France must be ready for Iran war - minister

France has changed its stance towards almost everything since the election of the new French president, Nicolas Sarkozy; a man who has bent over backwards to reassure Bush that the days of Jacques Chirac and European opposition to American plans is finally over.

This is also being reflected in the noises come out of France regarding any future confrontation with Iran over its enrichment of uranium, with French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, going as far as to say that the world must prepare for war.

Seeking to ratchet up the pressure on Iran, Mr Kouchner also told RTL radio and LCI television that the world's main powers should use further sanctions to show they were serious about stopping Tehran getting nuclear weapons, and said France had asked French firms not to bid for tenders in the Islamic Republic.

"We must prepare for the worst," Mr Kouchner said in an interview, adding: "The worst, sir, is war."

The political realignment which has taken place in France is simply astounding. Anyone watching would be forgiven for thinking that Chirac had been proven wrong in his epic battle with Bush before the invasion of Iraq.

The truth is, of course, that Chirac was proven to be completely correct and that it was the neo-cons who were wrong in every single assumption they made before that conflict, including their belief that Saddam possessed WMD.

As a result of this colossal misadventure US influence throughout the planet is weaker than it has been for decades, with China and Russia stepping in to fill the void.

The Global Power Barometer has recently pointed out just how disastrous the US intervention in Iraq has been for the US as a world leader:

The media has recently caught on to the fact that US influence is in steep decline but still under the mainstream radar is the extent to which other players such as Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela are stepping into the vacuum. The US is still the military superpower but it's already sharing the global influence stage with emerging powers who can move global events as well or better.

A dramatic global realignment appears to be in progress (and quickening) as the result of several factors:

• The loss of US influence as a result of the Iraq war
• A view across the globe resulting from Abu Ghraib and range of missteps that the US has lost the moral high ground it had enjoyed for decades
• A feeling among global leaders that the US is without a coherent foreign policy strategy...a belief that has started feeding on itself and has emboldened US adversaries
• China's rise, its smooth diplomatic technique, its re-alignment with Russia and its aggressive, clever drive to form new alliances with nations extending from Asia and Africa to South America
• Russia's recent rise combined with Russian President Putin's domestic popularity and his reputation for effectively standing up to the West
• The rise of non-aligned nations emboldened by the inability of the US to effectively use the extraordinary power it possesses
• A view among key global leaders that the US will be bogged down in Iraq for many years (a view heightened by significantly by President Bush's September 13 Iraq speech), thus distracted and unable to respond effectively to key political moves by the range of international players
• A recognition by the international community that the Bush Administration not only hasn't been able to deal effectively with non-state actors (e.g. terror groups like Al Qaeda) but they are holding their own or starting to win

The effects of the Bush presidency and the Iraq war on the global standing of the United States has been catastrophic.

Iraq is now perceived as a failed campaign by a failed Presidency. And it was a military campaign which the government of France famously opposed.

Not that one would know that by listening to Bernard Kouchner. No, one could be forgiven for thinking that the French have learned the lesson of ignoring their wiser neo-con masters, such is their keenness to join the US is any further military misadventure.

It's a strange old world and Sarkozy appears to be lining himself up to be the French equivalent of Tony Blair, another European who ignored the best interests of his own nation by saddling himself up to American foreign policy.

Mr Kouchner's comments follow a statement by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who said last month that a diplomatic push by the world's powers was the only alternative to "an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran".

Mr Kouchner said France had asked its biggest companies, including the oil giant Total and the gas firm Gaz de France, not to bid for projects in Iran. "It is a way of signalling that we are serious," he said. In addition, Paris and Berlin were preparing possible EU economic sanctions against Tehran, he said.

At least Blair tied himself to Bush whilst his power was in the ascendancy, Sarkozy appears to be doing so whilst Bush is holed beneath the water line.

All in all, it's a very strange position for France to adopt.

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Saving Zimbabwe is not colonialism, it's Britain's duty

Tony Blair famously avoided the Zimbabwean issue by declaring it a matter that required "An African solution" which was no doubt an attempt to pass the whole sorry mess on to the shoulders of South Africa's President Mbeki and avoid the charge of British colonialism from Mugabe.

There are many of us who thought that this represented a cop out. Mugabe has run his country into the ground, attacked his political opponents, and operated a dictatorship that shames the whole of Africa. The actions of Mbeki, who has supposedly been attempting to negotiate with Mugabe to temper his behaviour, has been a lesson in abject failure.

Now the Archbishop of York has stepped up to the plate to demand that the world begins to take action against the Zimbabwean regime.

He begins by pointing our just what the state of play in Zimbabwe currently is:

The statistics alone are devastating: the average life expectancy for women in Zimbabwe is 34 years; for men, it is 37. Inflation rages at 8,000 per cent; the shelves are empty of bread and maize; in the hospitals and clinics, children die for lack of vitamins, food and medicine, while the ravages of Aids are exacerbated by government indifference.

In the cramped townships now home to those supporters of the opposition whose homes Mugabe destroyed in a frenzy of destruction called 'Clean Out the Filth', there is no electricity or fresh running water and sewage spews out of the dilapidated buildings. The first cholera deaths were reported last week.

He demands that now is the time for the international community to step up to the plate and impose the kind of sanctions which the world once placed on Apartheid South Africa on the Zimbabwean regime.

The time for 'African solutions' alone is now over. Despite his best efforts, President Mbeki has failed to help the people of Zimbabwe. At best, he has been ineffectual in his efforts to advise, cajole and persuade Robert Mugabe to reverse his unjust and brutal regime. At worst, Mbeki is complicit in his failing to lead the charge against a neighbour who is systematically raping the country he leads.

Britain needs to escape from its colonial guilt when it comes to Zimbabwe. Mugabe is the worst kind of racist dictator. Having targeted the whites for their apparent riches, Mugabe has enacted an awful Orwellian vision, with the once oppressed taking on the role of the oppressor and glorying in their totalitarian abilities.

Like Idi Amin before him in Uganda, Mugabe has rallied a country against its former colonial master only to destroy it through a dictatorial fervour. Enemies are tortured, the press is censored, the people are starving and meanwhile the world waits for South Africa to intervene. That time is now over.

It is now time for the sanctions and campaigns that brought an end to apartheid in South Africa to be applied to the Mugabe regime. What Britain deemed to be in the best interest of the Rhodesian government of Ian Smith must now be enacted against the Zimbabwean government of Robert Mugabe. The smart sanctions implemented by governments towards terror groups now need to be brought to bear upon Mugabe's regime.

There are many of us, myself included, who have thought many times that Mugabe was about to fall and that the South African nations would come together to ensure his downfall. However, each false dawn has simply resulted in Mugabe facing down Mbeki and others and imposing an even harsher rule on his people than that which existed before.

The Archbishop of York now demands that Gordon Brown steps in where Blair feared to tread and that he now makes the case for sanctions against this odious regime, despite the fact that any international sanctions will be used by Mugabe as a further example of colonial meddling.

