Agitprop: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Propaganda

Make. It. Stop.

From the Green Zone:

But even such tight control could not always filter out the bizarre world inside the barricades. At one point, the three were trying to discuss the state of Iraqi security forces with Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, but the large, flat-panel television set facing the official proved to be a distraction. Rubaie was watching children's cartoons. When [Congressman] Moran asked him to turn it off, Rubaie protested with a laugh and said, "But this is my favorite television show," Moran recalled.

Holy Joe!!1!!!1!

It's easier than blogging ...

In more Senate news, David "the Diaperman" Vitter has a 66% approval rating. What is it with these red states? Does he have to dismember a baby on the Capitol steps to get below 50%?

Another Friedman

William the Bloody told Jon Stewart that we non-pundits should just sit back and wait another Friedman for them to find the pony in Iraq.

During the interview, Kristol also said “it’s not a bad idea” to invade Iran and that Americans should let Iraq “play…out for the next six months.”

Kristol, sadly, is what passes for a Very Serious Person these days.  Makes you long for the days when Washington was melting down over a blowjob, doesn't it?

We Write Letters

Dear Speaker Pelosi:

We out here in the Reality Based Community understand why you might not want to impeach the Dear Leader and the Dark Lord.  But we ask you to think, just for a minute, about a few of the things that will happen each day you don't:

Hundreds more will die in Iraq;

Thousands more will lose their right to vote;

Thousands more will give up on returning to New Orleans;

Millions more will be spent on a war we can't win;

More right wing bigots will be put on the federal bench;

This administration will further degrade the rule of law.

There are plenty of crimes and misdemeanors from which to choose.  And aren't you tired of Bush showing you his middle finger?

He works for us, and most of us want him and his 'administration' gone - look at the polls.  Please hurry.

Thanks, blogenfreude

If you wish, you can email the Speaker here.

Department of Endless War

Had you heard? We're in for at least two more Friedmans.

I'm sure the Moustache of Understanding approves.

We're Never Leaving

This is why we're never leaving.  Do you think a couple of wavering do-nothing Bush-enabling Republicans will cause the Dear Leader and Cheney to leave their new bases, and the toys in them, behind?  To leave their shiny new embassy (bigger than the Vatican!) behind?  Nah. Gah. Happen.

Iraq 4 EVAR!!

Zbigniew Brzezinski said this morning that Lugar's speech is a turning point, that soon our troops will start to come home.  Zbig's a smart guy, but do you think the Commander Guy will agree?

Nah, gah, happen.

Department of Endless War

Ah, the fucking Kagans ... we're in for another Friedman!

Terrorists Captured Without Invading Iran, Syria

Once again, a group of terrorists has been caught without invading a sovereign Middle-Eastern nation.  Bravo.

Best War EVAH!!1!1!

Three Kingstons = one Friedman.

At the Center of the Storm

At Agitprop, we've noted that some are calling for George Tenet to donate a few of his literary millions to soldiers injured in Iraq.  He'll make at least four or five of those millions, by the way.  However, it might also be appropriate to send a few bucks to the kids who were orphaned in part because of George's failure to open his mouth.  Kids like this:

At the very least, Mr. Tenet could auction his Medal of Freedom on ebay and send these kids a few bucks. 

Just a suggestion.

Two More Friedmans!

We'll be in Iraq at least two more F.U.s:

[Gates] said the new policy also seeks to ensure that all active-duty Army units get at least 12 months at home between deployments. He said it would allow the Pentagon to maintain the current level of troops in Iraq for another year, although he added that there has been no decision on future troop levels.

In a related story, now that The Decider has become bored by his latest failure - the destruction of an entire country - he wants to get someone else to come in and clean up his mess.  Calling Jim Baker!

Tommy Can You Hear Me?

"The world is flat and I have three hands!"

While conservatives are blaming Iraqis, Democrats and the MusCom-TerrorSymp Liberal MediaTM for the United States' lack of success in Iraq, Tom Friedman has taken a more broad approach.

