Thursday, December 20, 2007

The truth behind the Surge


From The Vineyard of the Saker

"The so-called 'Surge', and its alleged success, are based on two fundamental tactics: the first one is the so-called 'Redirection' which consists of buying off the Sunni resistance, including all those groups who only yesterday were called 'terrorists'; the second new tactic is massive increasing in the use of airpower. The blog Lenin's Tomb has just published an excellent analysis which proves that the occupation forces are now truly engaged into a 'rolling wave of massacres' as 'Lenin' writes:

Both countries have taken a hammering, but Afghanistan in particular has taken the brunt of a massive series of air attacks in part due to the 'risk-transfer' conception of war, in which civilians are to bear the brunt of death and destruction rather than US combatants. The hostile terrain of Afghanistan, and the fact that few are actually covering it very extensively, makes it an ideal target for this kind of ferocious assault - with, as we saw last year, a rolling wave of massacres in the country. Inevitably, since the air war hasn't been covered much by the media, and given its insensitivity to 'enemy' casualties, those massacres reported are a tiny sample of the true total. Without a Lancet-style survey, we will remain very much in the dark about the true nature of this assault and its effects.

Arming the Sunnis + using air strikes = a successful 'Surge', at least statistically, for the time being. In reality, this will make the situation even worse as the Sunnis will inevitably turn on the occupation force they hate, the Shias will be even further alienated by their betrayal, and the thousands of new civilian casualties will only result in more hatred for the brutal occupation. Add to this the US support for Turkey against the Kurds and you have all the ingredients of a complete nightmare and even more bloodshed. The 'Surge' will go down in history as one of the dumbest and most immoral political stunts ever devised."

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