The appalling poverty suffered by those who queue daily for bread in southern Harare is a world apart from the shops, boutiques and sprinkled lawns of northern Harare, where Mugabe's supporters live in palatial surroundings. Britain must lead the way in calling for targeted sanctions against those purveyors of misery whose luxury is bought at the cost of unbearable poverty.

Blair's 'ethical foreign policy' is a long-forgotten memory, sacrificed upon an invasion undertaken without UN sanction. In its place, our new Prime Minister, with his record on debt erosion and activism across Africa, is faced with a spiralling desperation that demands a response. While Mugabe may well brand Brown a 'colonialist' or 'imperialist' for any action he takes, the people of Zimbabwe look to us, and to others, to heed the cries of their suffering and the voices of our own conscience.

Brown has a very good track record when it comes to Africa and the Archbishop of York is now calling on him to use that good name for a deeply moral purpose.

Zimbabwe, under Mugabe, has teetered on the edge of collapse without ever actually going over the edge. A simple push would end the whole sorry debacle.

The fear of being branded colonialists by a dreadful dictator should not be enough stop the UK from doing what is morally right. Africa has failed to find a solution and it is time for the rest of us to step into the vacuum and do what is right for the people of Zimbabwe.

And that means opposing his vicious regime through rigorous sanctions.

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CIA bans water boarding whilst admitting that they have previously used this torture method.

Bush has famously refused to say what techniques the CIA have been using whilst interrogating suspects at various US secret prisons around the world - and at the not so secret Guantanamo Bay - lest this information aids terrorists; however, he still maintained that the US did NOT torture prisoners, even whilst he refused to say what he thought might constitute torture.

Now, however, with the news that the CIA has, at last, ended the barbaric practice of water-boarding; a technique which Senator McCain has assured us is, indeed, torture:

Today, in New Hampshire, Sen. McCain told ABC News, "I have sought that result for years. Water-boarding is a form of torture. And I'm convinced that this will not only help us in our interrogation techniques, but it will also be helpful for our image in the world."

However, there are some former and current CIA officers who think water boarding was useful:

Its most effective use, say current and former CIA officials, was in breaking Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, known as KSM, who subsequently confessed to a number of ongoing plots against the United States.

A senior CIA official said KSM later admitted it was only because of the water-boarding that he talked.

So, here we have current and former CIA officials confirming that the United States did, indeed, engage in torture.

Certain people have commented here over the years that there is no proof that the US have ever engaged in torture techniques. And yet, here we have the CIA not only admitting that they have tortured people, but boasting of its effectiveness in breaking Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

What they don't tell us is that most of what he then admitted to was fanciful to say the least:

Ultimately, KSM took responsibility for the 9/ll attacks and virtually all other al Qaeda terror strikes, including the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

I am pleased that this barbaric practice is to be ended, but the CIA officials confirmation that they have used this practice in the past proves, once again, that Bush is a liar and that the US have engaged in what even John McCain admits is torture.

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Sen. Hagel: Petraeus Dog and Pony Show “Dishonest, Hypocritical, Dangerous and Irresponsible”

Hagel says that the current Iraq war policy is "the biggest foreign policy blunder in the history of this country" and that the American people will "self correct" at the next election.

The Radical Fringe

Syria complains to UN over Israel

Syria has lodged an official complaint at the United Nations regarding Israel's outrageous violation of Syrian airspace, a violation which the US are amazingly said to be "happy" about.

Sources in the U.S. government and military confirmed to CNN's Barbara Starr that the airstrike did happen, and that they are happy to have Israel carry the message to both Syria and Iran that they can get in and out and strike when necessary.

This really does say a lot about the complete breakdown of respect for international law since Bush and the current gang of cowboys took charge of the White House. They are letting it be known that they are "happy" that Israel violated the air space of another sovereign nation, an act that - were it to have occurred the other way around - would be referred to as an invasion.

But, in the upside down world of the Bush administration, we don't have to overly concern ourselves with such niceties as international law as the world is split into good guys and bad guys and we, fortunately, are the good guys, so any action we take is automatically beyond reproach.

CNN are claiming that the Israelis were attacking Iranian arms being transferred through Syria and heading towards Hizbullah in Lebanon. This is an extremely generous reading of events on the part of CNN as even the Israelis are refusing to comment on what did and did not take place here. One can only imagine that if their motives were that clear cut that they would be screaming them from the rooftops. Their silence speaks volumes.

And, of course, this action took place at the very moment when the Israelis are said to be seeking peace with Syria.

Josh Landis sums up the hypocrisy of the Israeli position perfectly:

We've set up a strict double standard for ourselves and the Arabs. We believe Israel is entitled to breach Syrian airspace, or Lebanese airspace, because - well, because they're bad and we're good. But if they breach ours? If Syrian jets dared fly over Israeli territory, everybody knows what would happen - we'd shoot them down without a moment's hesitation. And afterward we'd complain to the whole world, we'd say, "You see? The Arabs are trying to kill us all, just like the Nazis." Yet if, on the other hand, Israeli jets fly over Syria - and get away with it? Wink, wink. The little country with the big heart has done it again. Damn, we're good.

When "our" side violate international law the US "is happy", when others do so they demand that they be punished with the full might of the same laws that the US and its allies ignore with impunity.

Is it any wonder that the US's standing in the world is at its lowest point for decades with a President who openly allows such hypocrisy?

The US used to lead the world by example. Under the neo-cons that premise has been long ago abandoned.

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Alan Greenspan claims Iraq war was really for oil

Alan Greenspan has thrown the cat amongst the pigeons by stating that the Iraq war was actually about oil.

However, it is his view on the motive for the 2003 Iraq invasion that is likely to provoke the most controversy. “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he says.

He has a lot to say about the Bush administration's general economic incompetence but by stating that the Iraq war was actually about oil he really is throwing a spanner into the works.

The subject of Iraq's oil has been successfully sidelined, even whilst the Bush administration push through the disgraceful act of theft which is the Iraqi Oil Law. However, Greenspan being as direct has he has been about the subject of oil is bound to open the whole debate up again.

There will be the inevitable attacks from right wing nutcases like Bill O'Reilly and others, but Greenspan is such a respected figure that it will be very hard to bat away his observations. After all, has nothing to gain from saying what he has said.

Oh yes, he has a "book to sell" as right wing nutcases love to point out. But he's hardly short of a bob or two is he?

He also says that the Republicans deserved to lose the mid-term elections:

"The Republicans in Congress lost their way," Greenspan wrote. "They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose."

His book is released on Monday. The right wing attack machine will swing into action first thing Monday morning.

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Iraqis say U.S. should stop passing blame

It would appear that the Iraqi government have had enough of being blamed by the US for all that has gone wrong with their invasion of a country that never attacked them. The Iraqis are now saying that the US should accept responsibility for the chaos and stop blaming Iraq, Syria and Iran for the mess that now exists on the ground in Iraq.

