Bush misses the point, loses credibility

Judging by the questioning at Bush's recent "benchmark" press conference, nobody in the media believes he has any credibility anymore. Right-wing blogs seize on this as "liberal media bias". Yeah, it's the same "liberal media" that silently and uncritically passed along every distortion from the White House for the past four years. He might as well just bring a parrot that squawks "Al-Qaeda! Al-Qaeda!" as try to run through the same old material.
His obssession with Al-Qaeda has grown tired. He keeps repeating a standard one-note tune that can be summarised as "Al-Qaeda is bad!" Yeah, we all know Al-Qaeda is bad, Mr. Bush. Nobody's arguing with you there. This occupation was supposed to be about getting the Iraqi military up and running, standing on it's own. It also was supposed to be about stabilising the political situation and getting an Iraqi government solid enough to, maybe, have a quorum. The best way to get rid of Al-Qaeda from Iraq is to have an effective Iraqi military and an effective Iraqi government, not a few dozen armed militias and provinces looking out for themselves. Instead, it's become an Al-Qaeda manhunt, while the military and government continue to be as feeble and impotent as ever. To those who do support Al-Qaeda (hint: it's not the American public) this just makes Al-Qaeda look strong.
"Al-Qaeda is bad" simply does not translate into "endless occupation of a failed state at a cost of $2 billion a week" in the minds of the public. "Al-Qaeda is bad" does not correlate with " we accept your continuing smiley pronouncements" or "we believe whatever your ventriloquist dummies say" to the vast majority of the American people.
He also continues to hammer away on his desire to "listen to the commanders on the ground", when everyone knows what happened to Shinseki when he stopped telling the Decider good news. If Petraeus were to come out publicly and say "The Iraqi military and government are hopeless basket cases, and nothing will truly turn around until that changes", then we'd see a new "commander on the ground" in a week. The new guy would be a hand-picked toady ready and eager to parrot exactly what he's told. Bush would then continue to "listen to his commanders on the ground", as they would say exactly what he wants to hear. Petraeus knows what would happen to his men under those circumstances, so he plays the game.
Ironically, when the surge is finally admitted to be a failure, it wil be Petraeus who will take the fall. Be sure to watch for Republicans, Fox News pundits, and right-wing blogs to turn on the man who they so eagerly rely on for every bit of positive spin when this happens.
Even if Petraeus succeeds in expelling Al-Qaeda from Iraq, Iraq will still look more like Somalia for a long time to come. How can any sane person say that would be worth a trillion dollars and 4000 servicemen's lives? The public sees this, and all of Bush's crowing about how bad Al-Qaeda is won't change this. When the Shiite government of Al-Maliki tries to extend it's control over the "success" of Sunni Anbar province, the Sunni gangs that we backed will tear the Iraqi forces to shreds. The White House will simply pull a new scapegoat out of the hat in this case.
For the moment Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Iran are waiting on the sidelines to intervene in their own interests. What will happen when they decide it's time to make their move? Screeching about Al-Qaeda won't help then. The Republicans and right-wing media, who so loudly profess concern about innocent Iraqis, will simply shrug and let the next President deal with it.
By equating critics of the occupation with supporters of Al-Qaeda, Bush has made a serious error. Polls have shown that the public does not buy his Iraqi Central Front thesis, nor his "fight them there" slogan. Even someone with low intelligence can figure out that nothing is preventing Al-Qaeda from attacking us right now, regardless of how many troops we have in Iraq. Informed people know that Al-Qaeda wasn't even in Iraq until after we invaded. Disillusionment with the occupation is so strong that even war supporters would have a hard time believing that friends, family, co-workers, etc. are actually supporters of Al-Qaeda when they dissent.
The truth is, Bush stopped talking to the American public years ago. His speeches are now exclusively geared to the 20% who will support him no matter what. As this 20% sputters in rage at reporters disrespectful enough to actually question the Decider's credibility, Republicans facing re-election will have to admit, at least to themselves, that this 20% can't save them and are just a millstone around their neck.
Just like the three protesters who denounced Hinduism as "wicked" and "an abomination", this 20% are really just hate-filled bigots who care little for democracy, much less the facts.

Pakistan moves closer to civil war

As Pakistan tries an "Anbar solution" to N. Waziristan, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban get stronger. This dictator "ally" is becoming increasingly marginalised, much like his buddy, Bush. Oddly, a "surge" in the province isn't gaining much in the way of positive results. Musharraf must be reading the same comic book that Bush, Blair, and Ohlmert are.

Jul 14, 2007 11:33 AM

Associated Press

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Islamic militants launched a deadly suicide attack, detonated a roadside bomb and fired rockets today as thousands of Pakistani troops deployed to the northwestern frontier to thwart the launch of a holy war, officials said.

At least 24 soldiers were killed in the suicide attack on a military convoy, an army spokesman said. The escalating violence along the rugged Afghanistan border, a haven for local and foreign extremists, follows the government's bloody attack on Islamabad's Red Mosque which sparked calls for revenge from radical groups.

"With help from local tribal elders, we are trying to ensure that militants lay down their arms and stop issuing calls for jihad against the government," a senior military official said on condition of anonymity, because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Maulana Fazlullah, a radical cleric who has close links to the outlawed Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law, has told supporters to prepare for jihad against President Gen. Pervez Musharaff for the assault, the official said.

Pakistan commandos overran the mosque Wednesday, after an eight-day siege with a hard-line cleric and his militant supporters among more than 100 dead.

Fazlullah has pressed for Taliban-style rule in Pakistan – much like the leaders of the Red Mosque.

As the troop movement proceeded in at least five areas of the North West Frontier Province, a suicide bomber struck elsewhere in the border region, his explosives-laden vehicle killing at least 24 soldiers and wounding 29 others in a military convoy, said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad.

Although no one claimed responsibility for the attack, Arshad said he could not rule out the possibility that it was a reaction to the assault on Islamabad's mosque.

"It could be," he said.

The attack in Waziristan, a Taliban stronghold where Washington says Al Qaeda is regrouping, was one of the most lethal suicide attacks in recent months.

Elsewhere in the northwest, suspected militants detonated a bomb that struck a vehicle carrying soldiers in the town of Bannu, wounding two, said area police official Mohammed Khan.

Two rockets were also fired at a military checkpoint. No casualties were reported.

And in what police called a "foiled terrorist attempt," two 11-pound anti-tank mines attached to a timing device and battery were found in a car in downtown Peshawar, said Abdul Majeed Marwat, police chief of the northwest's largest city.

The car was parked in a crowded area front of military-affiliated Askari Bank when a small explosion and fire in the vehicle alerted authorities. Police speculated the timing device may have been misconnected.

The region along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan has seen increased activity by both local militants, the Taliban, and – according to a recent U.S. assessment – Al Qaeda.

The mosque attack also set off peaceful protests across Pakistan Friday but they were smaller than anticipated.

In the northwest, an army brigade was heading up the Swat Valley, 75 miles northeast of Peshawar, where a suicide car bomber killed three policeman at a checkpoint Thursday, said Mohammed Javed, the valley's top administrator.

With today's suicide attack in North Waziristan, at least 53 people have been killed in bombings and shootings in the north since the Red Mosque crisis began July 3.