America's number one cheerleader for free trade and globalization recently argued that We are to blame. That's right, if only the American people cared more about Iraq and if only Congress had properly funded the war then maybe we would be winning. Can I get a Hail Mary please?

Sure! More money is the solution! We could dump ten trillion dollars into the place and buy off every Iraqi citizen!...It's this same defeatist logic that yaps: "If only we spent more money maybe we'd win the War on Drugs". 

Spoiled rich boy Friedman falls into the camp of kool aid drinkers who believes Iraq was a good idea that was executed poorly. (Hmm, maybe he's a Hillary '08 supporter).

Thankfully, Matt Taibbi offers some perspective and tears apart Friedman's latest regurgitation. My favorite line is "they are fighting us with garage-door openers".

What George Tenet Really Meant By "Slam Dunk"

Iraq is the backboard and the United States is Shaquille O'Neal.

What about that Pottery Barn rule again?

Tags: george tenet, cia, wmd, intelligence, iraq, war, lies, shaq, slam dunk

The Decider

NPR reports that, although there's lots of meetin' and strategerizin' goin' on in Crawford today, it's a "non-decisional" day on Iraq.  What?  Hmmm ... perhaps The Decider is clearin' him some brush.  Wonder what he's waiting' fer?

A Chip Off The Old Bush

Baghdad is burning?  All of Iraq is a complete disaster?  You're the Iraqi government - what do you do?

Well, you were installed by the Dear Leader and his minions, so ... you take a month long vacation!  Obviously they've learned from the master.

Admissions

Breaking ...

Dear Leader admits there were no WMD in Iraq!

Dear Leader admits Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11!

Pat Buchanan admits culture war over! (he and the Puritans lost)

Hagel admits we need an Iraq exit strategy!

Scarborough admits Bush just might be a complete moron!

Of course, if you think any of this means we're leaving Iraq anytime soon, think again.

A Timely Reminder

Before you go back to the 24/7 coverage of the Jonbenet non-event, please consider the following:

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.

George W. Bush
March 17, 2003

In those regions where pockets of dead-enders are trying to reconstitute, General (Tommy) Franks and his team are rooting them out.

Donald Rumsfeld
June 19, 2003

And a year from now, I’ll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush. There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number of people close to a vicious regime, the people of Iraq have been liberated and they understand that they’ve been liberated. And it is getting easier every day for Iraqis to express that sense of liberation.

Richard Perle
September 22, 2003

We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon.

Paul Wolfowitz
March 27, 2003

I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time. But I think the level of activity that we see today, from a military standpoint, I think will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.

Dick Cheney
May 30, 2005

Just a little reminder from Agitprop.

That Old Time Religion

Alright already - yes, we admit it - Saddam was a bad man.  He did nasty things.  But life in Iraq is worse now - once the Dear Leader invaded, the religious nutjobs came out of their holes and decided it was time for some Sharia-style justice.  This sort of killing did not happen when Saddam was running the place.

Listen to this NPR report and learn how shepherds are being killed when they don't diaper their goats (clerics think people will be turned on otherwise) - apparently this sort of punishment happens regularly in Nazaria, a suburb of western Baghdad.  Are you a grocer who arranges your vegetables in a way that some mullah might find suggestive?  You get the death penalty too, or at least your store will be firebombed.  Shiite clerics wrote up a flyer telling you how to display your food and, if you don't obey, it's two in the hat!  And here's a squib and a link to a Time article describing the hell on earth that Baghdad has become.  And an NBC blog re: same.

Thanks Dear Leader!

Bonus religious intolerance:  Bush's hand picked guy, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, "has moved aggressively to crack down on what Afghans call imported vices. He is acting partly in response to pressure from domestic religious leaders and partly to upstage Islamic Taliban insurgents who are stepping up attacks across the south."

