The New York Times dug deep into its rhetorical bag of tricks Sunday for this front-pager on the “remarkable change” sweeping through Shiite-controlled portions of Baghdad.

BAGHDAD — The militia that was once the biggest defender of poor Shiites in Iraq, the Mahdi Army, has been profoundly weakened in a number of neighborhoods across Baghdad, in an important, if tentative, milestone for stability in Iraq.

   
First off, how many unimportant milestones have you ever encountered? But, more to the point, how would you define a <span style="font-style: italic;">tentative milestone</span>? Here’s how I’d describe it: A steaming load of CYA.

This weekend, John McCain launched an all-out war against Barack Obama's fitness to be commander-in-chief.  In Denver on Friday, McCain claimed that in supporting the January 2007 surge in Iraq, he passed "a real-time test for a future commander-in-chief" his Democratic rival supposedly failed.  That same day, McCain insisted to CNN's Wolf Blitzer, "I know how to win wars."  And on ABC This Week on Sunday, McCain ridiculed over and over Barack Obama's "total lack of understanding" of the realities - and stakes - in Iraq.

Following what has been going on in Iraq and trying to follow Afghanistan, with the little, until recently, we get about that theater, I've had a growing uneasy feeling.

We all know that the bush doctrine has been a total failure and I need not go into the whole extreme mess these power hungry idiots have made. There is one thing I do see they succeeded in, creating an enemy and building that into a fear for Perpetual Conflict, replacing the Cold War Mentality to justify Huge Defense Contracts, Huge Profits, and the needed fear factor in the populace of not only the U.S. but the western world, the rest already have their problems from the wests continuing failed policies towards them, of which helped create this enemy.

It's has been rather hard to follow the news on Afghanistan, but it can be done if following overseas reporting.

Than this tragedy happened:

In response to Barack Obama's address today on Iraq and Afghanistan, Republican presidential nominee John McCain declared, "I know how to win wars."

Now for the first time, the man who brought you Ahmad Chalabi and 100 years in Iraq offers all his war-winning secrets in How to Win Wars for Dummies.  Insightful chapters like "How to Be Greeted as a Liberator," "Victory Will Be Rapid," "Declaring Mission Accomplished" and "Telling Shiite from Sunni" will get you up and running fast in your own global war on terror. And with helpful tips like "McCain's Guide to the Safe Streets of Baghdad" and "Overstaying Your Welcome," you don't have to be a septuagenarian war hero to be commander-in-chief.

Here are just some of the pearls from John McCain's How to Win Wars for Dummies:

I've been thinking about this for some time. Today I came across a fox news article that alleges that government officials from Iraq have confirmed annonymously that Hezbollah has been actively training the so called Shiite special groups loyal to Al-Sadr in Iraq. If this is indeed true, then we are engaged in a proxy war not just against Iran, but against militant Shiite ideology in the Middle East. We are also at war with militant Sunni ideology but have some Sunni allies. I don't think the same can be said of the Shiites. So essentially what we are seeing and have all but set the stage for with our disastrous invasion of Iraq is a 3 way war between the U.S. and our Sunni government allies vs the Sunni insurgency vs Iran and the Shiite Insurgency. We have a huge mess on our hands and there is no end in sight. Sorry to say.

BAGHDAD —  Hezbollah instructors trained Shiite militiamen at remote camps in southern Iraq until three months ago when they slipped across the border to Iran — presumably to continue instruction on Iranian soil, according to two Shiite lawmakers and a top army officer.

Fox News Story - Iraqi Officials: Hezbollah, Iran Training Shiites in Art of Terrorism

Senator John McCain used this Memorial Day to ask Americans to remember others' roles in the calamity that unfolded in Iraq.  First proclaiming himself "sick at heart by the many mistakes made by civilian and military commanders" in the run up and conduct of the war, McCain then declared of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, "I cannot be complicit in it."  But as his words and deeds over five years show, John McCain is not merely complicit in propelling the American invasion and occupation of Iraq; he has been wrong at every turn.