No new troops were sent to North Waziristan, but a spokesman for militants demanded that all existing checkpoints be removed there by Sunday.

Abdullah Farhad, who claims to speak for pro-Taliban militants, told The Associated Press the checkpoints violated a 2006 peace accord between the government and tribal elders.

The peace deal is still in effect, but militants have again started attacking government forces in the region. The government has targeted some militant hideouts.

Bush threatens veto of VA budget increases

Folks, whenever you see those right-wing blogs with the flags and eagles, brimming with enthusiastic support for the troops, just remember this story. Bush is now threatening to veto an increase in veteran's benefits. The occupation that's costing the U.S. $2 billion a week is okay with Bush, but spending a maximum of $3.8 billion to "end red tape" and "increase disability pay" is just plain wasteful to the Decider.
The pathetic Republican practise of hiding behind the troops to sustain support for the occupation has been obvious for a long time now. If we criticise the "success" of the surge, then the troops will get "mixed signals" and get discouraged, or so we are told. Just as Bush constantly tries to associate any criticism of the surge as support for Al-Qaeda, likewise the right-wing constantly tries to portray those skeptical of reaching ever-lowering goals as somehow being "against the troops".
The irony is that we got into this mess, at least partially, because the Republicans wanted to fight a war "on the cheap". Now they balk at nothing when it comes to spending ever-increasing sums of money with practically no oversight on an occupation in which the goalposts seem to be moving away from us at a rapid rate. But they draw the line when it comes to spending money on injured soldiers.

full story here

White House Against Boosting VA Budget

Week of July 09, 2007

Moves in Congress to give the Department of Veterans Affairs as much as $3.8 billion more than the Bush administration proposed has drawn an indirect veto threat from the White House.

"If Congress increases VA funding above the president's request and does not offset this increase with spending reductions in other bills, the president will veto any of the other bills that exceed his request until Congress demonstrates a path to reach the president's top line of $933 billion," the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement.
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Responding to shabby outpatient treatment of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, in Washington, D.C., a group of U.S. senators moved June 13 to boost disability pay to those hurt in combat and improve care for brain injury. The measure would also expand medical care and counseling to family members and require better cooperation to end red tape for disabled service members moving from Pentagon care to that provided by the VA.

The measure would boost military severance pay for those rated with less than 30 percent disability and eliminate the current requirement that severance pay be deducted from disability pay. It would also set up Pentagon pilot programs that would give the VA a greater role in the evaluation system, a major shift in how benefits are administered.

Nobody knows for sure

The Administration, Petraeus, and virtually all war supporters keep on saying that the surge has only just started. This isn't exactly true. 3/4 of the troops were in place in June. It has been a phased deployment over the past 4 and a half months. During that time, there has not been a significant improvement, despite mouthings from the Administration's ventriloquist dummies about 'signs of progress'. The situation in Diyala has worsened, and the improvement in Anbar is not due to the surge, but rather to pitting one armed gang against another. Attacks on the Green Zone continue. The Iraqi military has not "stood up", sectarian deaths have increased, and Al-Qaeda is merely moving to wherever the surge isn't taking place. We call that being "on the run".
Still, we are told that it's far too early to pass judgment on the surge. Well, if we grant that, then why has the Administration seen fit to attribute any ephemeral signs of success over the past four months to the surge? Isn't it far too early to say that any 'signs of progress' are due to the surge?

In other words, it's too early to say the surge is a failure, but apparently it's been okay to say the surge is a success for the past few months, even though the troops have 'just arrived'.

Unwarranted optimism is thus okay, but sober skepticism is dangerous. "Nobody knows for sure if the surge will succeed or not", however we seem to "know for sure" there will be a bloodbath if we leave before we achieve "victory". We also "know for sure" that Al-Qaeda will "follow us home", too. How does that work? Isn't it "defeatist" to assume the worst possible outcome? Not if you support the President, but it is if you don't support the President. See how that works now?

Unwarranted optimism in military endeavours can be disatrous. Why didn't we optimistically send our entire fleet right into Japan and launch an amphibious assault immediately after Pearl Harbor? Nobody "knew for sure" that would fail, did they? The threat was certainly real to America, and failure in Japan would mean arguably worse consequnces for us. So why not employ wishful thinking and optimism in an immediate massive invasion? Because we would have been wiped out. But "nobody knows that for sure", do they? Would those opposing such a plan for an immediate invasion have been called "defeatists" and "surrenderists" who didn't want to "win"?
This entire war and occupation have been fought by only considering the best possible outcome and proceeding as if it were a forgone conclusion.

No, "nobody knows for sure" that the surge will fail. We do know that we tried a surge almost a year ago, though, and that didn't help. We do know that the surge has not had a dramatic effect over the past few months. Now, the addition of a few thousand more troops will somehow magically turn the tide, I guess.
Remember, the idea of the surge was to allow the Iraqi military to gain control by reinforcing them as the Iraqis launched a major operation to restore stability. The trouble is that Iraqi military forces are a no-show. The most important element of the surge, therefore, completely failed and has been failing for some time. Nobody knows for sure if the Iraqi military will "stand up" by next spring, either. Nobody knows for sure how shuffling Al-Qaeda from one province to another will defeat them, either. Nobody knows for sure if al-Maliki will be able to survive a no-confidence vote. Nobody knows for sure how many Iraqis have been killed in the violence. Nobody knows, but somehow it's okay to proceed as if everything will go our way and somehow it's bad to stop and ponder the minefield straight ahead of us.

One thing we can all be sure of, however, is that in September Petraeus will say that there has been 'some improvement' and that we need more time. We can be sure that Bush will give it to him. We can be sure that the sectarian militias will still be there. And we can be sure that neocons will be trotting out the same tired old arguments that they picked up from Fox News.

Back in January, Bush "believed" that al-Maliki would have control of all the provinces by November. Now Petraeus is talking about the spring of '08 as the time when we will have a "clearer picture" as to whether this will happen. Not that it will have happened, mind you, just a better idea how much more time it will take. Does this sound like a credible track record? A year ago Bush was all thumbs-up and optimistic, but things didn't work out like he thought they would. But now something has changed, this time his brilliant scheme really will work....because, in his own words, "it has to". That's so reassuring.

Crossing your fingers and hoping everything will come out okay is not leadership, and neither is it courageous.

From the Daily Telegraph

The Decider, in his own words, on the surge

Let's look at back in time seven months ago when Bush laid out the "surge" as the plan that would bring stability to Iraq. It bears re-examination, since the right-wing seems to exist in a vacuum without history and lap up each new utterance by the Decider with no consideration of what he said before. Remarks in parens are a summary of the Decider's eloquence, for brevity's sake.

The text of Bush's Jan. 10 speech in which he proposed the surge

- (Iraqis voted. Hooray. Yes, he's still hammering away on that tune. Everyone knows that elections always produce pro-U.S. governments, too. I mean, by voting they virtually agreed to be tortured, imprisoned without trial, massacred, and swindled out their oil. It's the least we can do. But I'm wondering when they voted to host an end-times battle against Good and Evil in their country. Was that on the ballot?)
- (Al-Qaeda's bad. Bad, I tell you.)
- ("Failure" in Iraq means that Al-Qaeda and Iran "win" and that would make us less safe.)

"Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents. And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have. Our military commanders reviewed the new Iraqi plan to ensure that it addressed these mistakes. They report that it does. They also report that this plan can work."

- Hey, Iraq is more than just Baghdad, Mr. Bush. And is this remark what makes the surge Petraeus' plan?

"Now let me explain the main elements of this effort: The Iraqi government will appoint a military commander and two deputy commanders for their capital. The Iraqi government will deploy Iraqi Army and National Police brigades across Baghdad's nine districts. When these forces are fully deployed, there will be 18 Iraqi Army and National Police brigades committed to this effort, along with local police. These Iraqi forces will operate from local police stations — conducting patrols and setting up checkpoints, and going door-to-door to gain the trust of Baghdad residents."

- Again, in Baghdad. It sure is sounding like the Iraqis are going to be doing most of the work so far in the speech, doesn't it? We're just going to back them up as they clear out the bad guys, it sounds like. Currently the Sunnis don't seem to trust those Shia police, though. And those Iraqi Army and National Police turned out to be a great place to train and arm the very insurgents we are supposed to be fighting. And they seem to have a penchant for torture as well.

"Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. Well, here are the differences: In earlier operations, Iraqi and American forces cleared many neighborhoods of terrorists and insurgents, but when our forces moved on to other targets, the killers returned. This time, we'll have the force levels we need to hold the areas that have been cleared. In earlier operations, political and sectarian interference prevented Iraqi and American forces from going into neighborhoods that are home to those fueling the sectarian violence. This time, Iraqi and American forces will have a green light to enter those neighborhoods — and Prime Minister Maliki has pledged that political or sectarian interference will not be tolerated."

- Well, we aren't holding the areas that have been cleared. Our commanders have admitted this. The ability no enter certain neighbourhoods of one city has not turned out to be the dramatic breakthrough that Bush thought it would be. Again, it's turned out that The Iraqi forces were compromised from the beginning by harbouring sectarian militias and warning the "bad guys" ahead of time about raids.

I've made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people

— and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people. Now is the time to act. The Prime Minister understands this. Here is what he told his people just last week: "The Baghdad security plan will not provide a safe haven for any outlaws, regardless of [their] sectarian or political affiliation."

- The support of the American public is already gone. Al-Maliki is facing a no-confidence he may not survive. And the consequences of these developments are...nothing. Just more "stay the course" talk for American public, too. 40% now want the troops to leave immediately.

"A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations. Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhoods and communities. So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced."

- Yes, he really did say that.

"To establish its authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November. To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis. To show that it is committed to delivering a better life, the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs. To empower local leaders, Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year. And to allow more Iraqis to re-enter their nation's political life, the government will reform de-Baathification laws, and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution."

- Hey, how are all those things working out, Decider dude? Al-Maliki's incompetent and impotent government is going to have control of all of the provinces by November? Or maybe one?

"Our military forces in Anbar are killing and capturing al Qaeda leaders, and they are protecting the local population. Recently, local tribal leaders have begun to show their willingness to take on al Qaeda. And as a result, our commanders believe we have an opportunity to deal a serious blow to the terrorists. So I have given orders to increase American forces in Anbar Province by 4,000 troops. These troops will work with Iraqi and tribal forces to keep up the pressure on the terrorists. America's men and women in uniform took away al Qaeda's safe haven in Afghanistan — and we will not allow them to re-establish it in Iraq."

- Okay, so now we hear something about some place other than Baghdad, and it turns out to be a province with 1% of the country's population. It turns out that we employed one sectarian gang to wipe out another gang, and the Iraqi police and military, as well as that wonderful government, are a decided non-factor in all of this.
- (Al-Qaeda's bad, and I mean bad. Really bad.)

"From Afghanistan to Lebanon to the Palestinian Territories, millions of ordinary people are sick of the violence, and want a future of peace and opportunity for their children. And they are looking at Iraq. They want to know: Will America withdraw and yield the future of that country to the extremists, or will we stand with the Iraqis who have made the choice for freedom?"

- They made the choice for freedom, right? What was the other option they were offered, again? Those people looking at Iraq as an example of "peace and opportunity" must be pretty impressed seven months on. It seems like the question they are asking is more like "When will America withdraw? Ever?"

"The changes I have outlined tonight are aimed at ensuring the survival of a young democracy that is fighting for its life in a part of the world of enormous importance to American security. Let me be clear: The terrorists and insurgents in Iraq are without conscience, and they will make the year ahead bloody and violent. Even if our new strategy works exactly as planned, deadly acts of violence will continue — and we must expect more Iraqi and American casualties. The question is whether our new strategy will bring us closer to success. I believe that it will."

- Actually, as it turns out, the question is how Mr. Bush will define the word "success". Notice the use of the term "terrorists and insurgents". We seem to have forgotten about the "insurgents" lately. And it may seem like the surge is not working, but that is just the proof that is really is working, see?

"Acting on the good advice of Senator Joe Lieberman and other key members of Congress, we will form a new, bipartisan working group that will help us come together across party lines to win the war on terror. This group will meet regularly with me and my administration; it will help strengthen our relationship with Congress. We can begin by working together to increase the size of the active Army and Marine Corps, so that America has the Armed Forces we need for the 21st century."

- Has any of this actually happened? "Working across party lines"? "Strengthen our relationship with Congress?" Wow. Which Congress would that be, Mr. President? Bush has repeatedly rejected the ISG as "handcuffing" him, even though at the time he announces the surge he said he would work with them. He isn't even meeting the benchmarks he set for himself.

"In these dangerous times, the United States is blessed to have extraordinary and selfless men and women willing to step forward and defend us. These young Americans understand that our cause in Iraq is noble and necessary — and that the advance of freedom is the calling of our time. They serve far from their families, who make the quiet sacrifices of lonely holidays and empty chairs at the dinner table. They have watched their comrades give their lives to ensure our liberty. We mourn the loss of every fallen American — and we owe it to them to build a future worthy of their sacrifice."

- In other words, stop-loss, 18 month tours, recalling the IRR for new tours for those that have already served, coercing those serving into re-enlistment, and Walter Reed Medical Center for those who can't go on. A VA woefully unable to handle an epidenic of brain injuries, and commanders that pressure the mentally ill troops to keep their damn mouths shut. We owe them that? Really?

More signs of progress in Iraq

Right in Baghdad, the focus of the surge: a car bomb, an attack on police, and another 26 sectarian killings.
"Attacks on U.S. supply convoys rise"? But how? Isn't Al-Qaeda on the run? 12 workers killed in Baghdad? Could there possibly be other groups in Iraq destabilising the situation other than Al-Qaeda? Wouldn't the Decider have mentioned this? If this were true, I'm sure the right-wing blogs would have discussed it, because they are very scrupulous about honesty and the truth. Okay, you got me; they don't care about either one at all.
Right-wing bloggers love cites, apparently, so here ya go:

Story from Xinhua

Four people killed in Iraqi violence, 26 corpses found

Attacks on U.S. supply convoys in Iraq rise: report Iraqi FM warns of civil war if U.S. troops leave Nine Iraqi soldiers killed in bomb attack Another car bomb kills civilian in Baghdad Gunmen execute 12 workers in village of southern Baghdad

Four people were killed and three others injured in two separate attacks in Baghdad on Monday, while the Iraqi police picked up 26 corpses from the streets of the Iraqi capital, an Interior Ministry source said.

