The Planet of Unreality Bush Sees Progress in Iraq, Challenge in Iran Bush: US will not abandon Iraq

This is not good. The people running this country sound convinced that reality is whatever they say it is. And if they’ve actually strayed into the realm of genuine self-delusion — if they actually believe the fantasies they’re spinning about the bloody mess they’ve made in Iraq over the past three years — then things are even worse than I thought.

It should not exactly come as news that from the Truman Balcony at the White House things look pretty rosy. What SHOULD be a matter for concern is the degree to which Our Glorious Leader and his henchmen are willing to massage reality to fit their talking points. The latest example of this is whether or not Iraq is engaged in a civil war. Apparently, 50-60 being murdered on a daily basis, while unfortunate, does not fit this Administration’s definition of “civil war”. After all, body counts are purely abstract (unless your children or loved ones are included in the count, of course), and since freedom is on the march, it’s all good, right? In the end, who cares whether or not what is happening in Iraq fits the Administration’s narrow definition of “civil war”? The end result is still the same. Innocent Iraqis are dying as a result of sectarian violence, and whether or not you believe that Iraq is embroiled in a civil war, these people are just as dead. Utlimately, the reality is the same. the only thing that changes is the how the propaganda is spun. No, reality is not what you choose it to be…and just what is the reality in Iraq?

Here is reality: The Bush administration’s handpicked interim Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, told the BBC on Sunday, “We are losing each day an average of 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more. If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is. Iraq is in the middle of a crisis. Maybe we have not reached the point of no return yet, but we are moving towards this point. . . . We are in a terrible civil conflict now.” Here is self-delusion: Dick Cheney went on “Face the Nation” a few hours later and said he disagreed with Allawi — who, by the way, is a tad closer to the action than the quail-hunting veep. There’s no civil war, Cheney insisted. Move along, nothing to see here, pay no attention to those suicide bombings and death-squad murders. As an aside, Cheney insisted that his earlier forays into the Twilight Zone — U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators, the insurgency is in its “last throes” — were “basically accurate and reflect reality.” Maybe on his home planet. Donald Rumsfeld, meanwhile, was busy on The Post’s op-ed page, abusing history. Leaving Iraq now, he wrote, “would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis.” The bizarre analogy was immediately disputed by foreign policy sages Henry Kissinger (who noted that there was “no significant resistance movement” in Germany after World War II) and Zbigniew Brzezinski (who just called the comparison “absolutely crazy”)

Good God, y’all…WHAT have these people been smoking? We have members of the Administration engaging in propaganda spinning that would make Josef Goebbels proud. And speaking of Nazis, we also have our venerable Secretary of War Defense invoking Godwin’s Law (also Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies): As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1. Of course, I’m not talking about an online discussion here, but the principle is the same. What is the reality here is that this Administration will engage in any propaganda activity that gives them the opportunity to spin their talking points to the American sheeple. If you haven’t lost a child or a loved one in Iraq, you might just be inclined to buy what they’re selling. We have lost more than 2300 young Americans- husbands, fathers, wives, mothers…these people will never see their children grow up, attend graduations, weddings, or enjoys celebrating the holidays with their loved ones. I can’t what continuing this clusterf–k will accomplish- outside of allowing this morally bankrupt Administration more time to try to salvage their failed Iraq policy. Reality is not a fungible concept…unless you’re a Republican President or one of his sycophants desperate to continually throw propaganda against the wall in the hope that something- anything- will stick. In the meantime, innocent Iraqis and American soldiers continue to die in increasing numbers. Civil war or not? Does it really matter? Isn’t the end result the same? WE DESERVE BETTER….