I became really angry today as I listened to President Bush’s Memorial Day speech.  What really disturbed me was the way in which he referred to U.S. soldiers in Iraq as sacrificing their lives for “freedom.”   He stated that over four thousand soldiers had died on the battlefield to “defend liberty.”   What utter hogwash!

The reality is that these fallen men and women in uniform did not have to die in Iraq.  They were not “defending liberty,” but rather lost their lives because of the Bush Administration’s idiotic rush to war and the precipitous toppling of a dictator who did not pose a direct threat to U.S. national security.  In this regard, I would contend that the Iraq war is legally and morally unjust; i.e., the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq clearly violated the Just War Doctrine.

As dday and others noted recently, El Numero Uno Shiite cleric in Iraq has finally become disquieted by the enduring American presence in his country.

Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric has been quietly issuing religious edicts declaring that armed resistance against U.S.-led foreign troops is permissible — a potentially significant shift by a key supporter of the Washington-backed government in Baghdad.

The edicts, or fatwas, by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani suggest he seeks to sharpen his long-held opposition to American troops and counter the populist appeal of his main rivals, firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia.

With most of the traditional media helpfully ignoring John McCain's confusion over Shiites, Sunnis and their respective relationship with Iran, we'll have to settle for a little humorous attention:

In a major speech on the war in Iraq today, presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain said that the Iraqis have split into two factions, Shiites and Sunnis, with a sinister goal in mind.

"My friends, the Iraqis have divided themselves into these two groups for one reason and one reason only," McCain told an audience in a retirement village in Scottsdale, Ariz. "They are trying to confuse me."

McCain said that while the two groups of Iraqis are "well-nigh impossible" to tell apart, he vowed to commit American troops to Iraq "for as long as it takes for me to figure out just what the difference between Sunnis and Shiites is."

"If it takes 100 years, 1,000 years, or a billion zillion years, we will stay there until I can tell Sunnis and Shiites apart," the Arizona senator said.

Of course it is said that all humor is based on the truth...

On this day a 143 years ago, our American civil war came to its end.

We know that more than 620,000 Americans died in our Civil War with disease and the chaos of conflict killing twice as many as those lost to actual violence. 50,000 survivors returned home as amputees. We know when it started and when it ended. The war was over 4 years after it had begun by 1865.

By contrast, the Sunni-Shiite conflict began some 1,400 years ago and we cannot pretend it does not continue today.

To read today's news I fear it may be.

Via Reuters and Yahoo News

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's prime minister raised the stakes in his showdown with followers of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, saying in an interview broadcast on Monday they would be barred from elections unless their militia disbands.

The comments followed an offensive by government forces into the cleric's Baghdad stronghold, the Shi'ite slum of Sadr City, in which heavy fighting returned to the capital after a week of relative calm when Sadr called his militiamen off the streets.

"A decision was taken ... that they no longer have a right to participate in the political process or take part in the upcoming elections unless they end the Mehdi Army," Maliki said in an interview with CNN, according to a report posted on the U.S. television network's Web site.

Maliki's threat to drive Sadr's millions of supporters out of the political process heightens tensions in a conflict that has divided Iraq's Shi'ite majority and led to the worst fighting since extra U.S. troops arrived last year.

It was mighty Christian of Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr to tell his Mahdi Army to stop fighting in Basra.  I’m afraid I would have taken a far more Old Testament approach to the recent violence in Iraq.

It’s not, after all, like al-Sadr and his followers were the ones who started this latest round of bang-bang.  It was, in fact, al-Sadr’s self imposed moratorium on violence that gave President Bush’s “main man” General David Petraeus grist for his claim that the surge was “working.”  You’d think maybe Petraeus would have wanted to leave the hornet’s nest alone; but no.  He decided to target ”criminal” and “rogue” elements within the Sadr organization.  

U.S. forces and the Badr Organization, a rival Shiite group, conducted raids for months on Sadr’s people.  The Mahdis warned repeatedly that they would fight back, and they finally did.  Shocking.  

