Gov. Palin has repeatedly said over the last two days that “the surge has succeeded”. That’s interesting, because as of 9/5/08, there are still 146,000 American troops in Iraq, thousands more then before the surge. Military leaders in Iraq are asking to hold off on troop reductions. The U.S. still spends $10 billion a month in Iraq. The Iraqi government still has not taken responsibility, not only to govern their country, but to use a significant amount of their $80 billion surplus towards rebuilding Iraq. So this is success? If it is success, why aren’t we already reducing troop levels, at least down to the pre-surge level? Sen. Obama has said, many times, that the surge has helped to reduced violence, but has not changed the political or economic issues in Iraq that the surge was supposed to support. The fact we still can’t reduce levels is not a sign of success. It has however prevented us from refocusing on Afghanistan, where we left the real war on terror, and where we are now seeing the highest levels of American casualties, a number that has been rising every month. Now U.S. military leaders in Afghanistan are asking for more support, and we don’t have troops available, because we sent them into a country that they should never have been fighting in. So this is success?
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