Truth Sandwich

Here's the truth on Iraq: we're not really fighting Al Queda. If any politician says it, Republican or Democrat, it's a lie:

The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), which arguably has the best track record for producing accurate intelligence assessments, last year estimated that AQI's membership was in a range of "more than 1,000." When compared with the military's estimate for the total size of the insurgency—between 20,000 and 30,000 full-time fighters—this figure puts AQI forces at around 5 percent. When compared with Iraqi intelligence's much larger estimates of the insurgency—200,000 fighters—INR's estimate would put AQI forces at less than 1 percent. This year, the State Department dropped even its base-level estimate, because, as an official explained, "the information is too disparate to come up with a consensus number."

How big, then, is AQI? The most persuasive estimate I've heard comes from Malcolm Nance, the author of The Terrorists of Iraq and a twenty-year intelligence veteran and Arabic speaker who has worked with military and intelligence units tracking al-Qaeda inside Iraq. He believes AQI includes about 850 full-time fighters, comprising 2 percent to 5 percent of the Sunni insurgency. "Al-Qaeda in Iraq," according to Nance, "is a microscopic terrorist organization."

Here's some more truth, from someone on General Petraeus' advisory committee -- we can't win this post-war war:

Biddle also said (again, expressing his personal view) that the strategy in Iraq would require the presence of roughly 100,000 American troops for 20 years — and that, even so, it would be a "long-shot gamble."

And that from a guy who's positioned to support the surge/escalation.

Here's another truth: the GOP is living in a frighteningly dangerous, intractable fantasyland, and have apparently agreed to continue the slaughter:

"It should be off the table," House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said of Democratic attempts to pass legislation to force President George W. Bush to withdraw some of the 168,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and wind down the combat mission there.

So the majority of blood is on their hands, villains of history. The Cheney/Bush/Petraeus propaganda machine appears to be working, inasmuch as it has been deliberately aimed at wavering (i.e. nearly moral) Republican members of Congress, giving them enough fantasy ammo to stay in line with their senseless policies, such as they are, and thwart the potential for any substantive change in the debacle, all to protect their Party in the media eye.

The real question is whether the Dems will fold again:

“If we have to make [withdrawal by] the spring part of a goal, rather than something that is binding, and if that is able to produce some additional votes to get us over the filibuster, my own inclination would be to consider that,” Dem Senator Carl Levin tells the paper.

Of course, it's not immediately clear why it would be a "compromise" for Dems to give moderate Republicans what they want -- i.e., the opportunity to appease their constituents by voting symbolically against the war without forcing it to end -- while giving up what they want, which is mandated withdrawal. Nonetheless, it's looking more and more like this may be where things will head after the country is hypnotized next week by General Petraeus into believing that the surge is working.

There is a slight window of good news, and one we can only hope will open up further. Amongst the Democratic Presidential nominees, who is voicing real leadership for change in this disaster?

Front runners Clinton and Obama?

Ha.

It's former Senator John Edwards and, I'm happy to report, Sen. Chris Dodd.

The key phrase:

No withdrawal timetable, no war funding.

Is that easy enough to understand?

Contrary to popular belief, I think the only way for the Dems to lose in '08 is not by nominating Hillary. If the Dems lose in '08 it will be because they betrayed the grassroots/rank & file of their party and didn't do their all to oppose Cheney/Bush/Petraeus and end this war.

I don't even care if they succeed. They just have to do their all.