Quote Originally Posted by Dâriûsh
Are we talking about 20,000 additional soldiers into the Baghdad area, or just 20,000 soldiers dispersed like confetti across Iraq? Baghdad has what? Near 7 million inhabitants, 3 million at least in Sadr City. Perhaps 20,000 soldiers could help suppress the militias in Baghdad for a while, but that’s about it.
As I understand it, the deployment is intended for Baghdad and some nearby troublespots.

The key to Baghdad at present is Moqtadr al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, which the US wants to deal with but Maliki is not strong enough to sanction the actions necessary - even if he wanted to, since he is more of a pawn of al-Sadr's than the US. The only possibility for dealing with the Shia militias in that part of Baghdad is to raze it to the ground - backstreet urban fighting will get a large part of that "surge" coming home in coffins.

A "Fallujah" type action is politically unacceptable. Not only for the humanitarian reasons that seem to escape some posters, but because it would completely inflame the Shia across the Middle East and endanger client governments like Saudi Arabia. Not only that, like Fallujah, it would not even work to suppress the insurgency for long.

People should remember that the US invaded on flimsy pretexts - there was not and is not a moral right to go around massacring even more thousands of civilians out of political expediency. The USA is not a totalitarian state aiming to be ranked with the worst in history. The administration has made a bad mistake, foolish even (given the advice that was available to them before the invasion) but it is not evil. Just because her leaders are unable (as yet) to be charged with war crimes, doesn't make it OK to commit them.

It is time to leave. There is nothing the US can do except lose more of its own troops and kill more civilians. Iraq is in civil war, and the US is powerless. Her power to act is limited precisely because her citizens are decent, freedom-loving people and contrary to what some of you seem to think, this is a good thing. This is why the US is looked up to by many throughout the world, why this episode and its corollaries has caused such counter-reaction - because free peoples (and many that are still unfree) actually care that the US stands for something greater than rapine, destruction and endless tribal warfare.

The civil war will play itself out one way or another - today, after 3,000 US troop deaths and 500,000 Iraqis - or next year, after another 1,000+ troop deaths and who knows how many more innocent Iraqis. Leave now and accept that this should never have been done, and never will again.

Yes, many thousands more Iraqis will die in the ensuing war but there will be no foreign invaders to exacerbate things and the knowledge will be stark that the solution is entirely and truthfully in Iraqi hands. (It's laughable to see serious people saying that Iraq's government has any power to effect change. Let alone the militias, if Maliki decided that he would listen to the advice of the Iraq Group and proposed to engage actively with Iran, do you think his solution would be countenanced for a moment?)

More troops now will provide more targets and more US deaths. In short, the assorted groups in Iraq see the occupation as the problem. Enhancing the occupation enhances the insurgency.