BUSH GETS READY TO ANNOUNCE ESCALATION-- WILL LESBIANS SAVE THE DAY FOR HIM?

Trial balloons having been duly launched by Regime lackeys John McCain and Joe Lieberman-- forget that they were almost universally shot down and that even Bob Novak counts only 12 Republican senators (+ one quasi-Republican from Connecticut) who support "surge"-- Bush is preparing to announce his new Iraq strategy: escalation of the war. According to the BBC, Bush plans to send more U.S. troops to Iraq not to train an Iraqi Army but to destroy Sadr's Mehdi Army.

Today's New York Times recalls that Bush had started 2006 assuring Americans that he had "a strategy for victory in Iraq. He ended the year closeted with his war cabinet on his ranch trying to devise a new strategy, because the existing one had collapsed." They seem to be trying to get the ball rolling that the original plan wasn't aggressive enough and that now they have to get tough. American military forces will start the New Year launching an "offensive against Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia, blamed for sectarian death squad killings." This could be a little awkward because al-Sadr is the mainstay that keeps Bush's puppet regime of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in office.

"'There will be limited and targeted operations against members of the Mehdi Army,' a senior Shi'ite official told Reuters. 'The ground is full of surprises but we think around Jan. 5 there will be some operations. I can say no more'... 'The Americans want a war with the Mehdi Army,' said a Western diplomat in Baghdad... 'They want to get rid of the militia and it seems they will succeed in getting one.'" Chuck Hagel (R-NE) described the situation Bush has led the country into as straight out of Alice in Wonderland.

Anyway, anyone wondering where Bush plans to find extra soldiers to fight his phantasmagoric and unpopular wars need look no further than to an op-ed in the New York Times today by John M. Shalikashvili, a retired army general, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1993 to 1997. Shalikashvili thinks America is ready for a gay and lesbian army. Is that irony or what?


UPDATE: VAMPIRELLA'S ON THE LOOSE AND IT LOOKS LIKE GENERAL CASEY'S ABOUT TO GET BIT

There's all sorts of buzz now that Bush is planning to fire Casey award General Casey a fancy medal like the one he flashes along with the rusty shiv he sticks between peoples' ribs when he thinks they're showin' a bit too much independence. Arianna hips us to "the White House's latest PR spin on Iraq: Blame Casey. The top U.S. commander in Iraq is about to become the latest fall guy for the administration's Iraq debacle. So we hear that 'as Baghdad spun further out of control,' the president 'grew concerned that General Casey, among others, had become more fixated on withdrawal than victory.' A member of the reality-based community in their midst! A cut-and-runner in Army fatigues! Indeed, we learn that many American field commanders in Iraq 'were surprised by General Casey's continued advocacy of withdrawals.' According to the Times, during a discussion in August 'President Bush asked General Casey whether he had sufficient troops to secure Baghdad; the general assured him that he did.' I guess that lets the president off the Iraq hook, huh? Cancel those hearings, Senator Biden-- mystery solved!"