reality-based educator

While September becomes the new date for when the administration says we can analyze whether the preznut's surge policy is working or not (even though when the surge was first announced back in late January, we were told by administration apologists that we'd know by early summer whether the additional troops were changing conditions on the ground or not), the carnage in Iraq continues unabated.

The preznut has continued to change his definition of what will constitute "victory" in Iraq. For a long time he said "victory" meant a "democratic Iraq." Then, after it became clear Iraq was never going to enjoy any form of democracy recognizable to Americans, Bush said "victory" would be a "peaceful, stable Iraq." Then, when it became clear we'd make contact with space aliens before the preznut and his Heritage Foundation interns would be able to forge a "peaceful, stable Iraq", the preznut defined "victory" down once more, declaring that Iraq will never be without some level of violence (as he said the United States is never without some level of violence), but that once there is an "acceptable level of violence," we will have achieved our objectives.

Here is the news out of Iraq for the past two days. Tell me if this is an "acceptable level of violence" yet:

* BAGHDAD - Twenty four bodies were recovered in Baghdad in the last 24 hours, police said.

BAGHDAD - Six U.S. soldiers and a civilian journalist were killed when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle in Diyala province, north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

BAGHDAD - Two U.S. soldiers were killed in separate bomb attacks on Sunday, the military said, including one in Baghdad.

SAMARRA - A suicide car bomber killed 12 police officers and wounded another 11 after detonating himself at a police headquarters in the city of Samarra, the U.S. military said. Two U.S. soldiers were wounded after an ensuing gunbattle. Samarra's police commander was among the killed, deputy governor of Salahaddin, Abdullah Jubara, said.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed 35 people and wounded 80 others near a crowded market in Baghdad's Shi'ite neighbourhood of Bayaa, police said.

BAGHDAD - A U.S. soldier was killed and four others were wounded by a roadside bomb in western Baghdad on Friday, the U.S. military said on Sunday.

ANBAR PROVINCE - Two U.S. Marines were killed in combat on Saturday in Anbar province in western Iraq, the U.S. military said in a statement.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed two people and wounded 10 others in the Mansour district of western Baghdad, police said.

GARMA - Police said they found the bodies of three policemen, shot and tortured, in the town of Garma, near Falluja, 50 km (35 miles) west of Baghdad.

KIRKUK - Major General Adnan Thabit escaped a roadside bomb attack near his motorcade in Kirkuk, police said.

KUT - A roadside bomb exploded near the house of a former member of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, wounding three of his sons in the city of Kut, 170 km (100 miles) southeast of Baghdad, police said.

KUT - Gunmen attacked a policeman and an Iraqi translator working in a U.S. military base, seriously wounding the pair in the city of Kut, police said.

BAGHDAD - The bodies of 11 people were found shot in different districts of Baghdad on Saturday, police said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb killed one person and wounded nine others in the Karrada district of central Baghdad late on Saturday, police said.

BAGHDAD - Three people were killed and four wounded when a mortar round landed in the Shi'ite district of Abu Dshir in southern Baghdad on Saturday, police said.

NEAR BALAD - Gunmen killed a police colonel on Saturday in the town of Yethrib, near Balad, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

KIRKUK - Six civilians were wounded on Saturday when several mortar rounds landed in the city of Kirkuk, 250 km (150 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

After expending 3,376 American lives, 30,000 wounded, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and half a trillion dollars in war costs and counting, conditions on the ground in Iraq are as bad as that.

And yet, the preznut and his apologists are acting like the additional 40,000 troops they've added to Iraq (most of which are now there) will actually change things and they're promising us that we'll get our first inkling of whether the surge is working or not in September.

Sure we will.

Let's face it, by September the "acceptable level of violence" will have been defined down to "only three major terrorist attacks a week" and the preznut and his apologists will have some other excuse for why they have to push the accountability moment for the surge forward another few months.