Is the war party never satisfied or are they just very confused?
Glenn Reynolds links to a piece by Matt Sanchez
MATT SANCHEZ WRITES FROM IRAQ: “There should be no doubt, the so-called surge is working, but, in September, I am afraid General Petraeus will downplay the positive effect for fear of appearing too partisan.”
For the last time: the surge only can be considered “working” if the security successes lead to actual political progress. Without the latter, the former doesn’t matter. At all. It’s just not clear why these people don’t have a basic understanding of the policy they purport to know so much about.
And I love the “Petraeus really knows the truth but he’ll lie so people don’t think he’s a Republican” take.
What a piece of work.
This is in the same week that Petraeus insisted the surge was working.
THE US troop surge in Iraq has thrown al-Qa’ida off balance and produced a dramatic reduction in sectarian killings and a drop in roadside bombings.
Actually it was the Sunni “insurgents” that did it, not the US troops surge (unless arming those who were killing US troops is what they mean by the surge), but let them pretend otherwise.
This comes after it was revealed that Patraeus has “softened” an early draft of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, by altering the document’s judgments about the violence in Iraq.
Presented with a draft of the conclusions, Petraeus succeeded in having the security judgments softened to reflect improvements in recent months, the official said.
I suppose Sanchez and Reynolds thought that Patraeus wimped out by not trashing the whole document and writing his own. Or was it that he left out the part about how troops are being greeted as liberators and how so many flowers are being thrown at their feet that it is harming the environment?