what really happened in Iraq re: the Surge

We lucked out that Al Qaeda in Iraq didn't understand a fucking thing about guerilla warfare other than staging small ambushes and retreating.

If they had, they wouldn't have brutalized the one ethnic/religious group there willing to hide them and work with them: the Sunnis. Rule one of guerilla warfare: get the indigenous people on your side, give them assistance, medicine, food whatever you can -force your enemy to attack the people in order to get to you, turn the people against them, expand your ranks with locals.

THEY fucked up, WE didn't do anything other than take advantage of their mistakes: they came as strangers into the Anbar province, offered nothing to the people there but blood-shed, started shooting people up, torturing people and acting like they ran the show even though they were a small group of outsiders ..........the people had enough and turned on them.

they call this the Anbar awakening as in Sunnis awoke to the fact Al Qaeda are fucking assholes.

Couple that with the massive losses for the Repugs in the last round of elections and the people in Iraq saw the writing on that wall that they better get their shit together because we American's were getting tired of waiting on their dumb asses while our kids died.

In other words, 1) The Surge didn't work 2) Al Qaeda in Iraq defeated itself 3) Republican losses here at home put the pressure on the Iraqis to get it together 4) McCain is an idiot.