Comments on: Mapping the Failure of the Iraq “Surge”

By: Kong

Kong — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 02:44:12 +0000

I respect people who wear their politics on their sleeve. One’s biases do not change simply because one does not disclose them publicly. Honestly, a little more author honesty helps in the proper digestion of a map (and where one should stick it, should the map suck).

By: Swami

Swami — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:17:01 +0000

I see a number of fatal weaknesses with this study.
First, the author wears his politics, and thereby his agenda, on his sleeve. While an ad-hominem observation proves nothing, when a researcher produces exactly those results to which he has displayed considerable emotional investment, the results become that much more suspect. An example is the use of the “quotes” and the “so-called” sneer: whether you accept the results or you do not, the surge existed, the increase in the combat troops was real, the increase in offensive operations was real, the use of the sneer- “so-called” – does nothing but demonstrate the bias of the speaker.

Second, the timeline of the observations fails to conform to the timeline of the military actions of the surge, and of the results. It is equivalent to saying that the “so called” allied invasion of Europe in 1944 achieved nothing because over the next six months, the amount of destroyed buildings and bridges in Europe had actually increased. In the latter half of 2007, operations against insurgents in Bagdad were in full swing, we would not expect a recovery in infrastructure- and a resumption in nighttime lighting- until early 2008. Utility crews have an understandable reluctance to work with bullets whizzing about. At the same time, areas that had seen earlier success do not appear in this study. Why not? What about lighting in Fallujah, where combat operations ceased some time before? Has it been passed over because it does not support the author’s conclusions?

Finally, he attributes the security in Iraq to ethnic cleansing! Yes, we know that many Iraqi neighborhoods were ethnically homogenized during their civil war. But this alone cannot account for the decrease in violence. The rival sectarian groups are still within walking distance of each other, and to a religious fanatic, all a homogenous neighborhood means is that when you explode your car bomb, you’ll kill fewer of your own people. In Europe, substantial ethnic cleansing followed WWII as many populations were relocated, voluntarily or otherwise, to their corresponding nations. But to claim that this caused the decline in violence in Europe would be to reverse the cause and effect. Most of the population movements occurred after the defeat of Germany. Here, the author appears to be making a case in favor of ethnic cleansing, crediting it, and not increased physical security, with the decline in violence in Iraq!

Swami

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:37:50 +0000

I love maps and map blogs and I hurried over here to look when I saw the link from Strange Maps. But I won’t be back, because this isn’t really a map blog — it’s a fact-challenged leftie political screed. Buh-bye!

By: Chris in L.A.

Chris in L.A. — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 19:22:31 +0000

The hard left never ceases to amaze me in it’s creative thinking.

Pathetic.

By: Americans Are Rude To Each Other

Americans Are Rude To Each Other — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:51:46 +0000

What makes me sad is that when people disagree on this page, most of them have been quite rude. It’s shameful that we are like this as a people.

By: KoS

KoS — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:11:47 +0000

Stratman…..thank you for your service!

KoS

By: 2LT Stratman

2LT Stratman — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 13:09:15 +0000

As both a U.S. Army combat-arms officer currently serving in Baghdad and college graduate with a B.S. in Geospatial Information Science, I cannot help but be absolutely stunned at the simplistic analysis of this study. This is a product generated above the high-school level but is completely based on a correlation between lights and violence. I might have respect for a study that links to the real spatial distribution of violence, but this is absurd.

1) The underlying assumption is not scientific. Even though there is data stating that some of the areas of declining light correspond with violence, that study does not link violence with light distribution. Therefore, the change in light distribution over time has no relevance.

2) Power distribution changes every few hours in Baghdad. A satellite photo taken at 1900 could show completely difference light patterns than one taken at 2300 the same day. Comparing one image from a given day to another image on another day does not indicate and increase or decrease in power allotment. You can physically see the distribution of electricity changing while flying over Baghdad; whole districts light up and others turn off in an instant.

I am not defending the surge and it is not my role to judge whether it worked or not. I can say that any claim about the surge “working” is misleading as well because of the complexity of the issue. In my area, most violence has declined because community leaders stepped up to speak and act against violence. Perhaps having more troops helped facilitate that action by the community. Ultimately, it is too complex an issue to even begin to analyze whether or not the surge did anything. It will be many years before we know the true impact if we ever do.

This project is just one example of how external motivations can skew the results of a study. I know my education focused heavily on the scientific method; it is unfortunate to see that other institutions do not use such a method as their basis.

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:36:39 +0000

It is good to see that I am not the only one that is perturbed by the fact that this came out of a university. It is no wonder that our education system is failing. I want to point out that this was a peer-reviewed publication. God help us…

At least UCLA is pretty good at sports:)

By: Si se puede

Si se puede — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 19:46:34 +0000

You’ve also confused correlation with causation (which is popular to do nowadays, no worries, it just makes a mockery of the scientific method). Not that you explained how light correlates to violence (you just stated it).

By: Si se puede

Si se puede — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 19:40:20 +0000

I strongly question the correlation between nighttime lighting and violence. Baghdad had/has erratic power transmission, inadequate power generation, and lines simultaneously being repaired and destroyed. Assuming that lights = no violence or vice versa is amazingly simplistic and overlooks that there is no good reason to assume that lighting would *only* be influenced by violence, in contrast to say rising temperatures over time.

Also the timings for the “Surge” in Baghdad is wrong, the surge started in Anbar and for the most part finished in Sadr city and Mosul five months later, so looking at Sadr city when the surge started is meaningless- there were no surge troops deployed there. At best anything that happened them happend in anticipation of troops coming to Baghdad at a later point in time.

Also the map doesn’t take into consideration why violence was happening. Approximately one thousand Mahdi militamen were killed when Maliki had his brief 3 day war with Moqtada’s militia. These people are technically civilian casualties, but civilians with an asterix next to them.

In the end I think that woodward got it right when he stated that things in Iraq became better in light of:

-Sunni’s becoming disillusioned with Al Qaeda’s violence
-Sunni’s realizing that they could not win a civil war
-American troops being deployed in number to Sunni areas
-American troops having a proper counterinsurgency strategy that protects Sunnis
-Magic technology (Woodward won’t say what this is, but I could probably guess)
-Iraqi’s wanting peace

In the meantime your map isn’t worth the digital ink it was printed on.