    We are hearing about an increase in fighting in Basra and attacks involving portions of the Mahdi Army of al-Sadr well there are reasons for this and part of it has been constant antagonizing members and households and families connected to the Mahdi Army while they observed the truce...

In the words of Ronald Reagan:  "There you go again!"

Muqtada Al Sadr's militia is finally rested and resupplied enough to fight again.  They've acquired enough money from the Americans during the "cease fire" bought and paid for by the Bush administration in dollars and the blood of our troops to finally demonstrate the fallacy that the "surge" is working.

Imagine the reaction had Democratic presidential candidates' Obama or Clinton falsely claimed that Iran was training al Qaeda to fight in Iraq; screaming headlines, network coverage usually reserved for a missing white woman and and of course head-shaking editorials on their lack of foreign policy experience.  But when John McCain, the self and media-decribed expert says it, not once:

But Al Qaeda is there, they are functioning, they are supported in many times, in many ways by the Iranians.

...not twice:

As you know, there are al Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and they’re moving back into Iraq.

...but three times:

We continue to be concerned about Iranian -- taking Al Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back. We continue to be concerned about Iranian influence and assistance to Hezbollah, as well as Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons

...what do we hear from the media?

crickets

It's amazing what a little dry rub will get ya.

It's no secret that once the media latches onto a narrative, they run with it, the facts be damned. They have given us George Bush the decisive leader, Al Gore the serial liar, and David Petraeus the independent thinker, to name just a few, and they do this using innuendo, well chosen adjectives or simply through the sin of omission.  But this week CNN chose to cross the line from maintaining a narrative into the outright manipulation of the facts.

Here is how Wolf Blitzer chose to present John McCain repeatedly claiming that Iran was training al Qaeda to fight in Iraq:

But McCain's comments also raised some eyebrows because of a misstatement he quickly corrected after some prodding from his Senate colleague, Joe Lieberman.

Listen to this.

McCAIN [video clip]: We continue to be concerned about Iranian -- taking Al Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back. We continue to be concerned about Iranian influence and assistance to Hezbollah, as well as Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons.

I'm sorry. The Iranians are training extremists, not Al Qaeda, not Al Qaeda. I'm sorry.

What's missing?  Only the fact that McCain had made the assertion "several times," and that when pressed he continued to claim that it was "common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate."  

What's unfortunate is that CNN is splicing videos and manipulating their audience in an effort to maintain the illusion that John McCain simply misspoke and "quickly" corrected himself.  McCain has made the same baseless assertions on more than one occasion, but pointing that out doesn't go along with the media narrative that only John McCain has the foreign policy expertise to answer that phone at 3:00 a.m...so CNN fixed it.

I know there’s a whole lot to talk about, but we need to make sure McCain’s bungling during his trip to the Middle East stays front and center. It won’t find its way into the mainstream media without grassroots saturation.


According to Media Matters, the butchering of Middle East 101 dynamics didn’t get much play:

The Associated Press reported that Sen. John McCain voiced concern about Iran allegedly training "militants" and sending them to fight in Iraq, while CNN.com's Political Ticker reported that McCain had referred to "Iraqi extremists" being trained by Iran. In fact, McCain did not refer generically to "militants" or "Iraqi extremists"; he claimed that Iranian operatives are "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back" to fight U.S. troops in Iraq, a misstatement that Washington Post reporters Cameron W. Barr and Michael D. Shear wrote "threatened to undermine McCain's argument that his decades of foreign policy experience make him the natural choice to lead a country at war with terrorists."

I really liked this article because it offers a view of the war from an Iraqi citizen. His story confirms, in my view, the vast corruption and political infighting currently preventing Iraq from coming together.

You can find the link to the article here from the Los Angeles Times
here but I've included the story below in edited form.

I feel it's worth the read. To paraphrase, it details the career of Iraqi Maj. Gen. Jawad Rumi Daini, who came out of retirement to fight for the new Iraqi government.