Dear Leader Wrecks Two Countries (Not Including Lebanon)

Not Only Is Iraq Screwed, So Are We ...

Let's see if we can figure this Iraq thing out, shall we?  Chuck Hagel (R-Useless) says we should begin pulling out within a Friedman (6 months), but Tom Friedman has reversed field and said we should start pulling out now.  This is problematic, because the Friedman was the standard unit of measure for how much longer we should give the Dear Leader to fuck up Iraq.  Friedman (the Moustache of Understanding) has, of course, been projecting that victory  was just another Friedman away for more than 5 Friedmans now.

So what time frames are we left with?  Well, there is the Biden (5 years) and the Bayh (2 months).  The Biden is just too scary to contemplate, and the Bayh ain't gonna' happen while the Dear Leader remains in charge.

So what else?  Rummy testified yesterday (he never painted a "rosy picture" of Iraq - goodness gracious no!), then Hillary called on him to resign.  Feh - pissing into the wind - not while The Decider is in the (White) House.  Meanwhile, everybody's asking: Is Iraq now in a civil war?  Does it matter?  Billmon says we're damned if we do, damned if we don't - hello World War III.  And check this out - those Iraqis sure are grateful!

Oh, and the Dear Leader has tapped out the military, meaning we can't defend ourselves.  Just so you know.

God's Diagnostician

Senator Dr. Bill Frist, able to diagnose complex cases by merely viewing a videotape, is at it again.  This time, he's diagnosed the situation in Iraq from the comfort of his air-conditioned D.C. office and pronounced it A-OK!  Stay the course says the Dear Majority Leader.

Wonder if he's been to this website.

Mess-O-Potamia

Has anybody noticed how, instead of fighting to keep all of Iraq safe for its population, the Bushies are now reduced to sending more soldiers from other areas just to defend Baghdad?  Seems like trying to regain control of the capital and protecting the Green Zone are now Job 1 - fuck the rest of the country.

Does this sound familiar?  Even some of the Kool Ade drinkers are starting to think so.

tags: bush u.s. iraq impeach bush zarqawi al-qaeda war on terror

Them WMDs Must Be Here Somewheres ...

By now, you all know that Little Ricky  said last night on Fox News that they'd finally found those elusive WMDs, the existence of which was put forward by the administration as the first of many reasons we invaded Iraq.  Of course, Santorum was lying - the WMDs they've found (over a 3 year period) were not only degraded, they were not the WMDs we went to war to get rid of - this according to the Pentagon.  But you guessed it - the paste-eaters are latching on to this story as proof of the Dear Leader's righteousness. 

Once again, Agitprop feels duty-bound to visit right-wing websites to report to you, the home viewer, on the wingnut fallout:

