The documentary The Surge is on NetFlix now so I just watched it, no kids or wife in the house so I could actually listen. It's mainly monologue so that is necessary for me. Awesome piece of work, they let the Brigade commanders who ran the Counterinsurgency, the Surge, tell it. Along with a few others who were there. No politics or pro/anti Bush bullshit. It's only an hour long so it doesn't drag. Some awesome video and pix also.
They discuss how they went from neighborhoods that had weekly civilian execution body counts of 300 (Shia vs. Sunni) to where the same places were safe and people interviewed by Iraqis, no Americans present, felt safe and said things were back to normal, talked about how they did it.
Oh, I did search this forum for surge and it didn't return anything, so if there was already a thread on this please accept my humblest, deepest, most sincere apology that I might have some way slighted you by not posting in that one.