A car bomb, parking in the Kendi Street where dozens of private clinics and shops located in Baghdad's western neighborhood of Harthiyah, went off near a passing police patrol in the afternoon, killing a civilian and wounding three others, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Separately, gunmen opened fire on a police patrol in Baghdad's northern neighborhood of Sliekh, killing three policemen, the source said.

In addition, the source said that the police patrol collected 26 unidentified bodies in execution-style in Baghdad's neighborhoods during the past 24 hours.

Most of the bodies were handcuffed, blindfolded and showing signs of torture with bullet holes riddled in the chest and the head, he said.

Insurgency, sectarian violence and daily gruesome finding of unidentified corpses continued in the capital despite the U.S. and Iraqi security staged a security plan in the capital since Feb. 14 with an aim of putting rampant violence under control.

Source: Xinhua

Army Misses It's Recruiting Goal Two Months In A Row

Another cite for the right-wing bloggers who seem lean on facts.
Are we really going to be able to keep up this level of military capacity for another 18 months? How are we going to invade Iran and Venezuela with recruitment like this?
This is the most bottom-line sign that Bush has lost the American people. Polls, elections, editorials, etc. mean less than the the simple fact that people are no longer willing to die for the Decider and his policies based on lies, distortions, empty threats, and wishful thinking.

Story from ABC News

EXCLUSIVE: Army Missed Recruiting Goal Again

July 09, 2007 10:23 AM

ABC News' Jonathan Karl and Luis Martinez report: Already stretched thin by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army is having a hard time finding new recruits. ABC News has learned the Army missed its recruiting goal in June for the second month in a row, falling 1,400 short or about 17 percent off the goal. It's the first time in more than two years that the Army has missed recruiting goals for two consecutive months.

The figures are especially worrisome because the summer is traditionally the peak recruiting season. Army officials are now worried that July and August will be difficult as well, raising the possibility that the Army will miss its annual goal of 80,000 new recruits for fiscal year 2007, which ends on September 30. The Army has missed an annual recruiting goal only twice in the last decade -- in 1999 and 2005.

Shifting goals in Iraq: The Decider's own words.

For an analysis of the shifting goals in Iraq, I invite readers to check out the blog post at The Desert Beacon.
Bush's own words are used throughout the years to point out how the goal has moved from a stable democracy that will be a beacon of hope to the Midde East and an ally in the War on Terror to merely providing security for one city as the rest of the country devolves into civil war and militia rule.
Oh, and don't worry: the Iraqi government has "an aggressive plan" to deal with sectarian forces, spake the Decider. Too bad the Iraqi government can't form a complete Cabinet or enact legislation. Al-Maliki faces a no-confidence vote in about a week. If it succeeds, the new government will likely ask U.S. forces to withdraw by December. Try maintaining support for an occupation, much less a "surge", when the people we 'fighting for' ask us to go.
The handwriting is on the wall. Even the right-wing blogs are 'surrendering' on this point.
The GOP should abandon this stupid and ill-conceived occupation and focus on what it does best: hating Democrats. They can keep on hating Muslims, too, as long as they leave our military out of it.

Why the Bush propaganda machine is coming apart

In the media, tools like Ajami are being challenged (recent MSNBC interview). Republicans are no longer able to imply that 9/11 was caused by Iraq, except on Fox News. Of course, the President is free to make such conflations because he only makes speeches in front of audiences that are required to avoid any critical thinking. Republicans are feeling the heat in solid Republican districts on the issue of the occupation. Public dissent against the failed occupation and the false premises of the invasion are routinely voiced in most media outlets. Why has so much crumbled so fast for Republicans?

- People no longer buy the "dissent is treason" or "dissent emboldens the enemy" line that the White House has trotted out for far too long. Former soldiers, retired generals and those who are clearly patriotic have dissented in public on the Iraq issue.
- Bush has no credibility at all, except with his 20%. These people will believe whatever he says and defend whatever he does, no matter what. Without credibility, the assurances Bush routinely makes fail to gain him traction. Years of "turning the corner", "last throes", "dead-enders", etc. have proven that the man has no grasp on reality whatsoever.
- Bush's strong support comes from two groups: The "My God can beat up their God" crowd who simply hate Islam and hope that all Iraqis will just kill each other off, and those who, like people cheering for a sports team, don't want to see "their guy" lose to the "other side". Neither of the groups appeals much to the average American.
- A continual and pervasive secrecy, facility to lie, and pattern of "taking responsiblity" for failures without actually taking any blame. It makes Bush look like a weasel surrounded by incompetents.
- No clear-cut enemy in the occupation, no clear-cut good guys among the Iraqis to cheer for.
- Soldiers dying not engaged in combat with an enemy, but from roadside bombs planted by those we "liberated". It's not a glorious enough death for those who prefer a dramatic storyline to the truth.
- It's taken far too long to wrap things up, and Americans like quick wins and neat finishes. Bush has only indicated that the occupation might last for decades more.
- The "surge" has taken far too long (five months) to get off the ground. That's the maximum attention span used up right there, just to get the "clock" started.
- Stop-loss and tour extensions of soldiers that have families. Most of these now have no job to return to, and it's becoming increasingly likely that the tours will get even longer and that soldiers who already served years ago will be called back. Bush is seen as abusing the troops, rather than supporting them.
- The people we are "fighting for" seem even more unable to make a government work than Bush.
- Scary stories from the White House (terror alerts, vague threats, dire consequences, etc.) that never seem to pan out. Crying wolf too often has its downside. It also makes our intelligence seem weak.

There are other reasons, of course. It's becoming clearer that "we" aren't going to "get the oil", our troops are dying for people believing in another religion, the huge financial costs, and the slow destruction of our military capacity for an increasingly murky goal. I'm not particularly endorsing or supporting all of these reasons, but they are factors in the abject failure of Bush's propaganda machine to spin things their way.
None of these reasons are likely to go away, either. The vast majority will not buy an upbeat assessment from Petraeus in September unless things have miraculously improved. We're not talking about the "some signs of progress" line, either. I mean the stability that will allow us to leave Iraq. That won't be happening and everyone already knows it. Things would have to look a heck of a lot better by now in order for that dream to come to pass. We're not talking about amusement parks or soccer leagues, either. The blush is off the rose, the honeymoon is over, the wink and a nudge doesn't work the way it did before.
The GOP has so closely tied its fate to Bush that it seems almost like political suicide. Too many have stood by the Bozo for too long. Another terror attack won't even help the Republicans. Bush would certainly bungle the response horribly, and it would make everyone wonder why, with all of the extreme powers this guy has taken upon himself, he couldn't have prevented it. Remember, the current polls show 40% of the country want our troops withdrawn immediately. Over half want Cheney impeached. This hardly seems like the cause or the crew a Party would want to go down with the ship for.