"The Americans always try to pretend the responsibility for cleaning up this mess isn't theirs and tend to shift blame onto Iraq, Iran and Syria for everything that goes wrong," said veteran Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman.

"But they should stop this nonsense and admit that most of the accountability rests on their shoulders," he told Reuters.

The responsibility for restoring order after a war belongs, under international law, to the occupying force. Since the illegal invasion the US has NEVER, EVER, managed to restore order to the streets of Iraq. Indeed, in the early days after the invasion Rumsfeld appeared to applaud the anarchy which saw looting on the streets of Iraq by claiming that "Freedom is messy!"

Recently the Americans have sought to move the responsibility for the anarchy currently sweeping through Iraq's streets on to anyone other than themselves. It's the blame of the Iraqi government, or more commonly, the blame of the Iranians for supplying weapons to the Iraqi insurgency; despite the fact that no-one can actually confirm that the Iranian government are actually doing this. But the important thing is that it is the fault of someone else as far as the Bush administration are concerned.

This Iraqi fightback comes hard on the heels of the Bush administration's latest attack on the Iraqi government for failing to achieve progress on US imposed benchmarks, the most important to the US being the Iraqi Oil law.

The fact that such a contentious law is proving controversial can hardly be a surprise to anyone, and it seems ridiculous that Bush can seek to blame the Iraqis for having difficulty passing a law which allows foreign powers - and especially American oil companies - access to their most important resource.

But the Iraqis are right on their main point. The task of restoring order in Iraq is the responsibility of the occupying army, and the Americans are being duplicitous when they attempt to pass that responsibility on to the Iraqi government.

When the British occupied countries as large as India, the very first thing they did was to restore order. Without order the occupying power can achieve little else.

And, as the Iraqi government are now pointing out, the lack of order in Iraq has been a problem from the earliest days of this US invasion, and it's a problem for which the blame lies with the United States, not with the Iraqis, the Syrians or the Iranians.

The Worst Thing McCain has seen "In a Long Time"...

McCain's campaign is dead in the water. And here is why:



This supposed "straight shooter" thinks the MoveOn.org campaign regarding Petraeus is the worst thing he has seen "in a long time".

He states, "To impugn the integrity and honour of a man who has served his country... is an absolute disgace".

Perhaps he forgets, in his quest for power, the way he - a man who similarly served in the military admirably - was treated by the Bushites during his last attempt to lead the Republicans.

The "pollsters" asked McCain supporters if they would be more or less likely to vote for McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate child who was black. In the conservative, race-conscious South, that's not a minor charge. We had no idea who made the phone calls, who paid for them, or how many calls were made. Effective and anonymous: the perfect smear campaign.

Some aspects of this smear were hardly so subtle. Bob Jones University professor Richard Hand sent an e-mail to "fellow South Carolinians" stating that McCain had "chosen to sire children without marriage." It didn't take long for mainstream media to carry the charge. CNN interviewed Hand and put him on the spot: "Professor, you say that this man had children out of wedlock. He did not have children out of wedlock." Hand replied, "Wait a minute, that's a universal negative. Can you prove that there aren't any?"

For McCain, of all people, to try to equate MoveOn.org's advert as the worst thing he has seen "in a long time", implies that he is willing to forget the dirty, sleazy and libelous charges that were laid at his own door by the very people who are now manipulating Petraeus.

MoveOn.org said that Petraeus was betraying the US's best interests by lying about the situation on the ground in Iraq. That's hardly a charge of treason as some right wing nutbags have argued.

McCain, as a person who has felt the brunt of the Bush/Rove slander machine, should realise that what was done to him was much worse - and much more personal and despicable - than anything that has ever been laid at Petraeus's door.

The Promotion of Failure in Bush Administration

JOHN EDWARDS: Response to President Bush

John Edwards takes apart Bush's reasoning for the continuing US presence in Iraq by reminding us that the point of the surge was not to reduce violence in Iraq, but to reduce violence so that national reconciliation could take place.

So, as a plan, the surge has blatantly failed.

Iraqi government has made no progress, US concludes

As Bush argues that the US must continue it's action in Iraq, the White House has issued a report admitting that the Iraqi government have achieved progress in almost none of the benchmarks which the US set them as a precondition for continued US support.

The report suggests that over the last two months the Iraqis had advanced on just two of the 18 so-called "benchmarks" to that end. As such, the document underlines how difficult it will be for Mr Bush to convince Americans that political progress is being made in Iraq – claims already undermined by the murder, shortly before he spoke, of a prominent tribal leader in Anbar province allied with the US against al-Qa'ida.

However, despite insisting that there must be progress in Iraq to justify the price being paid in American lives, the Bush administration are now insisting that the war must continue despite almost no progress being made. This is the final proof that Bush's main interest is in handing this whole mess over to his successor.

Glenn Greenwald took up the theme of how conservative commentators are complicit in this blatant hypocrisy:

Just look at the Serious behavior of The Washington Post's Fred Hiatt in the last week alone to see how barren and worthless their words are. Last Sunday, Hiatt came closer than ever before to admitting failure in Iraq, ending his Editorial by asking:

If Iraqis are not moving toward political reconciliation, what justifies a continuing commitment of U.S. troops, with the painful sacrifices in lives that entails?

Thus, argued Hiatt, if the President cannot answer that question, and "if there is to be no political accord in the near future," then we must change our Iraq policy to "limit troop levels to those necessary to accomplish" very specific and more modest goals.

But today, Hiatt admits that what he said just five days ago were pre-conditions for supporting Bush's Iraq policy have not been met: "the president failed to acknowledge that, according to the standards he himself established in January, the surge of U.S. troops into Iraq has been a failure -- because Iraqi political leaders did not reach the political accords that the sacrifice of American lives was supposed to make possible."

Thus, by Hiatt's own reasoning on Sunday, it means that there is no justification for "a continuing commitment of U.S. troops." So does he embrace that conclusion? Of course not, because nothing he says matters; all that matters is that we stay in Iraq and do what the President wants:

Mr. Bush's plan offers, at least, the prospect of extending recent gains against al-Qaeda in Iraq, preventing full-scale sectarian war and allowing Iraqis more time to begin moving toward a new political order. For that reason, it is preferable to a more rapid withdrawal. It's not necessary to believe the president's promise that U.S. troops will "return on success" in order to accept the judgment of Mr. Crocker: "Our current course is hard. The alternatives are far worse."

This is how it goes endlessly with people like Hiatt: (1) If X does not happen, there is no justification for staying; (2) X has not happened; (3) we must stay. That is why nothing they say has any meaning. Staying in Iraq is always the only real goal. Everything else is just pretext and blather to continue to do that.

It is now blatant that the war supporters are complicit in Bush and Cheney's desire to simply never admit defeat in this conflict and hopefully hang on until the problem can be passed to a, probably, Democratic incoming administration.

None of the goals they have set the Iraqi government have been met and yet, still, they demand that the US must stay the course.

