How many times can they sell us the exact same rotten tomato?

Jesusfuckingchrist.  Can they not dry up and go away (mere rhetoric, I know they never “go away”)? 

Lunatics.

Not with the tiniest, most shredded fibre of myself do I believe a word of this:

Op-Ed Contributor

A War We Just Might Win

By MICHAEL E. O’HANLON and KENNETH M. POLLACK

Washington

VIEWED from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.

After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated — many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work.

Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference. [snip]

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Liars they were, years ago, to sell this war, scabrous baby-faced boys who made themselves barnacles to the war machine. Worse, they sold themselves as Liberal Hawks.  They emboldened and made authentic other liberal hawks, like Josh Marshall, Matthew Yglesias, Oliver Willis, Eric Alterman – others. 

String them up (it’s a metaphor, chump!)!

I was looking at the oblong table Sunday, the liars and thieves, arrayed at table to sup wtih Timmy.  Still there, still here lecturing us – the very ones, some of them, who sold the war going in.  Sold it as a holding pattern, sold the death the dying and the enormous financial losses – all of that on all sides – but for the promoters, the arms dealers, the congress people… and the political pundits.

Oh the list is long.  Smiling and selling.  The entire nation is a used car lot.  How fitting.

I think the summer of 2002 was one of the longest, most trying.  The hideous run-up to the war, as the Guardian called it in their book, The War We Could Not Stop.  I used to go out to lunch with a friend, who was convinced all Bush would do was “threaten war”.  At an Italian porta via on Fillmore St.  When I would think I was about to lose my mind, between the smoked chicken and the tiramisu, I’d throw my arm up and blindly call out:  Waiter!  Another bottle of whatever we are drinking.

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Another one who should dry up and blow away, if we are to live.  Seems clear they plan for us to die, by inches…

Then there are all the other energy ideas Congress wishes to adopt–better energy efficiency for washers, driers, boilers, motors and refrigerators; greater fuel efficiency for cars; and more use of wind, solar and geothermal power generation. Good ideas all

[Good Ideas?  Had we done this thirty years ago, then yes.. what a pat on the head from Pete du Pont  — Mcat] 

–especially more fuel-efficient automobiles–but not substantively or immediately very helpful in meeting the challenge of increasing America’s energy supplies to keep our economy, jobs and prosperity increasing.

To do that we must build many more nuclear power plants and increase our drilling for oil and gas. The NPC report says it takes 15 to 20 years from exploration until production begins, and it costs $3 billion to build an average 120,000-barrel-a-day oil refinery. That is just the opposite of the current congressional policy of reducing oil use, blocking access to existing domestic oil reserves, not increasing nuclear power generation, and touting ethanol as another subsidy for farmers.

Guys… we are not winning.

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Pulling this forward from the last thread, a comment from wu ming:

In this regard, information strategists can consider clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers or other persons of prominence already within the target nation, group or community to pass the U.S. message. . . . Sometimes numbers can be effective; hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering. On the other hand, such operations can have a blowback effect, as witnessed by the public reaction following revelations that the U.S. military had paid journalists to publish stories in the Iraqi press under their own names. People do not like to be deceived, and the price of being exposed is lost credibility and trust.

An alternative strategy is to “make” a blog and blogger. The process of boosting the blog to a position of influence could take some time, however. . . .

Extract of a 2006 report, via Thomas RIcks in-box column in the Wapo… 8) 

Just as shocking as all that gambling in Casablanca…

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