Want to really be depressed, and outraged, and stunned beyond belief? Read this front-page story in today's Washington Post. I know we post a lot of information on this blog, but this is one of those stories that is a MUST-READ. I mean it. It's a quick easy read and filled with irrefutable information about how totally fucked up Iraq has become, and worse, how totally out of touch - dare I say, lying - the Bush administration has been about Iraq.
It's difficult to know even what to say. There are American men and women dying over there, and men and women getting their limbs blown off. Tens of thousands of civilian casualties. Bush has created the very breeding ground of Al Qaeda that he was supposedly trying to destroy. And now, experts from ACROSS the intelligence and defense establishment of the federal government have come forward - lots and lots of them - to say that George Bush is lying to the American people about what is going on in Iraq.
Not only should this man not be re-elected, he shouldn't be president right now. If this isn't impeachment territory, if this isn't resignation territory, I don't know what is. We shouldn't have a campaign to defeat George Bush in November, we should have a campaign to demand his immediate resignation. This man has betrayed our troops, our country, and the world.
Ok, I've vented. I know my 11th commandment is not to whine and not to be depressed. So rather than let our anger turn to despair, we need to channel it into action. VOLUNTEER FOR THE KERRY CAMPAIGN. This last month it is CRITICAL that we have people helping get out the vote, working the phone lines, leafleting at the subways, knocking on doors. If you're pissed off then do something about it. We lost the last election by 500 some votes, people. Think you can't make a difference? Ha. VOLUNTEER NOW. Hell, at the very least you'll find other people like you who can't believe this man is our president, and who are actually doing something to end this travesty.
A growing number of career professionals within national security agencies believe that the situation in Iraq is much worse, and the path to success much more tenuous, than is being expressed in public by top Bush administration officials, according to former and current government officials and assessments over the past year by intelligence officials at the CIA and the departments of State and Defense.
While President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others have delivered optimistic public appraisals, officials who fight the Iraqi insurgency and study it at the CIA and the State Department and within the Army officer corps believe the rebellion is deeper and more widespread than is being publicly acknowledged, officials say.
People at the CIA "are mad at the policy in Iraq because it's a disaster, and they're digging the hole deeper and deeper and deeper," said one former intelligence officer who maintains contact with CIA officials. "There's no obvious way to fix it. The best we can hope for is a semi-failed state hobbling along with terrorists and a succession of weak governments."
"Things are definitely not improving," said one U.S. government official who reads the intelligence analyses on Iraq.
"It is getting worse," agreed an Army staff officer who served in Iraq and stays in touch with comrades in Baghdad through e-mail. "It just seems there is a lot of pessimism flowing out of theater now. There are things going on that are unbelievable to me. They have infiltrators conducting attacks in the Green Zone. That was not the case a year ago."
....Reports from Iraq have made one Army staff officer question whether adequate progress is being made there.
"They keep telling us that Iraqi security forces are the exit strategy, but what I hear from the ground is that they aren't working," he said. "There's a feeling that Iraqi security forces are in cahoots with the insurgents and the general public to get the occupiers out."
He added: "I hope I'm wrong."
