Asshat Quote of the Day

The clear assertion is that the "left", which includes in the Iraq case, many, many conservatives, not only knows that the surge is working, but wants to withdraw precisely because the surge is working. Because, apparently, they hate America and a free society so much they are happy to consign Iraq to a burgeoning civil war rather than face reality. Because they hate patriotic and courageous soldiers.

This is pure toxin. The truth, of course, is that this might conceivably apply to a fringe on the extreme left - but they never supported the war in the first place. Those of us who did and who have watched as the effort has been bungled morally, strategically and diplomatically to almost comic degrees, are guilty of a few things. We are guilty of accepting that there is no good, medium term end to this catastrophe; we are guilty of sticking to the basic premises of counter-insurgency warfare when judging how far the surge can go; we are guilty of tending to the very political benchmarks that Petraeus and every other sane observer has called the essential metric for judging the surge's progress; we are guilty, unlike Kristol, of taking some moral responsibility for the carnage and evil our previous positions have helped unleash and, in the case of torture, actually imposed. - Andrew Sullivan

After all this time, and after all his "I was wrong" ramblings, Sullivan still feels the need to demonize the dirty fucking hippies that were, in fact, right all along. Sully thinks those same dirty fucking hippies that were against the war in the first place are the very same ones who want us to loose and hate the troops today. That is pure toxin.

That is another variation on Sullivan's ,"decadent left enclaves on the coasts [that] may well mount a fifth column" claim he made years ago when he was still a conservative toadie in proper standing with the WSJ. Being right doesn't matter much.. it's all about being "serious".

Sullivan, to this day, completely misses the point. He was wrong about the most important thing a pundit could be wrong about. He still seems to think that the idea of invading Iraq was a good one, if only it hadn't been bungled.. when a more observant pundit (those aforementioned dirty fucking hippies for example) should have known it was going to be a colossal failure.

Or, as Tim Robbins said, "If you fuck things up, you can no longer be an expert."

No Sully, you are not "guilty of a few things". You have not taken any "moral responsibility", because you still write about politics and you still show up on my teevee from time to time.

You are guilty in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

As for the success of the "surge"? Not so much...

Warren P. Strobel and Leila Fadel write for McClatchy Newspapers: "A new assessment of Iraq by U.S. intelligence agencies provides little evidence that the American troop 'surge' has accomplished its goals and predicts that the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will become 'more precarious' in the months ahead.

"A declassified summary of the report released Thursday said that violence remains high, warns that U.S. alliances with former Sunni Muslim insurgents could undercut the central government and says that political compromises are 'unlikely to emerge' in the next 12 months."

Mark Mazzetti writes in the New York Times: "The assessment, known as a National Intelligence Estimate, casts strong doubts on the viability of the Bush administration strategy in Iraq. It gives a dim prognosis on the likelihood that Iraqi politicians can heal deep sectarian rifts before next spring, when American military commanders have said that a crunch on available troops will require reducing the United States' presence in Iraq.

"But the report also implicitly criticizes proposals offered by Democrats, including several presidential candidates, who have called for a withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq by next year and for a major shift in the American approach, from manpower-intensive counterinsurgency operations to lower-profile efforts aimed at supporting Iraqi troops and carrying out quick-strike counterterrorism raids.

The essential point, however, is that there really is no end in sight. It's going to go on and on and on.. and bleed us dry. Read the link to see the costs..

There's just too many people with a stake in the unending war to allow it to end. The "surge" is a magic poney. It can do anything.