Friday, July 31, 2009

Surge Baby Surge!

Yeah, yeah -- we know --

Surge was yet another misguided attempt to stabilize a horrific democrazy imposition that unleashed Great Satan's ungodly penchant for destroying wonderful despotic cruel societies, enablers, creeps, jerks and retards (in the classic sense no less) and Xforming them into fun, free choice and modern successful nation states at the point of the world famous M 16.

Oh! The humanity!

Though several cool tomes are out there that paint a way diff pic that refutes such literary chicanery - Like "Strongest Tribe" and the essential "Moment of Truth" it is sweet! to check in with the better half of the daemoneoconic Doc who dreamed up Surge for the Iraq Study Group and the literally killer cool military history of Surge as only the super hot! Doc -- Kimberly Kagan can.

Kimberly is the pres of the Institute for the Study of War in D.C. She is a military historian who has taught at the Military Academy at West Point, Yale University, Georgetown University, and American University.


"The Surge: A Military History" by the creator of Institute for the Study of War sweetly disses grotesque oversimplification of Surge and what it meant.

In this def voluptuous volume, Kimberly sets the record straight, describing the complete operational history of Surge from its inception to the end of 2007. Kagan’s detailed analysis looks at all the players—from al Qaeda in Iraq, and the Iranian-backed Special Groups, to the Jaysh al Mahdi - - and reveals naughty hottie details of day-to-day strategeries, locations, tactics, organization, and responses to Great Satan's actions.

Look for Great Satan haters to freak as the reasons for the reduction in violence and its strategic significance are subjects of continuing debate in the media and in DC.

Many of them make the mistake that the positive trends in Iraq have occurred simply because Mookie screamed for a ceasefire or because Great Satan bought off Sunni insurgents.

Such risible and bass ackwards assertions ignore the key variable in the equation:

Great Satan's change in strategy and her Surge forces.

"The Surge" is essential reading for anyone who wants to know how Iraq was saved from the brink of disaster. Perhaps out of modesty, Kimberly does not stress her own role, as pres and creator of Institute for the Study of War, in pushing for the surge or the role of her husband, Frederick Kagan, in designing (with Gen. John Keane) many of its components."

The Surge" challenges existing accounts in two ways.

First, although Ms. Kagan is sweetly respectful of Gen. David Petraeus, who led Great Satan's uparmored regime changers during Surge, she never really plays up P4's genius at the expense of other important cats.

She draws attention to the pivotal role played by Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, who commanded the day-to-day operations of the Multi-National Corps in Iraq. She shows him helping to ensure that co-operating tribal forces submit fingerprints, weapons serial numbers and family details that would make it difficult for them to take up arms again.

It was Lt. Gen. Odierno who executed Operation Phantom Thunder in June 2007, synchronized operations that, as he told Ms. Kagan, aimed to "eliminate accelerants to Baghdad violence from enemy support zones."

Other key players include Col. J.B. Burton, commander of the Dagger Brigade that annihilated and drove the insurgents out of northwest Baghdad, and David Sutherland, whose combat team pacified the eastern province of Diyala. Ms. Kagan does not mention -- though she might have -- the analysts who helped the Great Satan to rethink her counterinsurgency strategy, such as John Nagl and David Kilcullen.


Second, Dr. Kagan nails the notion that the surge marked a shift from unreflective war-fighting to a "smarter" strategy that combined military and civil elements hair to the floor so tight -- it can't even blink.


This faux school idea, in its extreme form, holds that the additional brigades were a relatively minor factor in a process driven primarily by a political change of heart among former insurgents.

Kimberly shows the opposite to have been the case, and her work proves that that the real deal why Great Satan won in Iraq was that she returned to doing what she does best: war-fighting, killing killers and leaving them on the side of the road for a stranger to bury.


Pic -- "Surge highlights Great Satan's regality"

8 comments:

Stormwarning said...

Do you have any idea that you've gone viral with this post?

Jeff Wills said...

The surge worked but I fear an Obama strategy may undo all the gains. We shall see. Kimberly Kagan is great and I enjoy her work. The Strongest Tribe by Bing West was really good. West is a great writer. As for Pulitzers, it's highly unlikely a conservative or anyone writing a book supporting such policies will win an award coming out of Columbia University. I think we need a book award with big bucks awarded regardless of poltical leaning. Conservatives seem to miss the boat on that and conservative TV also. Where is a conservative SNL or a conservative Pulitzer style book award?

AmPowerBlog said...

American Power tracked-back with, "'Turning the Tide of Battle': The Surge: A Military History".

tom ricks said...

Hi, I saw this on SWJ.

Cute post, but I am not sure what you mean by my book being "source free." I have a copy here next to me and it is chockablock with on the record stuff, from hundreds of hours of interviews done in Iraq in 2007 and 2008.

Best,
Tom Ricks

Right Truth said...

Congrats Courtney. It's about time you got some real recognition.

Debbie
Right Truth
http://www.righttruth.typepad.com

brat said...

Way to go! :)

Maggie Thornton said...

Courtney, you've been blogging this war inside out. This is deserved. "Cute post" is not deserved.

Maggie
Maggie's Notebook

Peter said...

I'm trying to figure out what is good about taming American power. Someone is going to exercise power. When we do, mostly people live and do well. When we fail to exercise power, like in the mid 1970s when the Democrats in Congress abrogated our treaty with South Viet Nam and let the RVN die without promised naval and air support, plus the ammo they were promised, millions died in Southeast Asia.
So, who will exert power if we don't? Those lovely humanitarians of China? Maybe North Korea? Ogabe of Zimbabwe? The child rapists of the UN?
If not us, who? The available choices do not look good.