Body Count In Baghdad Up in June

I keep seeing right-wing blogs quoting what are basically Administration or military sources telling the world that "the surge is working". It's all pretty vague, with sweeping quotes brimming with optimism. The right keeps hammering away at Anbar province as a big "success" story. First of all, Anbar province holds about 1% of the population of Iraq, so even if it were to suddenly become all rainbows and puppy dogs overnight it would hardly reflect the big picture of the situation in Iraq. Second, the "brilliant" strategy employed in Anbar is essentially using one armed gang to wipe out another armed gang. The Iraqi military is a no-show in the province and is simply not "standing up". The Iraqi 'government' in Anbar is also AWOL. If the Iraqi military ever does somehow gain control of the province, they will have to take on our "buddies", who do not particularly like the U.S. presence and do not particularly support the Maliki government. If we employ the "Anbar strategy" on a large scale, we have nothing more or less than a complete civil war.
Bush is once again using Al-Qaeda as the focus and ignoring the problem of sectarian forces doing 'ethnic cleansing' in this "civil-war-that-is not-a-civil-war". As the story below shows, the situation of sectarian killings is actually getting worse. Maliki can't even form a complete Cabinet, and even Republicans are saying that his 'government' is irrelevant and impotent. The military has now taken to calling anyone they kill "Al-Qaeda" based on nothing more than the fact they are dead. It seems that "Al-Qaeda" has become nothing more than a generic name for anyone willing to take up arms against the occupation, whether they are Shia or Sunni. Hint: Al-Qaeda is a Sunni organisation.
The real sign of "progess" from the surge would be if Iraqis who have fled the country are returning. They aren't, and more flee every day from this "improving" situation.
Story from the Washington Post

Body Count In Baghdad Up in June

By Joshua Partlow

Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, July 5, 2007; Page A01

BAGHDAD, July 4 -- Nearly five months into a security strategy that involves thousands of additional U.S. and Iraqi troops patrolling Baghdad, the number of unidentified bodies found on the streets of the capital was 41 percent higher in June than in January, according to unofficial Health Ministry statistics.

During the month of June, 453 unidentified corpses, some bound, blindfolded, and bearing signs of torture, were found in Baghdad, according to morgue data provided by a Health Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

In January, 321 corpses were discovered in the capital, a total that fell steadily until April but then rose sharply over the last two months, the statistics show.

Mortar barrages hit Baghdad neighborhoods, 16 corpses found

Another day, another mortar attack on the Green Zone. Another 16 people executed in Baghdad. Mortars hit neighbourhoods, despite "signs of improvement" in Baghdad. Maybe somebody painted a wall or a puppy did something cute in Baghdad, so things could actually be "turning the corner".
Story from Xinhua

Mortar barrages hit Baghdad neighborhoods, 16 corpses found

Mortar barrages struck Baghdad's neighborhoods, including heavy fortified Green Zone, while the Iraqi police said they collected 16 corpses in the capital, an Interior Ministry source said Wednesday.

"Insurgents lobbed mortar rounds on the Green Zone, which houses the Iraqi government offices, U.S. and British embassies," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

It was not clear whether there is any casualty, he added.

The U.S. military has no immediate comment on the incident. The zone supposed to be the most secure area on the west bank of the Tigris River that bisects the Iraqi capital, but mortar and rocket attacks frequently struck the area.

Mortar barrages also struck three more neighborhoods in Baghdad wounding six people, the source said.

In addition, the source said that the police patrol found 16 unidentified bodies in execution-style in Baghdad's neighborhoods during the past 24 hours.

Most of bodies were handcuffed, blindfolded and showing signs of torture with bullet holes in the chest and the head, he said.

Violence and the daily gruesome finding of unidentified corpses continued in the capital despite the U.S. and Iraqi security have staged a security plan in the capital since Feb. 14 with an aim of putting rampant violence under control.

Source: Xinhua

Sadrists take on Iraqi police

Once again, Sadrists are active, despite war supporters spin that Sadr was dead and his organisation dismantled. Facts, however, are things that are "flexible" to Republicans. The only ones that matter are those that support your "team". It almost sounds like people who are brainwashed, doesn't it?
Of course, this doesn't involve Al-Qaeda, so it doesn't "count" in Bush's considerations. The Decider has made it clear that Al-Qaeda is the big problem, not sectarian forces like the Sadrists. Just like car bombings not counting as "violence", this is yet another case of picking which facts you choose to recognise. Yes, if one excludes all evidence to the contrary of Bush's delusional view of Iraq, then things certainly are getting better. Similarly, all evidence that contradicted the Administration's case for invasion was quashed and rejected. Story from Xinhua

Three people killed in riot in southern Iraq

17:34, July 05, 2007

At least three people were killed and four others injured in clashes erupted between militiamen and Iraqi police in the southern city of Samawa on Thursday, a local police source said.

"Iraqi police fought militiamen loyal to radical Shiite cleric of Muqtada al-Sadr early in the morning in the southern parts of Samawa, some 280 km south of Baghdad," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Explosions and gunfire resonated throughout the city during the day and resulted in the killing of three people, including a policeman, and wounding four people, the source said, citing first police reports.

Tensions rose overnight in the city, as many of Sadr's Mahdi army militiamen, carrying machineguns and rocket propelled grenade launchers, spread in the streets around his office in the city, the source added.

Early in the morning, local authorities imposed curfew on the city, as police forces took positions in the main streets and intersections of the city, he said.

The city has long been a scene of violence between local members of Mahdi army militia, which tried to seize the city and the police forces.

Source: Xinhua

Torture Routine in Kurdish Jails, Report Charges

Passed along from IPS without comment:

RIGHTS: Torture Routine in Kurdish Jails, Report Charges
By Khody Akhavi

WASHINGTON, Jul 2 (IPS) - Kurdistan's security forces, attached to the two largest political parties in the region yet out of the control of the government's Interior Ministry, routinely torture detainees and deny their due process rights, according to a report released by Human Rights Watch Tuesday.

The 58-page report, "Caught in the Whirlwind: Torture and Denial of Due Process by the Kurdistan Security Forces," documents systematic mistreatment of detainees held by Kurdish security forces, known as Asayish (literally "security").

While detainees' have experienced torture at the hands of Asayish, many of the abuses reported in region pale in comparison to the violence, terrorism and criminality currently engulfing much of Iraq.

"The outside world, they look at Iraq they see this mess and disaster, and Kurdistan appears secure and stable," said Ayub Nuri of Human Rights Watch. "The violence in the rest of Iraq has overshadowed the abuses in Kurdistan."

Most detainees are not charged with offenses, given information regarding their legal status, or provided with a mechanism to appeal their detentions. The Asayish have held hundreds of detainees, particularly those arrested on suspicion of terrorism-related offenses, without due process, for more than five years in some cases.

Many detainees also complained that the authorities denied them access to relatives, and that in some cases their relatives were unaware of where they were being held, according to the report.

Torture methods most frequently cited in the report include beatings to the body using implements such as cables, wooden sticks, metal rods, and hosepipes. Detainees also described how Asayish guards placed them in "stress positions" for extended periods, kept them blindfolded and handcuffed for several days at a time, and placed them in solitary confinement. With some exceptions, the report also found that conditions at Asayish facilities remained severely overcrowded and unhygienic.

The Asayish forces are connected to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and remain outside the control of the Kurdish regional authority. The two parties formally unified in July 2006, but still maintain separate detention facilities.

In 1993, the de facto Kurdish authorities gave the Asayish jurisdiction over economic and political crimes, including espionage and acts of sabotage and terrorism.

Attempts were made during the mid-1990s to unite the disparate security forces and bring them under the framework of the regional government's interior ministry, but proved difficult to maintain.

