there’s no talking to some people

“We're succeeding. I don't care what anybody says.”

Those are the words of Republican presidential wannabe John McCain (Asshole-AZ) giving what he insisted was a “major” policy speech on Iraq, and he wanted all of us to hear those words over cable news. . . but the facts got in the way.

You see, while John W. McCain was busy talking—and not listening—Iraqis were busy killing each other with such a reenergized ferocity that MSNBC cut into the live feed of McCain’s speech to present breaking news on the rising violence in Basra. (Crooks and Liars has the clip.)

And this morning brings us more news that McCain’s version of success is on the march as Basra’s violence escalates and spreads to Kut and Baghdad. There is even a report that one of Iraq’s two main oil pipelines has been blown up near Basra.

Of course, our man in Baghdad, Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki has things under control. He’s even given the Sadrists a 72-hour ultimatum.

How are things going? Well, NPR’s Dina Temple-Raston says, “Things are not going well.” She even tells us that members of Bush/McCain’s much-touted Iraqi security force—a force supposedly under the authority of al-Maliki—are stripping off their uniforms and switching sides, joining the Mahdi militias. (Sorry, link not yet up on NPR site.)

Now that’s what I call success! Well, no, I don’t—that’s what John W. McCain calls success. And he don’t care what I, or anybody, says.

Isn’t it nice to know that after two terms of fact-free, incurious, lie-a-minute leadership, we have a man that promises us the kind of continuity and seamless transition of power that today’s Iraqis can only dream about?

Is it Bush or McCain? It’s McMore of McSame.


(cross-posted on The Seminal)

things fall apart

Much of the “success” that is often attributed to the surge escalation by administration mouthpieces and the rah-rah chorus in the establishment media can actually be traced to a truce called by Moqtada al Sadr, and a “strategy” that has US forces paying protection money to assorted Sunni militias.

But we knew that.

However, now that fighting in Basra is reaching pre-surgescalation levels and violence is heating up around Baghdad, here are a couple of things that we are just learning.