Four more years!

Who knew what that really meant back in 2004? besides the Bush administration, that is.

Via News from Underground comes another typically lashing story from Tom Lassiter about that boring old subject of Iraq:

As security conditions continue to deteriorate in Iraq, many Iraqi politicians are challenging the optimistic forecasts of governments in Baghdad and Washington, with some worrying that the rosy views are preventing the creation of effective strategies against the escalating violence.

Their worst fear, one that some American soldiers share, is that top officials don't really understand what's happening. Those concerns seem to be supported by statistics that show Iraq's violence has increased steadily during the past three years.

Mahmoud Othamn, a Kurdish member of the Iraqi parliament offers this brutal assessment:

The American policy has failed both in terms of politics and security, but the big problem is that they will not confess or admit that. They are telling the American public that the situation in Iraq will be improved, they want to encourage positive public opinion (in the U.S.), but the Iraqi citizens are seeing something different. They know the real situation.

Which even some US intelligence officers cannot dispute:

I have had the chance to move around Baghdad on mounted and dismounted patrols and see the city and violence from the ground. I think that the greatest problem that we deal (besides the insurgents and militia) with is that our leadership has no real comprehension of the ground truth. I wish that I could offer a solution, but I can't. When I have briefed General Officers, I have given them my perspective and assessment of the situation. Many have been surprised at what I have to say, but I suspect that in the end nothing will or has changed.

So, our "strategy" is too ignore what is actually happening and continue to grind the troops into the ground, poison them with depleted uranium and send them home, only to jack them back to the war. But this isn't a war anymore, if it ever really was. It is a bogged-down occupation that is simply destroying the military. "Four more years" has taken on an entirely new meaning for US troops. That's quite a plan, George, quite a plan.

Ya see, what we have here is uh ... uh ... uh plan fer victury.
Yeeha!