BUSH-- STILL WREAKING HAVOC AND DESTROYING THE AMERICAN MILITARY

In Beltway-speak, there are Democrats who like them too

Yesterday I sat next to a studious young man on the flight back to L.A. from Washington. When he unloaded a bunch of dog-eared texts into the seatback I asked him if he was writing a term paper. "I'm researching a book," he told me. I was so happy to be sitting next to someone literate. Turns out, though, he was an odd species indeed, a liberal hawk. He told me the "surge" might be working. Many Inside the Beltway thought so. I suggested he spend more time outside the Beltway, which seems to have pissed him off. I pissed him off too; if you're a regular DWT reader I'm sure you can imagine. When I mentioned the historical right-wing consisting not just of monarchists and fascists but also of Republicans, he bristled. Some of his best friends...

And apparently all of his best friends see signs of hope in the "surge" and in General Petraeus. Even Democrats, he lectured me, have confidence in BetrayUs. I'll leave you to imagine my response to that one. There has been a right-wing charm offensive for two weeks about how violence is down across Iraq and how swimmingly everything is going. This morning someone even mentioned if we could just stay there ten more years, Iraq would be a stable democracy (instead of just the stable we've turned it into?) And as for Petraeus' grail-like report, the Regime now states it will be written by the White House

Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government.

Surprised? Why would you be? Unless you live Inside the Beltway and take these game players to be honorable or respectable people.

Anyway, the charm offensive-- convincing the brain-dead everywhere that Bush is winning? Spoiled by the damn media.

At least 200 people were killed Tuesday night by four truck bombs in a massive coordinated attack against members of a small religious sect, the Yazidis, in northern Iraq, the Iraqi army said.

The nearly simultaneous explosions, in three Yazidi communities near the town of Sinjar, added up to the deadliest attack in Iraq this year and one of the most lethal since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Hundreds of wounded people were flown or driven to hospitals, overwhelming every emergency room in the region, according to George Shlimon, vice mayor of the nearby city of Dahuk.

In Baghdad, the U.S. military reported the deaths of nine American military personnel in three incidents, including the crash of a twin-rotor Chinook helicopter. A truck bomb rendered impassable a bridge on a major route from Baghdad to the north.

Surge on, liberal hawks. Maybe Petraeus plans to just arrest the entire population. The number of detainees held in American facilities are at an all-time high, something like 23,000. It was 5,000 when Petraeus' escalation began.

Meanwhile George Casey, the Bush Regime's Army chief of staff says lengthening tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan to eternity would be "too stressful and risky for troops." It's already at 15 months and Regime hard-liners want to extend it while pressures in the military and among congressional supporters of the military are demanding it be reduced back to 12 months, which the Bush Regime categorically rejects.


In 1994 Cheney had it right. Did he forget? (H/T: MoveOn.org)