Not only that, but Bush is said to have stated privately that the US's "enduring relationship" with Iraq may, in fact, resemble the US actions towards Korea where the US maintained a presence for more than half a century.

As that realisation sunk in, Mr Bush's claim that both supporters and opponents of the war would be able to unite around the new strategy rang more hollow than ever

Mr Bush's claims of political progress by the Iraqis were described by Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, as an "insult to the intelligence of American people."

There are certain knee jerk supporters of Bush who appear to see their task as to fashion arguments to support his current position, even if they have - in the past - made an exact counter argument to the one which they are now making.

And these same partisans have the gall to accuse others of "partisanship" when they disagree with the policies of The Great Leader.

It takes a certain kind of shamelessness to publicly argue for a position that you have previously denounced. And yet, that is where Bush supporters now find themselves. I have made the analogy before of the wife married to the serial adulterer, and it is again apt.

Like the wives of unfaithful husbands, the Bush supporters are always drawing lines in the sand as points beyond which they will tolerate no more. And when Bush marches over the line they simply redraw another one and make a similar pointless declaration about the limit of their patience.

The whole exercise is a lesson in subjugation. A willingness to subvert your own intelligence in order to keep believing in something which every fibre of your being tells you is false.

And yet, that very action now defines conservatism in the Bush era.

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Proxy war could soon turn to direct conflict, analysts warn

The tensions between the US and Iran are heightening, with analysts warning that it could soon spill over into an actual conflict.

"The proxy war that has been going on in Iraq may now cross the border. This is a very dangerous period," Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said.

There are many of us, myself included, who feel that this is something which certain people in the Bush presidency actually desire.

And the recent Israeli activity in Syria leads many people to wonder whether or not we are witnessing a new phase in the neo-con mission to leave Israel the dominant power in the Middle East and to counter the inevitable rise in Iranian dominance produced by the American invasion of Iraq.

In such circumstances, last week's Israeli air strike against a mystery site in northern Syria has triggered speculation over its motives. Israel has been silent about the attack. Syria complained to the UN security council but gave few details. Some say the target was Iranian weapons on their way to Hizbullah in Lebanon, or that the sortie was a dry run for a US-Israeli attack on Syria and Iran. There is even speculation that the Israelis took out a nuclear facility funded by Iran and supplied by North Korea.

What is most astonishing about Israel's sortie over Iranian airspace is how little we know about what actually took place. The Israelis aren't talking about it and the Americans are refusing to even ask them publicly about what happened, which implies that they know exactly what happened and are complicit in the plan.

All of this, and the posting of British troops at the Iranian border, represents a significant escalation in the war of words between the two countries.

There are certain lunatics within the Bush administration - people like Dick Cheney who are wrong so often that it is a wonder that he has not been driven out of office - who are actively calling for military action against Iran, despite the fact that the Bush regime are tied down with their campaign in Iraq.

I have always thought that certain members of this administration were mad enough to call for an escalation in American activities even when it is obvious that the US is finding it hard to cope simply with their Iraqi problem, and all indications from the press are that this is indeed what is being argued for in Washington.

Hawks led by the vice-president, Dick Cheney, are intensifying their push for military action, with support from Israel and privately from some Sunni Gulf states.

"Washington is seriously reviewing plans to bomb not just nuclear sites, but oil sites, military sites and even leadership targets. The talk is of multiple targets," said Mr Cronin. "In Washington there is very serious discussion that this is a window that has to be looked at seriously because there is only six months to 'do something about Iran' before it will be looked at as a purely political issue."

The madmen that surround Bush appear to have accepted that the 2008 election is, in all probability, lost; so they may feel that they have nothing to lose from ploughing ahead and carrying out their insane plans.

There is a certain strain of the neo-cons who have always considered Israeli security as of equal importance as the security of the United States itself and it is into this strain of thought that the proposed action against Iran fits.

The people most affected by the rise in Iranian power in the Middle East are the Israelis and the proposed action is an attempt to reverse the inevitable result of the US's invasion of Iraq. Of course, any action taken by the Americans will be sold as an attempt to stop Iranian interference in Iraq and a way to protect Americans in general from any Iranian nuclear device, but only the most die hard Republican supporters will buy that baloney.

We are witnessing the build up to yet another war for Israel, no matter how they try to sell it to us.

"There are an awful lot of lower level officers who are very angry about the deaths from explosively formed projectiles said to come from Iran. There is a certain amount of military pressure to do something about this," said Patrick Clawson, the deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "That said, it is very difficult for us to do anything without much better evidence. In that respect, border control is a sensible solution."

You'll notice that even as they try to tell us what the Iranians are doing in Iraq that there is a tacit admission that the US have no concrete proof to back up their assertions.

However, any American action against Iran would force Gordon Brown into a very difficult corner and could rip the supposed UK/US special relationship wide open.

I doubt very much that Brown would join Bush and Co in any venture that included an attack on Iran, despite his recent willingness to place British troops on the Iranian border.

If the US decide to attack Iran I suspect that they will be on their own, with perhaps Israeli support thrown in. However, the myth that American action in the Middle East represents the will of the international community will be destroyed if Cheney is allowed to plunder on in the direction which he appears to be heading.

But, with time running out on the Bush presidency, I no longer think that the nutters in the White House even care what the world thinks. If, indeed, they ever did.

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The Republican "small price" of losing a loved one.

When right wing nutbags attempt to portray MoveOn's Petraeus ad as an insult to the troops, perhaps they should ponder on this comment from John Boehner that "the loss in blood" of American troops every month in Iraq is a "small price" to pay.

Try telling the windows and orphans of this war that the price they are paying is a "small" one.

Will the same Republicans who effected faux outrage over MoveOn demand that Boehner make an apology? No. The excuses will start here...

Wolf Blitzer: "The loss in blood, the Americans who are killed every month, how much longer do you think this commitment, this military commitment is going to require?"

And Mr. Boehner responded:

"The investment that we're making today will be a small price if we're able to stop al Qaeda here, if we're able to stabilize the Middle East, it's not only going to be a small price for the near future, but think about the future for our kids and their kids."

Note the lie, that this war is against al Qaeda, the myth that this is what the US is facing in Iraq. That lie is what Boehner is using to justify the "small price" that he thinks the US is paying.

Olbermann: Worst Person In the World... as recommended by Geraldo

"Michelle Malkin is the most vile, hateful, commentator I have ever met in my life. She actually believes that neighbours should start snitching out neighbours and we should be deporting people. It's good that she is in DC and I am in New York. I'd spit on her if I saw her."

Who said this? No, it's not someone who the right wing nutbags would call an "extreme" leftist; is there any other leftist in their world?

It was actually Geraldo Rivera. It appears that there are some on the right who recognise that there are loons in their midst.

For how long can you, "Hope he’s right"?

I'm always astonished at the similarity between war supporters and a woman married to a serial philanderer. Every single time they are told that the lesson has been learned and that things will be better from now on, they drink the Kool Aid and believe that now, at last, things will improve.