While there are no concrete figures regarding the number of detainees across Kurdistan, Ayub Nuri of Human Rights Watch told IPS that there are currently more than 1,000 detainees, mostly held on terrorism charges, just at the Sulaimaniya detention facility, currently under the control of the PUK.

The report is based on research conducted at 10 prisons in the Kurdistan region from April to October 2006.

While Kurdish authorities from both the KDP and PUK expressed concern and a willingness to address the complaints by granting access to all Asayish detention facilities and allowing unannounced visits by investigators, the report contends that "these efforts have no translated into any discernible improvement for most detainees in Asayish detention facilities."

"The KDP has made promises that they would review these cases, and we sent [the Kurdish regional government] a copy of the report, but we have not received any answer from them," said Nuri.

This cooperation was in stark contrast to the approach of the Iraqi Ministries of Interior and Defence, and to the U.S. and British military forces in Iraq, which since April 2003 have repeatedly denied Human Rights Watch's requests for access to their detention facilities.

Asayish detainees include those arrested by Kurdistan authorities within the Kurdistan region, the governorates of Arbil, Duhok, and Sulaimaniya, as well as others arrested in joint operations conducted by the U.S.-led coalition forces and the Iraqi army, who are then transferred to the custody of the Kurdish regional government.

There are also some foreign nationals, including from Iran, Afghanistan, Sudan, Saudia Arabia, Tunisia and Jordan. HRW did not visit any of the women's prisons in Arbil, Duhok and Sulaimaniya, nor did they visit any of the juvenile detention facilities.

(END/2007)

How Bush destroyed America's position in the world

This poll from the Financial Times shows that Europe now sees the U.S. as the biggest threat to world peace.

Now, President Bush and his Administration have always portrayed the U.S. as some kind of defender against a nebulous evil that threatens the world, so it might seem odd to Republicans that these people we are "defending" think that we are the big problem. Actually, I'm sure they dismiss it with a few terms they picked up from Fox News; something about "weakness" or Old Europe, perhaps. The upshot is, in the Republican view, that the rest of the world doesn't really matter because they don't have the guts to do what needs to be done, so we have to defend them out of our noble sense of superpower responsibilty, even if they are ungrateful. This is a lot like how Japan played up its imperial role in WW2. The empire was obliged to evict the Western powers from Asia, liberating the countries there, because they were too weak to do the job on their own. And certainly some governments did not welcome their imperial Japanese liberators, but this was because they were beholden to Western interests and they would learn in time to love their Japanese "protectors". It wasn't simply because the Emperor decreed this or that -- the Japanese honestly felt they were doing the world a favour. Of course, after the war turned sour for Japan, these noble goals fell by the wayside. It then became about control rather than liberation and about extracting resources from weaker nations by military force.
So, if you will, let's look at the scenario today. There is currently a nation that fits this description:
- Has a larger military budget than all of the other countries in the world combined.
- Has military bases all over the planet, and projects massive naval and air power in virtually every theatre.
- Has a history of replacing governments who refuse to show adequate deference with a government that is a puppet, even if it means democracy goes away in the process.
- Has a stated military policy that it says it's okay for that country to invade any other country in the world. The target of invasion does not even have to threaten the nation we are discussing. All it has to do is show potential for a threat sometime in the future, and the nation we are discussing gets to decide what constitutes a "threat".
- Has fabricated 'threats" and "potential threats" to justify this stated military policy.

Okay, that nation that seems so dangerous is, of course, the U.S.
In a world where any country that has a brewery could conceivably produce biological weapons, where any country willing to accept the nuclear waste of another country has the means to produce a "dirty bomb", or where any country that has laboratory facilities on the level of most high schools in the U.S. can produce a chemical weapon, then we have to admit that this policy says nothing less than the U.S. has openly stated it's willingness to invade any country in the world. In practical terms, however, it seems we are only concerned with "threats" from countries that have oil. Countries that don't have oil are somehow mysteriously harmless.
So, you would think that the vast majority of American foreign aid would go to countries that have oil, since this criteria seems to be paramount in our military threat calculations. Hmmm...no. Israel, Egypt, and Colombia take the vast majority of our aid, and they are not known for oil or even democracy. Israel is a country where 15% of the country is not allowed to vote due to laws that make Jim Crow look lenient. If you practise the wrong religion, you can't vote. In Egypt, soldiers will ask you who you intend to vote for before you can enter the polling place. If you give the "wrong" answer, you can't go inside. And Colombia is a country that is struggling with the painful issue of whether or not to openly admit that you think it's okay to simply use death squads to wipe out the political opposition or whether you should simply keep these massacres secret. The rest of the world gets very little money compared to what Europe gives, and even then it comes with so many strings attached it's not effective.
Our noble "liberation" of Iraq has resulted in a whole lot of Iraqi oil disappearing, and our comittment to Iraq's stability seems more and more to depend on whether the Hydrocarbon Law is signed. This jewel basically says that Iraq's oil belongs not to the U.S. or Iraqis, but to multinational oil companies, and promises that these oil companies will throw whatever scraps of their profits to Iraqis that the companies deem appropriate. Who could possibly turn down a deal like that? If the Hydrocarbon Law is not signed, watch for Bush's determination to "stay the course" in Iraq to fade away, regardless of any fictional Al-Qaeda threat.
Afghanistan, the real terror threat, has increasingly been handled by Europe (those weak, irrelevant countries that don't have the guts, etc...), and Europe isn't too happy about that, either. Bush sold Afghanistan as a situation that was largely under control to the Europeans, and as an easy way to "help out" along with vague hintings at America's appreciation if they did this simple task.
Instead, the situation was not as (the ever-optimistic) Bush had pitched it, but rather a hornet's nest, a quagmire, and a nightmare all rolled into one. In November, Smiley Bush turned into Grim Bush overnight and the Decider told Europe that it was just going to get worse and that it basically was Europe's fault that it was taking so long to do whatever the hell it was they were trying to do in Afghanistan.
The Grim Bush persona gives the Decider the ability to appear wise and powerful in either success or setback. If things go badly, Grim Bush can, in effect, say "I told you so" while this apparent 'wisdom' makes his lack of a strategy appear credible to the gullible. If things somehow manage to improve, Grim Bush can solemnly declare that the 'corner' has been 'turned' due to his brilliant and courageous leadership.
As Europe struggles to handle the steaming turd Bush has handed it, The Decider is busy looking for more "threats" in oil-producing countries that might need "liberation". Maybe the Venezuelan media should be allowed to call for a foreign country to overthrow its government. While we wouldn't allow that here in the U.S, goshdarnit, it's just the type of thing that needs someone to stand up for. Yep, treason is an unalienable right, unless it's against a government we have in our pocket, at least. It's not about the oil, no sir, it's about those oppressed multibillion television networks being able to ask for an invasion of their own country without some domestic government getting on their case. I hear they even wiretap without warrants in Venezuela, and people who plant bombs in public places to overthrow the government actually go to jail. And the people who have been losing the elections there are mad because they can't win. It looks like a job for... SUPERPOWER!
Yeah, we're all about defending the world from tyranny nowadays. At least until we're bankrupt, that is.

