Yesterday, Resident Evil brought a load of organic fertilizer to the city I call home. And I was so stunned by his craven rewrite of recent history that I posted about it. Twice. (I simply do not possess the ability to let a literary offense go, and he committed a doozy.)
The chickenhawks and war pornographers are even undertaking a $15 million advertising campaign, headed up by former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer. The ads feature as their star an enlisted soldier who issues an appeal to keep fighting. When asked about the ads and the soldier starring in them, Fleischer did not even know the young mans name. (So that right there tells you all you need to know about what these people really think about the G.I.'s in uniform. To them, they are a means to an end, and nothing more.)
Well, now that tomorrows New York Times is up on the website, I know why the knives are being sharpened for the dolschtosslegende, and I know why the spin is furious enough to separate red cells from plasma.
Tomorrow morning, a new intelligence assessment called “Prospects for Iraq’s Stability” will be released. I would say that it is likely to offer a grim forecast, but that would be too optimistic by at least half.
From the Times:
Lovely. We can't stay, and we can't go. We can't sustain the current course of action, and we can't change. Of course, if the little idiot would admit publicly that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake, and if he had it to do over again, he wouldn't, it would be a cathartic start. But bear in mind, I am more likely to be appointed pope than he is to admit an error.The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the report will not be issued until Thursday, and spokesmen for both the White House and the director of national intelligence declined to comment. “The report says that there’s been little political progress to date, and it’s very gloomy on the chances for political progress in the future,” said one Congressional official with knowledge of its contents.
The new report also concludes that the American military has had success in recent months in tamping down sectarian violence in the country, according to officials who have read it.
The report, which was intended to help anticipate events over the next 6 to 12 months, is “more dire in its assessments” than the administration has been in its own internal discussions, according to one senior official who has read it. But the report also warns, as Mr. Bush did on Wednesday, that an early withdrawal would lead to more chaos.
“It doesn’t take a policy position,” one official said. “But it leaves you with the sense that what we’ve been doing hasn’t been working, but we can’t let up, or it’ll get worse.”
Someone give me a valium and a stiff drink. That will keep my head from exploding, and I'll think about it tomorrow when I get back to Tara.