How else to take the right wing reaction to Petraeus and then Bush's little pep talks on Iraq? There have been mistakes but now - at last - we are on the right track!

This is how Pete Hegseth took the news over at The National Review:

Past mistakes in Iraq have put us in a tenuous situation there. But today we finally have the correct strategy and we’re finally taking the fight to the enemy in a comprehensive manner.

Oh, at last!

My question is how, after four bloody years of this nonsense, does a person manage to sum up the energy to once again put their trust in people who have been saying things are about to improve "in about six months time" for almost the entire length of the war?

Even Hegseth admits that this is not the first time that these claims have been made:

However, America has heard “by December…” before, and this time, it’s imperative that security improvements drive the predictions.

In May 2006, the US Ambassador was telling us that the next six months in Iraq "were critical".

In February of 2003 Donald Rumsfeld was stating:

"It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months," he said.

In February of this year:

An elite team of officers advising US commander General David Petraeus in Baghdad has concluded the US has six months to win the war in Iraq.

Indeed, there simply doesn't appear to be any period in this was when the "next six months" weren't critical.

"I think we are in the end game. The next six to nine months are going to tell whether we can produce a decent outcome in Iraq." --Tom Friedman, New York Times columnist, appearing on NBC's "Today" show

Indeed, this has become such a cliche that a timeline has been produced showing just how often the pro war brigade state that they only need "six more months" as this forthcoming period is "critical". It's well worth clicking on the link and having a look at it.

And yet still there are people hoping that "this time" they know what they are doing. Hegseth again:

Second, for the sake of this country, I hope and pray he’s right.

How can people keep that kind of faith going for over four years in which they are told every six months that the end is just over the next hill?

But, Petraeus has spoken and it matters not that he has been proven to be a wild optimist in the past, this time he means it. This time, they really do mean we'll see improvements in six months.

These people are the equivalent of betrayed wives who refuse to leave their unfaithful spouses, always believing that this time he means what he's saying.

But it's easier to have more respect for the betrayed wife as, at least, it's only her own heart that gets broken through her frantic wishful thinking. War supporters continue believe fanciful notions and lies whilst other people's children die for their beliefs.

And they have somehow managed, in their confused brains, to convince themselves that their stance is courageous.

It's rank stupidity. And other people pay the price for it.

Click title for Hegseth's article.

Robert Draper: Author of "Dead Certain".

Stewart picks up on one of Bush's quotes: "You can't talk me out of thinking that Freedom's a good thing".

Who, on God's Earth has ever argued that Freedom is a bad thing? Once again, an example of how Bush creates and knocks down strawman arguments...

Much Ado About Nothing: Bush Speech on Iraq Surge

An assassination that blows apart Bush's hopes of pacifying Iraq

Bush has found a new way to sell failure as success, which has been roughly the way this conflict has been sold from the beginning. He and Blair used to say that the nearer they came to success the more the violence would increase. In other words, the more it looks like chaos, the more it signifies how successful we are. This really was a fabulous piece of chutzpah.

Bush has now taken this same fractured logic and applied it to any future withdrawal.

"The principle guiding my decisions on troop levels in Iraq is 'return on success'," Mr Bush stipulated, in advance excerpts of the speech released by the White House. "The more successful we are, the more American troops can return home."

So, any future withdrawal will simply be further evidence of the "success" of the Iraqi campaign, even though full withdrawal will not be carried out during Bush's administration. He prefers to leave the "success" of that withdrawal to the next - probably Democrat - administration.

Until then the US will have what Bush euphemistically referred to as an "enduring relationship" with Iraq. That almost makes them sound like two buddies or some long married couple.

Now, of course Bush's plans - he has announced (Yippy, dippy, doo!) that some 5,700 troops will be home by Christmas - fly in the face of all US public opinion where a majority of Americans now want all troops withdrawn from Iraq.

Bush addressed these points with more of the empty rhetoric that has kept his support dwindling for the past few years now:

"Some say the gains we are making in Iraq come too late. They are mistaken. It is never too late to deal a blow to al-Qaida. It is never too late to advance freedom. And it is never too late to support our troops in a fight they can win."

The fact is that the US are fighting a tiny amount of al Qaeda's men in Iraq, but Bush brings this up in order to make the same tenuous link between Iraq and al Qaeda which he used to lie his way into this war in the first place. And the notion that he is "advancing freedom" is simply too ludicrous to even warrant a rebuttal.

However, in the middle of the "retreat is victory" banter an unwelcome piece of reality arrived:

Ten days after President George Bush clasped his hand as a symbol of America's hopes in Iraq, the man who led the US-supported revolt of Sunni sheikhs against al-Qa'ida in Iraq was assassinated.

Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha and two of his bodyguards were killed either by a roadside bomb or by explosives placed in his car by a guard, near to his home in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, the Iraqi province held up by the American political and military leadership as a model for the rest of Iraq.

His killing is a serious blow to President Bush and the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, who have both portrayed the US success in Anbar, once the heart of the Sunni rebellion against US forces, as a sign that victory was attainable across Iraq.

But yesterday's assassination underlines that Iraqis in Anbar and elsewhere who closely ally themselves with the US are in danger of being killed. "It shows al-Qa'ida in Iraq remains a very dangerous and barbaric enemy," General Petraeus said in reaction to the killing. But Abu Risha might equally have been killed by the many non al-Qa'ida insurgent groups in Anbar who saw him as betraying them.

The assassination comes at a particularly embarrassing juncture for President Bush, who was scheduled to address the American people on television last night to sell the claim made by General Petraeus that the military "surge" was proving successful in Iraq and citing the improved security situation in Anbar to prove it.

Just as Bush is attempting to sell this war as winnable - thanks to his enlistment as allies of the very people who have probably killed US soldiers over the past few years - one of the most prominent of those new allies is wiped out.

But how did al Qaeda get to Abu Risha? Surely someone as important as that has security around him at all times?

And therein lies the rub:

Surprisingly, he is said to have recently reduced the number of his bodyguards because of improved security situation in Anbar.

His death is hardly a good selling point for the recently "improved security situation in Anbar".

Abu Risha's death underlines the degree to which the White House and General Petraeus have cherry-picked evidence to prove that it is possible to turn the tide in Iraq. They have, for instance, given the impression that some Sunni tribal leaders turning against al-Qa'ida in Anbar and parts of Diyala and Baghdad is a turning point in the war.

In reality al-Qa'ida is only a small part of the insurgency, with its fighters numbering only 1,300 as against 103,000 in the other insurgent organisations according to one specialist on the insurgency.

Bush is now selling this as a war against al Qaeda, having dispensed with his original reason for the horrendous violence in Iraq as down to Saddam remnants or loyalists. Now, he's laying the blame - or certainly asking Americans to focus - on the tiny amount of fighters loyal to al Qaeda and somehow making out that it is these fighters who are responsible for the horror show that is modern Iraq.

Meanwhile, he and Petraeus continue to cherrypick the facts and statistics to make out that Iraq is a safer place since the surge began.