How we win in Iraq

We are not in Iraq to fight Al-Qaeda, despite what those digging for justifications say. We are there to stabilise a government and civil society that we destroyed through our own ineptitude in the invasion. Al-Qaeda operatives are in a lot of countries, and there are also "homegrown" terrorists that aren't even linked to Al-Qaeda in a lot of countries (e.g. the U.S.). Killing them in Iraq, or having them run to other countries (e.g. Afghanistan) will not solve the problem. There are always more, too.
What the Republicans have done is tried to invade a country on the cheap and under false pretenses. This failed miserably, and it's now become a hugely expensive operation with no clear end in sight. So Al-Qaeda was pulled out of the hat as the bogeyman and, yes, about a thousand Al-Qaeda fighters are in Iraq out of several million other people who don't like us either. They are there largely because of the complete vacuum of authority, which is due to the horrific bungling of the occupation.
So now the Republicans dig deep and come up with "the troops" as the justification for the occupation. We see staged question-and-answer sessions in which soldiers ask commanders questions right out the Republican talking points. The upshot is that, even though it's hugely expensive and doesn't advance our foreign policy objectives, we have to keep supporting the occupation forever or else the troops will lose the will to fight.
It's not about "winning" or "surrendering". There is no one to "surrender" to. The Iraqi government is incompetent, so there is no "winning". It's about bullying them into giving up their oil with the Hydrocarbon Law so that we can focus on keeping the oil fields secure and letting the rest of the country go to hell. A few oil companies get rich, the consumer pays high gas prices, and the taxpayers foot the bill and get to pay for the refineries and infrastructure, too. That's how we "win".

Warnings of "Iraq challenges" somehow prove Bush is brilliant

Came across this post and was shocked by war supporters' spin.

That American Can’t Do Spirit [Dan Collins]

Celebrated by the LA Times this Memorial Day Weekend: Bush was twice warned of Iraq challenges

Holy shit! You mean he was warned twice that it mightn’t be easy to bring security, democracy and prosperity to Iraq?

Wow! There you have it. The Republican 'take' on the report that laid out how Bush was warned about virtually all of the dangers of a long occupation in Iraq....is that this proves how brave Bush really was.

Okay, first let me just point out that we've only seen "Grim Bush" since November. Up to that point we had "Smiley Bush" who believed that everything in Iraq was getting better every day and that the "insurgents" were merely "dead-enders" who were in their "final throes". It was "Smiley Bush" and his team of wishful thinkers that completely bungled things, not "Grim Bush". The Republican spin is apparently that Bush knew it would be hard, that civil war (that's not really civil war) could be an option, that a long occupation could mean that we'd take heavy casualties, but goshdarnit, he went ahead and took the risk. Well, that's a Republican fairy tale. Every single thing about the occupation was planned for only the best possible outcome. A Bush staffer who predicted that the war could cost as much as $100 billion was ridiculed by the White House and fired. Yet the Republicans honestly present this as a President who proceeded knowing full well that he would face terrible setbacks.

From the outset, Bremer made decision after decision that could only create the situation of a long occupation, despite the report's warning of the dangers:
- Put 20,000 Baath Party members out of work overnight. These are the 20,000 who actually know how to administer Iraq and who know how to get things done. Watch as things cease to get done.
- Eliminate the Iraqi Army and put 100,000 armed and trained men out a job. Watch as security evaporates.
- Send in less than half the troops you need to maintain order in a country without an army and a police force in shambles. Watch as sectarian militias infiltrate the police and military.
- Wipe out every Iraqi institution that makes a civil society work, and replace them with foreign institutions and administer them in a foreign language.
- Make Iraq the 51st state rather than giving Iraqis control in how their country would be shaped.
- Pretend that elections automatically produce pro-U.S. governments. Watch as they don't.

Yep, Bush knew all about these risks, but he and his stooges went ahead with a brave plan that guaranteed we would be running the show In Iraq for a long time.
The real truth is that Bush and his cronies had a plan that went like this:
- Install Ahmed Challabi as a puppet leader.
- Bask in the adulation of grateful Iraqi masses who eagerly give us their oil.
- Claim success and gloat over Democrats who thought this might get tricky.

You see, this is a plan that differs from a Bush Administration who was fully aware that "it mightn’t be easy to bring security, democracy and prosperity to Iraq". In fact, Bush replaced Shinseki when he told Bush that the going would get tough. Remember, the White House continues to deny that Iraq is involved in a civil war. Does this sound like an Administration that's been aware of the risks from the outset, or a delusional one that only wants to hear good news? Of course, now we have "Grim Bush", who tells us ahead of time that things are going to look like they are getting worse in the future. And this is supposed to reassure us somehow. Hey, he's admitting that it's going to be tough, so when the 'surge' looks like it's a complete failure, that's how you'll know that everything is going according to plan. That's just Al-Qaeda trying to get us to 'surrender', so if anyone (besides Grim Bush) says that things are going badly, then they obviously are traitors who support Al-Qaeda and you shouldn't listen to anything they say.
Bush is now only speaking to the one-fourth of the electorate who still think he has some credibility left, and obviously judging from the neocon bloggers, they are lapping it up. The other three-fourths merely see him as a deluded, obsessive pawn dominated by others with an agenda they are afraid to openly admit to.

Bush Administration's irrelevance now painfully obvious

The Bush Administration has become so disconnected with reality, so profoundly arrogant and so isolated that it has become nothing more than an annoying obstacle that the world must sidestep around as it tries to fix the messes Bush makes.
Recently, the Decider Dude made another scary speech (see cartoon above) in which he once again made his pitch that Iraq is the" central front on the war on Terror", but this time he dug up old intelligence reports. Polls show that the majority of Americans aren't buying the Iraqi "central front" thesis, largely because the logic it's founded on is weak. Basically, it goes like this: "Terrorists are bad people. The people who are attacking us in Iraq are bad people. Therefore by killing the bad people in Iraq, we will get rid of bad people around the world. It's true because we say so." Now, it is true that the occupation of Iraq has been a big boost to Al-Qaeda, both in terms of fundraising and recruitment. It also allows Al-Qaeda to spruce up its image in the Islamic world by portraying themselves as defending Iraqis against foreign infidel troops, rather than as crazy murderers of innocents. This is hardly an endorsement of our policy of continuing the occupation, however. It's not as if there is some specific number of "terrorists" in Iraq that never changes, and if we can only kill off that number, then no more will take their place. It's also not like these "terrorists" all wear black hats and stand around twirling their handlebar moustaches in a sinister way to make picking them out in a crowd easier. And if we do drive them out of Iraq, they will simply go someplace else and do essentially the same thing there, so that's not any improvement. And lastly, having troops in Iraq does nothing to prevent terrorists from coming here.
If your local police chief placed every one of his officers on a single street corner and claimed that criminals would now flock to that corner to commit their crimes and thus be apprehended by the large police presence, you would probably label the chief as a simpleton. Yet this is the logical basis for Bush's "Iraqi central front" argument.
Up to now, however, Bush has countered this by implying that he is privy to intelligence reports that prove him right, but he can't share this secret information with us. So he made a special Decider decision and declassified some old intelligence reports to prove to sceptics that Iraq really is, in fact, the "Central Front in the War on Terror". And he made this daring public revelation to an audience of employees (Coast Guard) who are required to keep a straight face.
Here is that super-secret "proof", in a nutshell:
People who were tortured told their captors about two plots to attack targets in the U.S. In both cases, these 'plots' were merely in the concept stage and neither 'plot' had anything to do with Iraq. And there were also reports from Britain that have since been proven to be exaggerations, but which Bush presented as gospel truth. These 'plots' also had nothing to do with Iraq.
It is silly to have to say this, but simply because we have troops in Iraq does not mean that every terrorist plot that is disrupted is due to the presence of our troops in Iraq. In my police chief analogy, if two car thieves decide to go out for beers rather than steal cars parked miles away from the chief's selected corner, then this would be proof that his policy of placing all his forces on that corner was working.

