wonder how inadvertent it really is. As long as the surge continues to fail, the Bush regime's corporate cronies will continue to line their pockets with the taxpayer's money. Clearly they have no interest in stopping that gravy train until the day Commander Guy leaves office, and he's doing his damnedest to make sure that even the next administration won't be able to walk away easily.