All Things Beautiful - this proves that there were WMDs all along and Bush is a master diplomat ... and don't you just hate the fucking French?
All Things Conservative - Democrats will say it's only 500 shells so the war is still illegal, but it's not, because we say so, and Bush should be talking a lot more about what a success the war is.
Austin Bay Blog - John Negroponte must hate America because he won't declassify the whole report.  And Saddam had to go because, among other reasons, his regime was breeding terrorists, even though it never did.
Big Lizards - we have no idea what's going on, but we'll believe anybody who says what we want to hear, and so what if it's all pre-Gulf War stuff?  If you find empty shells and chemical drums in the same ZIP code it counts! 
Blogs of War - we never cared if they found WMDs or not but, now that they have, this proves everything we've ever  said, including that Scott Ritter is a fat doodyhead.
Blue Crab Boulevard - so what if the WMDs might not work and might not be the ones we were looking for as long as we can use them to make fun of liberals, because liberals are real silly.
Bullwinkle Blog - since this comes from a declassified portion of one Pentagon report, there must be other still-classified reports that will show there are even more WMDs - but the left will never admit it.
Captain's Quarters - so what if it's old stuff ... Saddam would have used the shells for sure on our troops even though he didn't.
CNS News - the Duelfer Report, which said there were no WMD stockpiles, said there were WMD stockpiles.
Confederate Yankee - this story was only reported by Fox, and that shows that there's a plot by the liberal media to cover up the story because they're afraid Bush is right.
Expose the Left - lefty bloggers suck, and now that they're all upset because we found WMDs, it's finally O.K. to question their patriotism, which we've never done before, ever, honest.
Flopping Aces - if we link to lots of other wingnut blogs it'll make the WMDs real.
Freedom Watch - Bush was so scared of the Democrats and the MSM that he didn't tell us about the WMDs they found.
Hot Air - Bush didn't say anything about the WMDs so he wouldn't embarass countries he doesn't give a shit about embarassing.
Hugh Hewitt - The Washington Post didn't ask for information in the report that the Pentagon wouldn't have given it anyway, and that means the Post hates America.  And so does The Boston Globe.  And The New York Times.
Instapundit - this just might make war opponents look real stupid, but one day it'll make the CIA look even stupider, especially if we're all speaking Arabic.
JunkyardBlog - the Pentagon's statement was a Jedi mind trick, and even Fox News fell for it ... no fair!
Macsmind - if we translate enough documents, we'll find the pony.  Pass the paste.
NRO Online (K-Lo) - Alan Colmes thinks everything's about politics!
Patterico's Pontifications - The Los Angeles Times hates America.
Prying1 - liberals can't criticize Bush unless they're willing to lick one of Saddam's old shells ... well, they can't criticize Bush at all, but I still want to see them lick the shells.
Right Wing News - the left tells the truth and that's why nobody trusts them on national defense.
Santorum Blog - what did you expect?  I had to do something ... I'm getting my ass kicked!  No, seriously, pay attention!  Please, read my blog!
ShrinkWrapped - NPR hates America.
The Real Ugly American - I don't know what to think, but somehow this proves that Atrios and Keith Olbermann are real dumb.
The Sundries Shack - Mahablog is really fucking stupid, and we're real smart.
Wizbang - I have never doubted there were WMDs even though we don't yet know enough to know whether there were WMDs.

tags: bush iraq wmds 9/11 weapons of mass destruction  al qaeda hot air scott ritter instapundit zarqawi msm media

Clueless

So who do you think got their facts straight?

Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad (June 6, 2006 cable)
"An Arab newspaper editor told us he is preparing an extensive survey of ethnic cleansing, which he said is taking place in almost every Iraqi province, as political parties and their militiast are seemingly engaged in tit-for-tat reprisals all over Iraq."

"Personal safety depends on good relations with the 'neighborhood' governments, who barricade streets and ward off outsiders. The central government, our staff says, is not relevant; even local mukhtars have been displaced or coopted by militias. People no longer trust most neighbors." [emphasis supplied]

George W. Bush (June 17, 2006 radio address)
"[O]ur efforts in Iraq are well worth it, the mission is necessary for the security of our country, and we will succeed."

Hmmm ... maybe Condi forgot to show the Dear Leader Khalilzad's cable.

C&L has more, and First Draft says there are two cables.

tags: bush u.s. iraq impeach bush khalilzad al-qaeda condoleezza rice war on terror

Curious George Goes To Iraq

Brave Dear Leader Spending 5 Hours In Green Zone!

At Agitprop, we're sure that the "bold" Dear Leader will learn a lot about the daily lives of regular 'ol Iraqis as they dodge bullets and IEDs.  We're sure he'll bravely venture out onto the streets of Baghdad to see for himself the utter disaster he's created.  No apologies of course - apologies are for Democrats!  "And hey, I killed Zarqawi!  Lookit' me!  C'mon, I'm the War Preznit ..."

The question is, will he have time to serve fake food to the stop-loss soldiers?

tags: bush u.s. iraq impeach bush zarqawi al-qaeda war on terror