Bush, however, seems to think that his point has been proven and we can all expect him to continue to make the case that the occupation of Iraq is about fighting terrorism, not refereeing a civil war. This, of course, is because a referee cannot "win", and Bush has, strangely, cast an occupation as something that can be 'won' or 'lost'. Doncha wanna win? Instead, he has miscast Al-Qaeda as equivalent to a regular army, which we can militarily defeat and thus win. Sadly, this characterisation has no basis in reality. There is no Al-Qaeda territory that we can take, there is no headquarters that can be overrun, there are no 'front lines', and there are no Al-Qaeda uniforms. The situation has far more in common with a law enforcement scenario, rather than a military battlefield. We would not call out the Army to 'defeat' the forces of tax fraud, for example. We would not portray criminals as having a central leadership, uniforms declaring themselves to be criminals, or a headquarters that must be stormed in order to 'defeat' all crime once and for all.
Yet this is what Bush's "central front" thesis is based upon - distortions of the truth. "The occupation is a war. Al-Qaeda is an army. Troops in Iraq keep plots in California from being carried out."
Meanwhile Al-Sadr is planning an end run by making Al-Maliki as irrelevant as Bush and getting an Iraqi demand for withdrawal passed in Parliament.
Meanwhile the Republicans are making a "Plan B" that consists of a 50% troop reduction if the 'surge' is officially determined to have failed.
Meanwhile the U.S. generals in Iraq are coming up with novel definitions of the word 'success' to use in their reports on the occupation.
All this while the Decider Dude rants on about stuff nobody believes in or cares about anymore.

Redefining the success of the 'surge'

From the Daily Telegraph, an honest look at how Bush defines "success" when it comes to the 'surge':

Mr Campbell, whose remarks may cause embarrassment to Downing Street and anger in Washington, said that the casualty figures for April - in which 1,500 civilians are believed to have been killed - provided no "encouraging" evidence.

Speaking on the record last week to a public audience at Chatham House, the London-based foreign-policy research institute, he said: "The evidence does not suggest that the surge is actually working, if reduction in casualties is a criterion. The figures in April were not encouraging."

In unusually candid comments, Mr Campbell also disclosed that American commanders had decided that the criteria for the "success" of the troop surge would be nothing more than a reduction in violence to the level prior to last year's al-Qaeda bombing of the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra, which destroyed its golden dome.

The destruction of the shrine, one of the most important Shia sites in the world, led to a dramatic escalation in sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia factions, peaking at 3,500 deaths in September last year. Casualty figures had been running at 800 a month before that, a level that few would regard as anything approaching peace.

While the United States military has made little secret of its view that the bloodshed in Iraq can now only be contained, rather than stamped out altogether, the suggestion that 800 murders a month in the country would be a measure of success is an indication of how far the coalition has been forced to reign in its expectations.

Just like "victory" in Iraq keeps getting redefined, the "success" of the 'surge' is likewise just a matter of which definition is used. No matter what Iraq looks like in September, there should be no doubt that the 'surge' will be a success, simply because Bush will tell his military commanders that success is defined by whatever the situation is at that point.
Due to the results of recent votes in Congress, it's now clear that the 'surge' will last for the remainder of Bush's term. This also is an example in semantics, by changing the definition of the word "surge" to that of the word "escalation". So, after more than three years of thumbs-up, smiley-face assessments, it will turn out that two more years of a roughly 30% troop increase was all we needed to get us back where we started. At that point, more thumbs-up, smiley-faced assessments will be in order and Republicans will be able to blame whoever takes over after Bush. Republicans will hail Bush as a great military leader for using the 'surge' to get the back to the point where it was before the 'surge'.

You know, it's not a question of victory or defeat here. It's not as if we are fighting a conventional war or a regular army. We are essentially fighting social unrest and political impotence with crude force. There is no "social unrest" commander with a headquarters that we can go to and surrender. But Republicans keep casting the situation in Iraq as if it were a conventional war, precisely because a conventional war can be lost, and an occupation cannot be lost. Bush knows that Americans don't like the idea of "defeat", so a small segement continues to grudgingly support his failed policies to avoid it. We all want to see Good prevail over Evil, so we tell ourselves that there are clearly defined Bad Guys and clearly defined Good Guys. However, the truth is that a lot of the Bad Guys wear the uniforms of the Good Guys, and Al-Qaeda doesn't wear uniforms at all. And when anyone starts talking about the truth in Iraq, you can be sure that a Republican will accuse them of treason. It's kind of like blaming the people who dial 911 for the crimes that are committed, because they are somehow admitting that crime exists and therefore 'emboldening' criminals. Sadly, we are now dealing with an Administration that uses wishful thinking and semantics as the primary tools of leadership.

Sadrists not as dead as Bush's wishful thinking indicates

Bush, et al, keep writing off al-Sadr and talk about his 'splintered' Mahdi Army. This is just another fallacy in an unbroken series of optimistic assessments and wishful thoughts, and the U.S. media backs it up dutifully.
However, if we look at a news report from China we hear a different tune whistled:

Fierce Clashes also broke out overnight between Iraqi security forces and Shiite militiamen loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al- Sadr in the southern city of Nassriyah, killing 10 people and wounding some 50 others, local police and official sources said on Wednesday.

"Ten people were killed in the fighting, and up to 50 others were wounded, including civilians and security members," Abdul Karim al-Uqiedy, deputy head of the local government told Xinhua by telephone.
A local police source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said that the fighting sparked Tuesday night after the Iraqi security forces detained a Sadr's Mahdi Army member who was accused of targeting U.S. and Iraqi forces with roadside bombs and mortars.
Groups of Mahdi's militants armed with machine-guns and rocket propelled grenades attacked the house of the local police commando chief, who was accused by the militants of detaining one of their comrades, the police said.
Residents of Nassriyah, some 375 km southeast of Baghdad, said that sporadic explosions and gunfire could be heard in the noon on Wednesday, whereas the streets in the city were deserted.
They said that several cars were charred on the Habboby Street in central city, where the government building located, and that many police guards of the building were either killed or injured.
Iraqi Army and police forces blocked the entrances of Nassriyah as they moved into the city to quell the violence, they added.

Oh, and something you would never see in the American press:

The latest violence came as a U.S.-led security crackdown entered its third month, which has not achieved substantial progress in neither reducing violence nor realizing national reconciliation between rival factions in Iraq.

What, no vague assertions of "signs of success" that are required here? And the 'surge' is in its third month, you say? But the Republicans say the 'surge' doesn't start until June! It's okay to take credit for any "success" the 'surge' might produce, but not the blame for any lack of success. Hmmm, so the foreign press isn't buying that, eh?