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."
We've been hearing this kind of talk a lot lately...
“We see these attacks as another desperate attempt by the terrorists to discredit the newly formed Iraqi government,” US-led forces said in a statement. (29 April 2005)
Maybe it means they really are getting desperate...
"So the level of violence will be high during this period of time because they're desperate. They know the window is closing. They know they've either got to derail the process now, or ultimately we'll succeed in our objectives there." (Cheney, 29 September 2004)
"They are becoming more deadly because we think they are getting more desperate," Dr Allawi said. (24 September 2004)
"The general said the letter-writer's recommendation of instigating sectarian violence in Iraq "is almost a sign of desperation." (Gen. Kimmet, 9 February 2004)
"As they approach Baghdad, our fighting units are facing the most desperate elements of a doomed regime." (President Bush, 27 March 2003)
Or maybe it just means we're getting really desperate.
UPDATE: Josh Marshall notes that Cheney declared that the insurgency was in its last throes, and that the insurgency would be over by 2009. I just love how this man can say whatever the hell he wants, with no logic or sense, and the media just lets it go.
At least they're consistent.
But I guess you don't even need a ministry of truth to destroy the past if no one pays any attention anyway.
One of the lamest statements of the year. Bush at his news conference: I think the Iraqi people dealt the insurgents a serious blow when they had the elections [in January]." That's right, kids...the bad guys have been blowing themselves up for the last five months because of low self-esteem.
A
coalition of veterans' groups, peace groups, and political activist
groups announced a campaign today to urge that the U.S. Congress launch
a formal investigation into whether President Bush has committed
impeachable offenses in connection with the Iraq war. The campaign
focuses on evidence that recently emerged in a British memo containing
minutes of a secret July 2002 meeting with British Prime Minister Tony
Blair and his top national security officials.
John
Bonifaz, a Boston attorney specializing in constitutional litigation,
sent a memo to Congressman John Conyers of Michigan, the Ranking
Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, urging him to introduce a
Resolution of Inquiry directing the House Judiciary Committee to launch
a formal investigation into whether sufficient grounds exist for the
House to impeach President Bush.
Bonifaz's memo, made available
today at www.AfterDowningStreet.org, begins: "The recent release of the
Downing Street Memo provides new and compelling evidence that the
President of the United States has been actively engaged in a
conspiracy to deceive and mislead the United States Congress and the
American people about the basis for going to war against Iraq. If true,
such conduct constitutes a High Crime under Article II, Section 4 of
the United States Constitution."
In February and March 2003,
John Bonifaz served as lead counsel for a coalition of United States
soldiers, parents of U.S. soldiers, and Members of Congress (led by
Representatives John Conyers, Jr. and Dennis Kucinich) in a federal
lawsuit challenging President George W. Bush’s authority to wage war
against Iraq absent a congressional declaration of war or equivalent
action. Bonifaz is the author of Warrior-King: The Case for Impeaching
George W. Bush (NationBooks-NY, 2004, foreword by Rep. John Conyers,
Jr.), which chronicles that case and its meaning for the United States
Constitution.
The organizations forming the
AfterDowningStreet.org coalition include: Global Exchange, Gold Star
Families for Peace, Democrats.com, Veterans for Peace, Code Pink,
Progressive Democrats of America, and Democracy Rising. These
organizations, beginning today, will be urging their members to contact
their Representatives to urge support of a Resolution of Inquiry.
Congressman Conyers is now seeking 100,000 signatures to sign a letter on the Downing Street Inquiry.Information available at Raw Story and dKos.
Sign the letter here.Write to your Congresspeople here.
Daniel
Ellsberg once said that what's good about the American people is that
you have to lie to them. What's bad about Americans is that it's so
easy to do.
..It is our duty to ensure that [soldiers] never are called to make that sacrifice unless it is truly necessary.. In
the case of Iraq, the American public has failed them; we did not
prevent the Bush administration from spending their blood in an
unnecessary war based on contrived concerns about Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction.
President Bush and those around him lied,
and the rest of us let them. Harsh? Yes. True? Also yes. Perhaps it
happened because Americans, understandably, don't expect untruths from
those in power. But that works better as an explanation than as an
excuse.
The "smoking gun," as some call it, surfaced on May 1 in the London Times It is a highly classified document containing the minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting at 10 Downing Street...
Also comes word, from the May 19 New York Times, that senior U.S. military leaders are not encouraged about prospects in Iraq. Yes, they think the United States can prevail, but as one said, it may take "many years."
As this bloody month of car bombs and American deaths -- the most since January -- comes to a close, as
we gather in groups small and large to honor our war dead, let us all
sing of their bravery and sacrifice. But let us also ask their
forgiveness for sending them to a war that should never have happened.
In the 1960s it was Vietnam. Today it is Iraq. Let us resolve to never,
ever make this mistake again. Our young people are simply too precious.
Good news from 
