Mark Your Calendar, If You Like

Are you ready for September? Brace yourselves, because the campaign is on to set us up for a September gosh-by-golly, no lies, straight-talking, boy-scout-honest report on the Iraq war from that mythical warrior, Saint Betrayus and his smart-as-a-whip PhD side-kick, David Killandcullem.

Guess what? I'm not buying it. Why should I believe that these two will tell us anything remotely resembling the truth, when if either of them had a shred of integrity, they would have told Bush and the American people that the war in Iraq is an unmitigated disaster and is the fault of the American government and military - period. Read this excellent post on TomDispatch written by The Independent's Patrick Cockburn if you are unconvinced...it's sad and sobering.

Instead of questioning the whole nonsense about "making progress" and "improvements" through the "Surge" or "new" counterinsurgency - NPR just gobbles up (yum,yum) the hooey from David Kilcullen, the senior counter-insurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus, top U.S. commander in Iraq. Here are a few gems from the interview:

Kilcullen describing the sectarian horror of Iraq (for which the US is deeply responsible) he says, "by cutting the al-Qaeda engine, if you like, out of that cycle, we can dramatically reduce the amount of violence that's happening in the society."

Of the use of thousands of troops looking for the missing US soldiers, Kilcullen says "there are benefits that come from flooding an area if you like, for a temporary period, to really send a message to the population and bring them to our side." (!) Jackie Lyden didn't see this a fit for any followup questions...too bad.

When asked about how the war is being discussed in the US Congress, Kilcullen tries a bit of humor: "Well you know, thank God all I have to worry about is al-Qaeda and the Iraqi insurgency, which is a much less complex and threatening environment than possibly back in Washington" (Har, har...unless you're one of the million killed Iraqis or thousands of killed and wounded US soldiers.)

Kilcullen assures us, "Let me just say, we are going to know by the end of the summer how things are turning out...we're not going to put spin on this; we're not going to pretend it's working if it's not."

Any doubters out there? Not at NPR. What a surprise.