The truest indicator of the level of violence is the number of people fleeing their homes. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees the number of refugees has risen from 50,000 to 60,000 a month, and none are returning.

Iraqi society is breaking down. It is no longer possible to get medical treatment for many ailments because 75 per cent of doctors and pharmacists have left. Most have joined the 2.2 million Iraqis who have fled abroad.

The food rationing system on which five million Iraqis rely to stay alive is also breaking down, with two million people no longer being fed because food cannot be distributed in dangerous areas. Rice and beans are of poor quality and flour, tea and baby milk formula are short. Unemployment is at 68 per cent, so without the ration, more and more Iraqis are living on the edge of starvation.

No wonder then that what Iraqis believe is happening to them and their country is wholly contrary to the myths pumped out by the White House. The opinion poll commissioned by ABC news, the BBC and Japanese Television NHK and published yesterday shows that 70 per cent of people say their security has got worse during the surge.

Against these facts the death of one US ally is simply small fry. However, it is yet another indication of the chasm that exists between Bush's rhetoric and the reality on the ground.

Click title for full article.

Iraq Me Dave Petraeus!

Brown faces domestic pressure over 'proxy war'

There has been inevitable outrage in Britain over the decision to send British troops to guard the Iraqi border with Iran and the risk that this runs of starting a proxy war between the UK and the government of Tehran.

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, demanded an explanation from the Government over the controversial operation: "This is yet more evidence of the lack of a coherent strategy for the deployment of British troops in Iraq. It would be disastrous if we were drawn into some kind of proxy war with Iran.

"It would serve neither regional nor international interests and would put British lives at further risk," he added. "We have consistently called for the early withdrawal of British forces from Iraq as their presence is not helping establish the lasting peace the country so desperately needs."

Peter Kilfoyle, the former armed forces minister, called for a statement at the "earliest possible opportunity" from the Prime Minister or from Des Browne, the Defence Secretary.

He said: "This is alarming because it's a new role for our troops who already have a difficult peace-keeping role in Basra and could lead to a potential battle with the Iranians. Given the concerns over the Americans' intentions towards Iran, this is very worrying."

Gordon Brown is attempting to play his cards cleverly, by pulling British troops out of Basra Palace but, nevertheless, satisfying the Americans that he is serious about helping them by placing our troops at the Iranian border.

However, as most of us suspect that the US is looking for an excuse, any excuse, to attack Iran, Brown really couldn't have chosen a worse way to help the Americans from the viewpoint of his own domestic well being.

Britain was already used as a convenient fig leaf of international legitimacy before the Iraq invasion. Brown - by placing our troops at the Iranian border - runs the risk that we will, once again, be used by the US to justify yet another attack on yet another Middle Eastern country.

Brown has done very well since taking power to spell out that the British are independent of the US when it comes to this conflict and that British interest and the interests of the US are not always interchangeable.

He's made a boo-boo here and he's done so at a time when British ambassadors are going to great lengths to point out that the Iraq debacle has very little to do with British planners and everything to do with American incompetence.

In an interview with today's New Statesman, Britain's outgoing ambassador to Washington makes clear the Government's irritation with the lack of preparation by the White House for rebuilding Iraq after the removal of Saddam Hussein.

Sir David Manning said: "Was a key period mishandled and opportunities lost? Yes. I don't think anybody can see that the immediate post-war situation was anything other than a failure. We had hoped that rapidly the situation would stabilise, that it would be possible to introduce reconciliation, get the economy moving quickly and rebuild society. Did it happen quickly? No, we failed. We were over-optimistic, as we perhaps were after the collapse of the Soviet Union, about the powers of this place to regenerate itself."

He said himself and Tony Blair had a meeting with President Bush to express their misgivings and were assured that the State Department would take charge of rebuilding. Instead the job went to the Defence Department, headed by Donald Rumsfeld.

In this febrile atmosphere, Brown should not be placing British troops in the very position that the insane neo-cons would find them most useful for fomenting trouble between Tehran and the West.

Click title for full article.

Al-Qaida has revived, spread and is capable of a spectacular

Long before he took his sidestep into Iraq, Bush stated that it was US policy to dismantle al Qaeda.

Indeed, this was why so many of us found his intention to invade Iraq so bizarre. Now, whilst it's true that a tiny proportion of the forces the US face in Iraq are al Qaeda, the vast majority of that organisation are nowhere near Iraq; and a British think tank has found that al Qaeda has revived itself, extended its influence and that it is capable of carrying out another spectacular attack in a similar vein to 9-11.

There is increasing evidence "that 'core' al-Qaida is proving adaptable and resilient, and has retained an ability to plan and coordinate large-scale attacks in the western world despite the attrition it has suffered", said the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). "The threat from Islamist terrorism remains as high as ever, and looks set to get worse," it added.

"The US and its allies have failed to deal a death blow to al-Qaida; the organisation's ideology appears to have taken root to such a degree that it will require decades to eradicate," it continued.

And the think tank has found that, not only have Bush's actions allowed al Qaeda to regroup, but that, by concentrating on Iraq and failing to restore order there, he has harmed the US's image worldwide.

The US suffered a loss of authority as a result of the failure to impose order in Iraq. "The strategic hole the US found itself in [in 2007] did not have any obvious escape".

Before the Iraq conflict there were very few of us who did not think that the US could do as she pleased militarily and that there was very little anyone else could do to stop them. The Iraq conflict has seriously dented that image of the US as invincible.

This can only give hope to her opponents.

At a press conference launching the report, senior IISS analysts went further. Asked whether al-Qaida had the capacity now to carry out a 9/11-style attack, and whether it was stronger than in 9/11, Nigel Inkster, the institute's director of transnational threats and political risk, replied: "Both."

Pakistani groups were "aligning themselves with al-Qaida and the process of radicalisation within Islamic countries was continuing apace", he warned.

Indeed, by launching an attack on Iraq - a nation which had not attacked the USA - Bush played into bin Laden's hands, enforcing the myth that we are engaged in a battle of civilisations. Such nonsense suits bin Laden and drives new supporters into his flock.

John Chipman, the IISS director general, said yesterday: "Western governments tend to meet the Muslim 'single narrative' [that the west is by definition anti-Muslim] by way of rebuttal, arguing against its basis in fact." That had to be addressed by encouraging non-violent responses, he said.

Unfortunately, Bush appears to only understand the use of force, a force which he often uses - as in the case of Iraq - badly and to the detriment of his own nation.

He did a similarly stupid thing last summer when he was encouraging Israel to fight battles she could not win in the Middle East. Bush appears to think that strength of will alone can win these wars, often ignoring the reality of fighting a guerrilla campaign on the ground.

The battle against al Qaeda is a battle of ideas. And it's a battle of ideas which we should easily win. Bin Laden and his followers reject modernity and embrace the philosophy of the Muslim Brotherhood which calls for the whole of Islamic society to be ordered under strict Sharia law.

