John McCain fucks up the history of “Teh Surge” (His Baby); CBS lets it slide.

Leaving aside for a moment the undebatable FACT that Teh Surge didn’t actually solve any problems. The surge basically was a campaign of ethnically cleansing neighborhoods and putting walls around them. Surprise, Iraq will have to deal with its sectarian issues one day, and it’s not going to happen while we’re around. Get it? Also, as Jim Newell of Wonkette put it today, a lot of the drop in violence was directly attributable to “American forces giving shitloads of cash to Sunni tribe leaders to get them to, you know, stop killing everyone.” Yep. This was called the “Anbar Awakening,” which is mentioned below. Of course, you have to pay attention to non-corporate media to get the full picture of what’s gone on, so I forgive you if you didn’t realize that John McCain’s surge really didn’t accomplish jackshit.

But look what John McCain did today:

During a CBS interview on Tuesday, John McCain made a stone cold error on a subject about which he claims expert knowledge: the “surge” strategy in Iraq. In an interview with anchor Katie Couric, the Arizona Republican said, inaccurately, that the surge strategy was responsible for the much-touted “Anbar Awakening,” in which Sunni sheiks turned against Al Qaeda, helping in turn to reduce violence in the country.

From the transcript:

Katie Couric: Senator McCain, Senator Obama says, while the increased number of US troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias. And says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What’s your response to that?

McCain: I don’t know how you respond to something that is as– such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel MacFarland was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that’s just a matter of history.

In fact, as Spencer Ackerman and Ilan Goldenberg have reported, the record firmly establishes the opposite: instead of being caused by the surge, the key signs of the Anbar Awakening occurred not only before that strategy was implemented, but before it was ever conceived.

Yet McCain’s error was not seen by any CBS Evening News viewers. As MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann noted, “CBS curiously, to say the least, left it on the edit room floor. It aired Katie Couric’s question, but in response, it aired part of McCain’s answer to the other question instead.” (Ironically, this edit came on the same day that McCain’s campaign released a video mocking the media’s “love affair” with Obama.)

Cute. As I said before, as Jim Newell said, as Spencer Ackerman said, as Ilan Goldenberg said, as EVERY HONEST JOURNALIST HAS SAID, “the surge” had absolutely nothing to do with the Anbar awakening. The Anbar Awakening did, however, have everything to do with the drop in violence. So…

Now, McCain namechecks a Colonel MacFarland, so what’s his part in all of this?

The fact remains, however, that the military official cited by McCain, then-Colonel Sean MacFarland, described the Anbar Awakening in September 2006 — four months before the “surge” was even announced — noting that tribal leaders were “stepping forward and cooperating with the Iraqi security forces against Al Qaeda.” Moreover, a military review written by MacFarland notes that his unit actually left Anbar before most of the surge troops arrived; his success in the region came between June 2006 and February 2007.

Why is McCain doing this? Because this is all he has. His mythical maverick success with Teh Surge is the only thing he can pretend to lay claim to as a success. If the Surge myth falls apart, McCain’s candidacy falls apart. It’s already hanging by a thread…

In case you don’t remember the timeline of “the Surge,” or, let’s be honest, in case you weren’t really paying attention at the time, here’s a handy review:

In January 2007, when George W. Bush decided to pour more American soldiers into Iraq and escalate the U.S. troop commitment there he was responding to domestic politics. The Democrats were about to take over both houses of Congress and the Baker-Hamilton Commission Report had issued an indictment of the administration’s lack of a diplomatic track in ending the conflict. Defiant, petulant, and immature as ever, Bush launched what his handlers called a “surge” to lock in the policy as the Democrats took their places on Capitol Hill and to show his Uncle Jim and his Daddy that he didn’t need or want their advice.

By January 2007, the occupation in Iraq had long been a strategic and humanitarian disaster. There was already widespread “low intensity” ethnic cleansing, and with the February 22, 2006 destruction of the Shia Al-Askari Mosque in Samarra there was unleashed a sectarian bloodbath that transformed the country. The Shia government, which controlled the Interior Ministry and much of the security apparatus, went on a rampage and shielded freelance death squads and militias that reaped their revenge on Sunni communities throughout the country. In a short period, the ancient city of Baghdad went from being mostly Sunni to being mostly Shia. There were 2 million people who fled the country and another 2 million internally displaced people. It wasn’t very long ago Iraqis were torturing each other with Black & Decker power drills. I doubt if the underlying current of hate and the cycle of revenge have dissipated. But after the dust settled there was relative calm. It had nothing to do with the “surge.”

Any “success” that McCain or Bush or Kenneth Pollack or Michael O’Hanlon or Michael Gordon or David Petraeus and all the rest of the war-hawks talk about is delusional because it is proclaimed by willfully ignoring the humanitarian costs; the price in blood and treasure the Iraqis have paid, and to a far lesser extent, the Americans too. McCain is celebrating a Pyrrhic victory. The United States destroyed Iraq in order to save it. Just take a look at Falluja, or Baghdad with its hideous blast walls and check points. That place will never be the same. In a just world the United States would pay reparations to Iraq for a hundred years.

Anyway. CBS didn’t air the story on their nightly broadcast, but it seems they’ve put the full video online, so please, McCain supporters, watch this video of your candidate either lying about or failing to understand extremely recent history of which he was partially the author. You should know what kind of a pathetic hack you’re voting for. (He graduated 894th out of 899 in his class at the Naval Academy! Did you know that?)

In other news, I hate Katie Couric. Here’s the full video:

(h/t HuffPost)