reality-based educator

The preznut says the surge needs a chance to work. He says there is clear evidence to show that it is already working even though only two of the five brigades he plans to send to Iraq are on the ground yet. He has called opponents of his surge policy "surrender monkeys" and blasted legislation the Democratic-controlled Congress plans to send him that contains a timeline for U.S. troop withdrawal. Bush says all this despite clear evidence to show that while violence is down in Baghdad as a result of the additional U.S. forces, violence has worsened elsewhere around the country. He also says this despite statistics showing Iraqi civilian casualties are up since he started surging U.S. troops (1872 Iraqi civilians were killed in March, 1552 in February, and 1604 in January.)

John McCain also says the surge is working. He pointed to a weekend shopping trip he took to Baghdad market with 100 soldiers, three helicopters and two gunboats guarding him as proof. So far he has had no comment on the story that 21 people from the market were found bound and executed earlier this week after his p.r. trip to the market or that snipers fired on the market shortly after he and his fellow congressmen left.

Meanwhile, away from the delusional spin of people like Bush and McCain in the real world of Iraq (to paraphrase former Senator George Macacawitz Allen), the slaughter and bad news goes on unabated:

BASRA, Iraq (AP) — Four British soldiers and a Kuwaiti interpreter were killed Thursday in an ambush in southern Iraq, the British military said.

BAGHDAD (AP) — The military on Thursday reported three U.S. soldiers killed in separate attacks in Baghdad earlier this week.

BAGHDAD (AP) — The U.S. military confirmed that an Army helicopter went down south of Baghdad, and reported all nine aboard survived; four were reportedly wounded. The helicopter came under fire Thursday in a Sunni militant stronghold south of Baghdad, an Iraqi army official said.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told U.S. President George W. Bush in a recent videoconference that some Iraqi officials are involved in terrorism, government officials said Wednesday.The two leaders spoke Monday, a day after U.S. officials in Baghdad reported two suicide vests had been found near a trash bin in the "Green Zone," the highly guarded area of central Baghdad where the U.S. Embassy is located."The prime minister told him this is what we expect. Some politicians are involved in terrorism," said one Iraqi official. The official's comments were confirmed by two other officials.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Heavily armed gunmen on Wednesday abducted 22 Shiite shepherds who were tending thousands of sheep and had wandered into a dangerous Sunni area west of Baghdad, while six power plant workers were gunned down in northern Iraq.The attacks reflected the spread of sectarian violence outside Baghdad as violence declines in the capital, where a U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown is in its eighth week.

Baghdad - An woman television presenter was found dead Thursday a day after her abduction, and 10 Baghdad satellite TV channel employees were wounded, some seriously, in a car bomb blast.An Iraqi security source said the car bomb targeting Baghdad TV headquarters went off in Jamaa district in western Baghdad. The station is the voice of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party led by Iraqi Vice President Tarek al-Hashimi.

BAGHDAD - The bodies of 10 people were found shot in different districts of Baghdad on Wednesday, police said.

BAGHDAD - Two roadside bombs exploded in quick succession in northern Baghdad, killing two people and wounding two others, police and a Reuters witness said. The first bomb exploded shortly after a U.S. patrol passed by.

BAGHDAD - A U.S. soldier died and another was wounded on Tuesday when his patrol was attacked by small arms fire on the southern outskirts of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol wounded two policemen in the Zaafaraniya district in southern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Three civilians were wounded on Wednesday when a mortar bomb landed on their house in the Shorta district in southwestern Baghdad, police said.

DIWANIYA - Gunmen shot dead two Iraqi contractors working with the Iraqi military on Wednesday in Diwaniya, 180 km (112 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

DIWANIYA - Gunmen kidnapped the former Diwaniya police chief, Major-General Fuad Faris, as he was standing outside his house in central Diwaniya on Wednesday, police said.

ISKANDARIYA - Gunmen set on fire to several houses abandoned by their Sunni owners on Wednesday night in the towns of Haswa and Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

So far this month, 18 U.S. military personnel, 6 British military personnel, and 183 members of the Iraqi security forces have been killed in Iraq.

It is only the 5th of April.

But Bush and McCain and Lieberman and Graham and the rest of the administration apologists keep telling us there is clear evidence that the surge is working and we only need to have the courage (i.e. - "balls") to stick it out and not let the "pussy" Dems in Congress go all weak-kneed and force a pull-out ("Pull out, doesn't sound manly to me...let's leave it in there and get the job done...")

There is clear evidence, all right - so far, the surge has been a miserable failure at stopping the violence in Iraq.

The only success so far is the preznut's ability to get the American press to report the delusional bullshit he says about the surge uncritically.

But the stats and news stories from Iraq don't lie.

All the preznut's surge policy has done is spread the violence outward from Baghdad and make places that used to be relatively stable murderous

And that is not progress.

(Thanks to George Carlin for the use of the "manliness military doctrine" lines. Carlin used them to talk about Vietnam on his 1970's album Class Clown but they still work today.)