Before 9-11 this was not a widely held philosophy amongst Muslims. However, a recent survey here in Britain found that whilst only 17% of Muslims over 55 wanted to live under Sharia law, this figure rose dramatically to 40% when Muslims aged 16 to 24 were asked the same question. Young Muslims were also much more likely to support al Qaeda.

So this is a battle of ideas which we appear to be losing.

Bin Laden and his supporters reject democracy. When Bush attempts to introduce democracy to Iraq at the end of a gun - and fails to show that democracy has any advantages to the people of that country, nor that it can even restore basic order in the community - then there is always the chance that other Muslims will also reject democracy and be driven towards bin Laden and his followers.

There is a very real danger that this will be the true legacy of Bush's failed mission in Mesopotamia.

Click title for full article.

Hardball: “What do you say? Why did they fall?”

An emotional Joe Biden discusses with Chris Matthews Petraeus's statement that he can't guarantee that US troops remaining in Iraq will make Americans safer.

If he can't guarantee that then one must ask, why are they there?



Hat Tip to Crooks and Liars.

Tags: Hardball, Matthews, Biden, Iraq war, Petraeus, Bush

Olbermann: Bushs' Depraved Indifference to Democracy

As Bush refuses to be swayed by polls, we see a theme appearing amongst the war mongers. As the polls clearly show that most Americans have given up on the Iraq war and, indeed, on the Bush presidency itself; the whole notion of listening to poll results must be attacked. Polls - the reflection of public opinion within a democracy - must be cast aside.

"One must compliment Mr. Bush's writer. That, perhaps, was the mostly perfectly-crafted phrase of his presidency. For depraved indifference to democracy, for the craven projection of political motives onto those trying to save lives and save a nation, for a dismissal of the value of the polls and the importance of the media, for a summary of all he does not hold dear about this nation or its people nothing could top that."

Tags: Bush, Iraq war, Olbermann, Petraeus

The 'proxy war': UK troops are sent to Iranian border

The build up to a war with Iran is taking significant steps forward with news that British forces are being sent to the Iranian border.

British forces have been sent from Basra to the volatile border with Iran amid warnings from the senior US commander in Iraq that Tehran is fomenting a "proxy war".

In signs of a fast-developing confrontation, the Iranians have threatened military action in response to attacks launched from Iraqi territory while the Pentagon has announced the building of a US base and fortified checkpoints at the frontier.

The UK operation, in which up to 350 troops are involved, has come at the request of the Americans, who say that elements close to the Iranian regime have stepped up supplies of weapons to Shia militias in recent weeks in preparation for attacks inside Iraq.

The deployment came within a week of British forces leaving Basra Palace, their last remaining base inside Basra city, and withdrawing to the airport for a widely expected final departure from Iraq. Brigadier James Bashall, commander of 1 Mechanised Brigade, based at Basra said: "We have been asked to help at the Iranian border to stop the flow of weapons and I am willing to do so. We know the points of entry and I am sure we can do what needs to be done. The US forces are, as we know, engaged in the 'surge' and the border is of particular concern to them."

This comes hot on the heels of Petraeus's claim that he may soon have to take action within Iran itself:

The move came as General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador to Iraq, made some of the strongest accusations yet by US officials about Iranian activity. General Petraeus spoke on Monday of a "proxy war" in Iraq, while Mr Crocker accused the Iranian government of "providing lethal capabilities to the enemies of the Iraqi state".

In an interview after his appearance before a congressional panel on Monday, General Petraeus strongly implied that it would soon be necessary to obtain authorisation to take action against Iran within its own borders, rather than just inside Iraq. "There is a pretty hard look ongoing at that particular situation" he said.

So, the Bush regime's insane march towards war with the Iranians continues.

Said Jalili , Iran's deputy foreign minister, last night said: "I think [the US and its allies] are going to prevaricate with the truth because they know they have been defeated in Iraq and they have not been successful. And so they are going to put the blame on us, on the other side."

I think Jalili is being overly optimistic if he thinks that all Bush and Co. want to do is blame them for their defeat in Iraq. I actually believe that Bush is insane enough to want to widen the conflict through air strikes and that all this troop movement is simply a way to prepare the American people for any future strike.

The Israelis want Iran attacked and if there is any way in which Bush can facilitate this request then he will do so.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Bush, Iran, Iraq war, Israel, neo-cons

Bush to announce limited troop pullout after Petraeus tells Congress the end is not in sight

Bush, in an attempt to stifle the critical rage that surrounds his intransigence over the Iraq war, is to announce a reduction in troop levels in that country of 30,000 by August of next year.

George Bush will tell America tomorrow night that he plans a limited withdrawal of 30,000 troops from Iraq by August 2008, returning strength to the level early this year of 130,000 and endorsing the reduction proposed by General David Petraeus, according to White House officials.

No-one should be under any doubt that this is nothing other than an attempt to drag out the day when a full withdrawal takes place and a further attempt by Bush to place the failures of his Iraq policy around the neck of whoever succeeds him.

Asked whether he could foresee a day when all US forces would be withdrawn from Iraq, Gen Petraeus said: "I would be doing a disservice to our soldiers if I tried to lay out a specific timeline at this point that took us all the way out."

Later he admitted that if there had been no change in the war a year from now it would be difficult to justify keeping US troops in Iraq. "I would have to think very very very hard," he said. He also declined to say whether he thought the war had made America safer.

Bush has no plan for victory, the only plan he has is to make sure that the final withdrawal is made on someone else's watch so that he can claim that, had he still been in power, he would have fought on.

It's spineless, dishonest and immoral.

The truth is that Bush never had any plan. He unleashed the military and hoped that they, themselves, would conjure up victory for him and that all he had to do was to continue to offer his unconditional support.

If one reads Bob Woodward's "State of Denial" one can see quite clearly that Bush sees his role as that of a cheerleader, and that he thinks Vietnam was lost because America somehow lost her nerve. So he has determined that he will not lose his and he presumes that victory will, somehow, naturally flow from him maintaining that position.

When victory is not forthcoming, he seems to believe that he simply has to strengthen his resolve.

Thousands and thousands of Iraqis and Americans will die because this man lacks the good grace to admit that he has been defeated.

America's man in Baghdad was similarly unable to offer reassurances, saying he could not guarantee the government in Baghdad would achieve political reconciliation before Mr Bush left office in January 2009. "I could not put a timeline on it or a target date," Mr Crocker said.

Their refusal to guarantee that the Bush administration's strategy would lead to meaningful gains comes at a time when even Republicans who supported the war are having trouble justifying it to voters. As Gen Petraeus began his testimony yesterday, a white-haired man in a summer suit rose to his feet and shouted: "Hundreds and thousands of people dead, isn't that enough for your blood thirst?"

This administration cares little for how many people are dying in Iraq. Indeed, when it comes to the Iraqis, they don't even bother to count them. It's a startling concept, that you claim to be "liberating" people and yet you don't even care how many of them you kill in the process.

