well it has been over a month; how do things look?

greetings. i was unable to post to this blog for a month or so. the usa government has committed additional troops to secure baghdad and iraq. cause for celebration?

well, the overall picture is not rosy:

• The Iraqi government is unlikely to meet any of the political and security goals or timelines President Bush set for it in January when he announced a major shift in U.S. policy, according to senior administration officials closely involved in the matter. ("Administration Shaving Yardstick for Iraq Gains: Goals Unmet; Smaller Strides to Be Promoted," By Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post Staff Writers, Sunday, July 8, 2007; Page A01)

the alternative "strides" have to do with deaths down in june, but have little to do with any political advances that were supposed to take place with the breathing room provided by the "surge."

but i don't understand how they can take any comfort with the numbers of dead iraqis:

• Nearly five months into a security strategy that involves thousands of additional U.S. and Iraqi troops patrolling Baghdad, the number of unidentified bodies found on the streets of the capital was 41 percent higher in June than in January, according to unofficial Health Ministry statistics. ("Body Count In Baghdad Up in June," By Joshua Partlow, Washington Post Foreign Service, Thursday, July 5, 2007; Page A01,)
  

one small piece of good news: the insurgents attack away from the center of the surge, away from the show of force by the usa. but the proof of such a response to american strength is hardly cause for rejoicing:

• A suicide truck bomber blasted a Shiite town north of Baghdad on Saturday, killing more than 100 people, police said, in a sign Sunni insurgents are pulling away from a U.S. offensive around the capital to attack where security is thinner.
• The marketplace devastation underlined a hard reality in Iraq: There are not enough forces to protect everywhere. U.S. troops, already increased by 28,000 this year, are focused on bringing calm to Baghdad, while the Iraqi military and police remain overstretched and undertrained.
• The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, told The Associated Press he expected Sunni extremists to try to "pull off a variety of sensational attacks and grab the headlines to create a `mini-Tet.'" ("Suicide Bomb Kills Over 100 in Iraq," by YAHYA BARZANJI, July 7, 2007, AP, from TUZ KHORMATO, Iraq)

note, too, that for some reason the usa military is allowed to make all sorts of unlikely comparisons to vietnam (a "mini-Tet'!?), but any obvious reference to quagmire, no light at the end of the tunnel, etc., is met by stay-the-course politicians.

in one sense, this war is unlike earlier wars, including vietnam: the vast number of mercenaries, contractors fighting the war by proxy:

• The number of U.S.-paid private contractors in Iraq now exceeds that of American combat troops, newly released figures show, raising fresh questions about the privatization of the war effort....
• More than 180,000 civilians — including Americans, foreigners and Iraqis — are working in Iraq under U.S. contracts, according to State and Defense department figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
  
• Including the recent troop buildup, 160,000 soldiers and a few thousand civilian government employees are stationed in Iraq.
• The total number of private contractors, far higher than previously reported, shows how heavily the Bush administration has relied on corporations to carry out the occupation of Iraq. ("Private contractors outnumber U.S. troops in Iraq: New U.S. data show how heavily the Bush administration has relied on corporations to carry out the occupation of the war-torn nation," By T. Christian Miller, LA Times Staff Writer, July 4, 2007)

so the number of troops is never going to settle the peace. indeed, the iraq situation will never be solved by surges of any sort. it will be solved by political and economic will (more theirs ; than ours). that is not defeatism; that is the logic of all civil wars.

so, the facts, as mr. gradgrind would note, all militate against any positive result from furthering a build up of military force in iraq. thus, it is not surprising (except that it took them this long to do it, that the new york times, has come out today for a usa military withdrawal:

• It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.
• Like many Americans, we have put off that conclusion, waiting for a sign that President Bush was seriously trying to dig the United States out of the disaster he created by invading Iraq without sufficient cause, in the face of global opposition, and without a plan to stabilize the country afterward.
• At first, we believed that after destroying Iraq’s government, army, police and economic structures, the United States was obliged to try to accomplish some of the goals Mr. Bush claimed to be pursuing, chiefly building a stable, unified Iraq....
• But...milestones came and went without any progress toward a stable, democratic Iraq or a path for withdrawal. It is frighteningly clear that Mr. Bush’s plan is to stay the course as long as he is president and dump the mess on his successor. Whatever his cause was, it is lost. ("Editorial: The Road Home," New York Times, July 8, 2007)

time for the freda payne option: bring the boys home.