THE SURGE IS SUCCEEDING BRILLIANTLY: KEEP IT QUIET

The surge offensive ordered by Bush under the command of Petraeus is inconveniently kicking butt; inconvenient for those who want our troops to fail that is.

Kimberly Kagan [ED: a military historian who has taught at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Yale University, Georgetown University, and American University. She is currently an affiliate of the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. Dr. Kagan previously held an Olin Postdoctoral Fellowship in Military History at Yale International Security Studies in 2004-2005 and was a National Security Fellow at Harvard’s Olin Institute for Strategic Studies in 2002-2003. She is the author of The Eye of Command (University of Michigan Press, 2006) and editor of The Imperial Moment (under contract with Harvard University Press). She received her Ph. D. in History from Yale University. ] keeps a 'drily forensic' analysis of the war which is bringing leftists foaming at the mouth out of the woodwork flinging 'vituperative, sometimes obscene denunciations' from hate-blinded Leftist blogs.

Here is a summarized excerpt from her report on the progress of the latest surge:

"In January, as soon as Bush announced the surge strategy, Petraeus and his staff began active preparations for the principal objective: the clearing of subversive forces from Baghdad. The initial step was to establish in neighbourhoods dominated by Al Qa'eda and violent militias a network of joint security stations and combat posts permanently manned by American and Iraqi troops. I guess you could think of them as mini fortresses or super police boxes.

They have had the effect of at least easing the reins of terror exercised by insurgent gangs over the neighbourhoods. Progressively, Petraeus has also taken control, often in violent skirmishes in which the Americans appear to have had the best of the fighting of the industrial and semi-rural areas surrounding Baghdad where the insurgents maintained their supply routes, their bomb factories and their safe houses. In effect, Petraeus has encircled Baghdad with his troops and armour. He has established an inner line more or less tracing the city's perimeter and an outer circle 25-50 kms from Baghdad's edges.

As they arrived in Iraq, most of the reinforcements have been deployed in these encircling positions. Between January and June, the allied forces assumed control over virtually all the highways and river crossings within the encirclement that insurgents had used to move in and out of Baghdad, and along which they had transported supplies."

There is more and all of it's good. (Source: Frank Devine, The Australian (newspaper) 20th July)

No wonder the Left is enraged against this factual, real news report coming from Iraq countering the civilian death tally that the MSM is always drivelling out. This is good news. It shows that headway is being made in Iraq, despite the wishes of those who would like to see carnage and defeat.

What would a win mean? Well it would mean that George Bush could not be forced into a humiliating pullout from the war before he leaves office with the resulting fallout carried over to other allies such as Australia's leader, John Howard. It's no secret that the Left would rather see every last Iraq civilian and military person dead in the street before Bush would be permitted to claim victory for the war.

To read more, you can access Kimberly Kagan's excellent, if quite dense site here
Cross-posted here