And yet that is the reality of Bush's supposed "liberation" of Iraq.

Senators flatly demanded to know if America was stuck in a futile war. "Are we going to continue to invest blood and treasure at the same rate we're doing now? For what?" asked Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican who has opposed the war.

For what? Well, it must continue so that Bush can pass the failure onto someone else, there really is no more moral reason than that for the wars continuation.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Bush, Iraq war, Petraeus, surge

Petraeus Has Been Claiming Progress for Years

Tags: Glenn Greenwald, Petraeus, Iraq war, the surge

Scott Ritter (former UN Weapons inspector) on using Nukes on Iran.

Tags: Iran, Bush, Scott Ritter

PETRAEUS HEARING: GOP Blasts MoveOn “BetrayUs” Ad

This is funny. She no doubt thinks she's helping, but the dumb look on Petraeus's face when she holds up the MoveOn advert tells it's own story. When she says that Petraeus is not "cooking the books for the White House", I can't be the only person who hears Nixon saying, "I am not a crook."

Tags: Petraeus, Iraq war, Surge

US surge has failed - Iraqi poll

As Petraeus steps up to read his White House written script proclaiming that the "surge" is working, it's worth asking whether the Iraqis themselves, the people that Bush and Co. occasionally pretend to be "liberating", feel that "surge" is a good or bad thing as far as they are concerned. After all, unlike visiting politicians on a five day jaunt through the Green Zone, the Iraqis actually live through this day after day and are surely in a unique position to gauge the success or failure of any "surge".

About 70% of Iraqis believe security has deteriorated in the area covered by the US military "surge" of the past six months, an opinion poll suggests.

The survey by the BBC, ABC News and NHK of more than 2,000 people across Iraq also suggests that nearly 60% see attacks on US-led forces as justified.

This rises to 93% among Sunni Muslims compared to 50% for Shia.

So the Iraqis, the actual people living in this nightmare day after day, feel that security has deteriorated during Petraeus's glorious "surge".

Nor is this the first time that Petraeus is guilty of being overly optimistic about how things are going in Iraq. For years, Petraeus has been giving positive readings of how things are going, none of which have ever turned out to have any basis in fact.

Just weeks before the 2004 Presidential election Petraeus was at it again in an Op-Ed in The Washington Post in which he stated:

Now, however, 18 months after entering Iraq, I see tangible progress. Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt from the ground up. . . .

Iraq's security forces are, however, developing steadily and they are in the fight. Momentum has gathered in recent months. With strong Iraqi leaders out front and with continued coalition -- and now NATO -- support, this trend will continue.

Now it would be churlish to note that this statement occurred just weeks before Bush was re-elected and that his statement probably helped - and certainly didn't hinder - Bush's re-election chances. Now, once again, Petraeus is on hand to deliver the kind of report that Bush needs delivered for political expediency. And, no doubt, we will be asked to ignore the fact that he has been guilty of false optimism in Iraq in the past and take what he is saying this time as the truth.

No-one, apart from the most shrill Republican partisans, is slurping from this dog bowl:

Tom Lantos, the Democratic chairman of the foreign affairs committee, said Americans had lost trust in the president's rationale for the mission in Iraq. "The fact remains gentleman that the administration has sent you here today to convince the members of two committees of Congress that victory is at hand," he told the two men. "With all due respect to you, I say I don't buy it.

Indeed, there are very few people outside of the Pentagon who buy this crock of shit. The general's own counter-insurgency manual states repeatedly that a counter insurgency has to work on several fronts at once and it must especially work on the hearts and minds of the people who supported the insurgency.

As the survey by the BBC, ABC News and NHK shows, this is not taking place. The hearts and minds of the Iraqi people is not being won over by this "surge", where 70% of people think that security has deteriorated during this most recent period.

Nor is the reduction in violence in certain areas down to the deployment of an extra 30,000 US troops:

In reality, the turnaround in Anbar was achieved not by the deployment of 30,000 extra troops but by the decision of the Sunni tribal chiefs to turn against an al-Qaida umbrella organisation called the Islamic State of Iraq. Anbar might be held up as showing the power of US forces to fashion peace in Iraq, but it could just as well demonstrate its opposite: the power of local Sunni forces, the same ones that supported Saddam, to turn on and turn off the violence. Once US forces leave, re-armed Sunni militias could equally resume their offensive against the Shia-dominated government of Nouri al-Maliki.

So Petraeus has done what was asked of him, he has sat up and barked like a dog. His report will change nothing of any consequence. Bush will continue in his quest to pass this failure on to his successor, and Petraeus has helped him to do that.

The figures that Petraeus quoted have been disputed by both the Iraq government and the UN, but that was not the audience he was appealing to.

He was appealing to the most rabid of Bush's supporters, the frothing at the mouth one in four who continue to see victory as just over the next hill. It's not important whether or not we believe him, his job was to give Bush supporters another flag that they can wave to buy even more time for this catastrophe to be passed to another administration.

Patrick Cockburn sums it up well in Today's Independent:

Unfortunately, the propaganda effort by the White House may have a more malign impact than most propaganda exercises. It claims that victory is possible where failure has already occurred.

The Iraq war is lost. And every life sacrificed from this moment on is a waste. I honestly don't believe that even Bush continues to think that victory is possible. He's dumb, but he's not THAT dumb.

What we are witnessing is a supreme exercise in cynicism. We are witnessing a proud, arrogant and intellectually challenged man refusing to face up to the fact that he has failed abysmally in his war of choice.

Petraeus has done what was asked of him. History will eventually judge him. And when history does so, he will stand alongside General Westmoreland, making claims that were patently false at the time that he was making them.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Petraeus, Iraq war, report, Westmoreland, Vietnam

A Different View on Petraeus's Forthcoming Report

Tags: Petraeus, Iraq war, statistics, death rates, Bush, Republicans

Petraeus says US surge has 'not worked out'

When Petraeus makes his report to the US Congress we can be sure that he'll be playing down this:

General David Petraeus, the commander of United States forces in Iraq, admitted on Friday that sending 30 000 more troops into the war zone in January had failed to yield the desired results. "It has not worked out as we had hoped," the general said. The acknowledgement by Petraeus that the situation in Iraq is "exceedingly complex" and that progress had been "uneven" came on the eve of his testimony to Congress on the state of the war. He offered the assessment in a letter to US forces serving in Iraq that was obtained by the Washington Post.

"Many of us had hoped this summer would be a time of tangible political progress at the national level," Petraeus wrote. "All participants, Iraqi and coalition alike, are dissatisfied by the halting progress on major legislative initiatives," he wrote.

Bear that in mind as he gives his spin later on today...

Click title for full article.

Tags: Petraeus, Iraq war, report, surge

Goldsmith: The Most Amazing Scene I Ever Witnessed

Tags: Goldsmith, Ashcroft, Gonzales, wiretapping, FISA

Congressional Democrats Spot a Backbone

Tags: Democrats, spine, spineless, backbone, Iraq, Iraq war