Okay, so now that Obama has proven himself to be an elitist dickhead who wastes his time caring about what people are thinking in other, less important countries like Europe, it’s time for the media to test his military mettle. McCain already passed the military knowledge test by being a prisoner of war. When countries take prisoners of war, they always choose the soldiers who display the strongest historical knowledge and aptitude for diplomacy, so the Vietnamese already vetted him for us.

The thing that’s really hurting Obama’s chances to become president today is his mistake in refusing to support the troop surge. The surge is working, and Obama didn’t believe it would, and therefore, Obama doesn’t know much about how to win wars. Everywhere he goes, he’s being asked the question, “Everywhere you go, you’re being asked the question, ‘do you regret your vote on the troop surge?’” Obama responds, “hey, I just kinda blew the mind of the entire world and single-handedly recaptured all of the goodwill that the Bush administration pissed-away over the last 8 years, can you cut me a little slack, maybe?” And the reporters say, “so how ’bout that boner on the troop surge deal, huh?”

Today I typed the question “did the surge work” into Google, because I’m not entirely sure at what point it was determined that George Bush’s decision to send more troops to Iraq in 2007 has solved the problems we were facing in that country. I remember when, just after Bush landed on the Mission Accomplished carrier, Democrats liberals were asked if they regretted their opposition to the war in the face of this obvious victory. That, I remember. I remember when Iraqiis voted for the first time, and Democrats liberals were asked if they regretted their opposition to the war in the face of this obvious victory. But I don’t seem to remember the moment when it was determined that this time, we are, without question, finally on the right track.

The first article that comes up is this one. It’s very interesting, but it’s on a site called “antiwar.com,” which leads me to believe they might have some sort of a bias. I went to the New York Times to see what they had to say about the matter, and all I got were two articles (here and here) talking about how McCain and Obama are “sparring” over whether or not the surge worked. If it’s a he-said, she-said sort of deal, than this does not help me understand why Obama has been asked about his wrongheaded position with the sort of incredulity reserved for Holocaust deniers. The Washington Post was equally useless — all I could find were opinion pieces where writers claimed the surge was working and offered little in the way of facts.

The only real fact I can find is that “levels of violence are at a 4 year low.” I don’t know how many attacks there were 4 years ago or how many attacks there are today. I don’t know if that means attacks on Americans, attacks on Iraqiis, or both. I don’t know if an “attack” includes all forms of violence, or if it only refers to bombings or shootings.

I do know that in addition to the troop surge, part of our strategy involved paying Sunni insurgents money to join our noble struggle:

September 9, 2007 — American forces are paying Sunni insurgents hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to switch sides and help them to defeat Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The tactic has boosted the efforts of American forces to restore some order to war-torn provinces around Baghdad in the run-up to a report by General David Petraeus, the US commander, to Congress tomorrow.

Petraeus will tell Congress that there has been great progress at a local level in Iraq following a surge in the number of troops this year, but little sign of political reconciliation.

So that strategy has seemingly worked pretty well. I also know that the “al-Qaeda in Iraq” that we’re fighting over there didn’t exist before the war started, that we still have about 8,000 more troops in Iraq than we did before the surge began, and that just a couple of months ago, General Patraeus said the Iraqi government was still not ready to stand on its own.

I guess the answer to my question, then, is that the surge has (probably) succeeded in not necessitating another surge. As long as our goal wasn’t to make the country safe, rebuild its infrastructure, withdraw our troops, or win the “war,” the surge was part of an excellent strategy that is meeting with great success, and I, for one, am ashamed that the Democratic candidate doesn’t have the guts to admit he was wrong.