The Pentagon's
latest quarterly "progress" report to Congress on Iraq is a grim
tale of a lost war. The Pentagon told Congress what Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld,
and propaganda organs such as Fox "News" never tell the American public,
namely:
- The Sunni-based insurgency remains "potent and viable" despite
spiraling Sunni-Shi'ite violence and beefed-up U.S. forces.
- Since the last report three months ago, Iraqi casualties from "sectarian
clashes" – the Pentagon's euphemism for civil war – have soared by more
than 50 percent.
- From May, when the new Iraqi government was established, until August, the
average number of weekly attacks increased sharply to 800.
- Since the previous report, Iraqi daily casualties have jumped by 50 percent
from 80 per day to 120 per day. Currently, Iraqis are dying at the rate of
43,800 per year from violence.
The Iraqi government cowers behind the fortified walls of the "Green Zone."
On Aug. 31, the Kurds in the north took down the Iraqi flag and replaced it
with the Kurdish one. Most of Iraq is ruled by Shi'ite and Sunni militias. Conflict
between them has forced 160,000 Iraqis to flee their homes.
Who is going to tell Bush that the war is lost?
Is Rumsfeld going to tell him?
Is Cheney going to tell him?
How can they tell him after all the bravado and false reports?
This is a delusional administration. Confronted with three major polls showing
that two-thirds of Americans oppose the Iraq war, Bush declared that he is staying
the course, demonstrating yet again his disdain for common sense and the will
of the American people.
If Bush and his neoconservative cabal were judged by their performance, they
would be ridden out of town on a rail. If a court of law judged their actions,
they would walk the plank.
Everything this moronic regime promised about a "cakewalk" war and
the ease of pacifying Iraq and turning it into an American puppet democracy
has turned to ashes in President Bush's mouth.
Having lost the Iraq war, the neoconservatives are determined to initiate war
with Iran.
National security expert John
Prados says, "The pattern of manipulation and misuse of intelligence
that served the Bush administration in the drive to start a war with Iraq is
being repeated today for its neighbor Iran."
It is now established beyond a reasonable doubt that the neocons intentionally
cooked up false intelligence in order to justify the invasion of Iraq, an invasion
that has resulted in tens of thousands of Iraqi and American casualties, both
dead and maimed.
Aggressive wars are themselves war crimes. To intentionally create a false
basis for an aggressive war is an act of high treason.
Alarmed by the neoconservative drive to start a war with Iran before the U.S.
can extricate itself from the Iraq catastrophe, the CIA firmly declared that
any Iranian nuclear weapon is a decade away. This undermines the neoconservatives'
urgency to attack Iran now.
Neoconservative fanatics tried to discredit the CIA with a recent report by
the House Intelligence Committee Republican staff written by neoconservative
Frederick Fleitz, a protégé of neocon heavyweight John Bolton,
a person active in concocting the false case for war against Iraq. Fleitz alleges
that the CIA is a know-nothing agency that lacks the ability to assess Iran's
ability to make nuclear weapons.
Neocons also dismiss the findings of the International Atomic Energy Agency,
which issued a report on Aug. 31 reaffirming that there is no tangible proof
that Iran's nuclear energy program has a military aspect.
The neoconservatives plan to plunge America into war with Iran before they
can be held accountable for the lost war in Iraq.
This neoconservative conspiracy against the United States and Iran must be
stopped. Neocons must be removed from the government that they have betrayed
and be held accountable for their crimes.
Before America can preach democracy to the world, we must first rescue American
democracy from the Bush regime and reestablish government accountability to
the people.