Commenter "db_fan" pointed out this excellent article as a counter-point to Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack's positive assessment on the status of the surge in Iraq.

A few thoughts:

1. I salute Staff Sergeants Gray and Murphy, Sergeants Mora, Sandmeier and Roebuck and Specialist Jayahama. Even though any neutral observer would tell you Rush wasn't calling all dissenters "Phony Soldiers"(just low-lifes like Jesse Macbeth and Pablo Paredes), you're not going to get even a whiff of that from me. If you've served your stint honourably, I salute you and what you've done because you've done more than I ever have.
2. These men are one enlisted man and five non-coms in the 82nd Airborne (one of the best units in the U.S. Army, bar none), which lends further credence to their remarks. Since the days of the Legionnaire, it's been the non-com that's been the backbone of any competent professional fighting force.
   
   I said "competent", Russia. Your military and the lieutenants it uses instead of non-coms can take your post-Cold War record and sit back down, please.
   
   I digress.
   
   I respect the heck out of sergeants, as does anyone who's spent anytime at all studying infantry tactics. They have an ear to the ground and know how to interpret the orders of their officers and squad leaders and lead suppressive fire and if they're good, they're the men that other men would gladly follow through the gates of Hell itself, and if a sergeant's good, his world revolves around the safety and effectiveness of the men in their care, and God bless 'em for doing so.
   
3. But it's exactly that ground-hogs-eye view that makes me pause here. They're eminently qualified to comment on the tactics and effectiveness of the men they work with in the Iraqi Army and police force, but they are *not* qualified to speak to the effectiveness of plans of their superior officers within their own army to improve that situation, for any number of reasons.
   
   Remember what I said about a ground-hogs-eye view? A Colonel or General has access to information and briefings that grunts just don't get, and this shapes how they plan an prepare for a battle or operation. A sergeant needs to know how to clear a room, how to direct fire, how to call in an airstrike and other tactical information. A Colonel or General needs to know many different things that are different but equally as complex. I want a sergeant telling me how to assault a house and a General telling me how to win a war, and God help the army where those roles are confused.
   
4. And that ground-hogs-eye view is limited to one area at one time. When these sergeants say the Iraqi locals don't trust Americans and are recalcitrant, I believe them. But I also believe others in different areas of Iraq who say the locals are eager, willing and able to help American soldiers. A war can be many things all at once: If you listened to a Canadian non-com slogging inch by painful inch in the hedgerows outside of Caen in July, 1944, you'd get an entirely different picture of the war than from an American sergeant romping through the Normandy Penisula with Patton's Third Army. Is one lying and the other telling the truth? By no means! Each sees the war as they see it, and each, in their own way, is correct.
   
5. But as a piece of criticism, it's fantastic. It's well-written, doesn't get personal or accusing, and raises some legitimate points regarding Iraq's future, especially the non-military areas. Is the political situation in Iraq dicey? Of course it is. Is it beyond hope? Hmmm.
   
   I'm from a Scots-Irish background, which means my distant relatives engaged in some vigorous and destructive gunplay with Irish Catholics as to which government would rule over Northern Ireland. If you told me that conflict would be resolved in my lifetime, I'd of laughed at you, and I give full credit to George Mitchell, Bill Clinton and everyone else involved in the process of bringing that seemingly intractable war to an end. Counter-insurgencies can be won and have been won, just not by the U.S. yet. We as a nation need to prove to our enemies that the strategy of insurgent warfare leads only to their defeat and humiliation.
   
   And quite frankly, the political and economic areas of the Iraq war need to be tackled with the same vigor as the military portions of the Surge, and soon. I agree with Thomas Barnett yet again, a "Department of Everything Else" is what wins the long-term war, not tanks or stealth fighters, an area where Kaplan and another pro-War analyst, Max Boot, agree with Barnett. This tells me it's a good idea, and needs to be something that Petraeus does, and soon. But that effort is and will be hampered if the Congress falsely sees him as Bush's lackey.
   
   Ridiculous. In 1943, did Congress see Patton or Macarthur as Roosevelt's lackies? No wonder Congress currently has the approval rating it does.
   

We've circled back to the central theme from my previous article, respect for the military, belief in the job they're doing and support for them to carry it out. Where would Northern Ireland be if James Callahan or Margaret Thatcher pulled out all British troops? What about Malaysia or Oman or the many, many other successful COINOPS around the globe?

And it's pretty easy to judge which side of the Iraq War actually has the respect for the our soldiers in uniform. Republicans fought the Clinton administration sending in troops to Kosovo (which, BTW, I thought was a legitimate and good use of troops and supported it fully), but they never, ever, wondered whether General Clark was telling them the truth as he was commanding our soldiers nor did they support ads that loudly proclaiming he was betraying us.

Consider that, and consider that maybe "Supporting the troops" isn't enough. The troops fight and win wars. Cheering for them to lose or at the very least not get hurt is like going to a DBacks game and rooting for them to fail (or only not be injured) just because you hate the management. No true supporter would ever consider such a thing: You cheer your team on to win. Anything else is unacceptable.