Yesterday, John McCain made millions of people crosseyed while listening to him trying to clarify his statement regarding the surge and the sunni awakening. This is what he said:

The surge in Iraq-Nam didn't work.  In fact, it failed pretty spectacularly.  This isn't to deny that the violence is down in Baghdad (at least, violence against US forces).  But if you remember, the purpose of the surge was to create sufficient security for the Iraq-Namese politicians to work out details on power-sharing, disbursement of revenues and a general overall settlement.  Just today, the world has been given more proof that the politicians in the Green Zone regime are unwilling or unable to make use of the breathing space the surge brought them.  Just like before the surge, they remain prepared to fight to the last American.  President Talabani has rejected the legislation needed to hold provincial elections on October 1.  The Speaker held a secret vote to ram through part of the legislation (which has never happened since the parliament was seated) and the Kurds walked out in protest.

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:

As Barack Obama traverses the Middle East and Europe, there has been a lot of talk back home about the effectiveness of the surge and what it means to presidential politics.  If you will indulge me, I would like to share with you my views as to why the surge alone has been ineffective and why Obama must continue to fight the media narrative about the surge.  

Women for John McCain are proud to salute our next President of the United States of America, John Sidney McCain III, as his trailblazing leadership on foreign policy and military issues continues to garner attention and amazed double takes from the press, so-called 'experts', and voters.

Under John McCain's maverick leadership, America will keep the terrorists on their toes. When the terrorists, insurgents, world leaders, journalists, the American public, and even John McCain himself can't figure out what he's talking about, we'll always be one step ahead of the enemy - they'll never be able to figure out what the mission is, or just where we'll strike next.

That's real security, and that's the leadership and creative foreign policy expertise John McCain will bring to the White House when voters go to the polls in January, 2009.

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:

Sorry for the short diary, but my head is going to explode the next time I hear someone, especially someone running for President of the United States, compare having troops in Iraq to Korea and Germany.  Not only would a person disqualify themselves to hold public office with this outlook, but they couldn't hold a high school social studies teaching job.

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

What we should all remember when the MSM tries to convince us that this is going to be a tough fight

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.

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...

Cross-posted here.

What seems to matter to Sen. John McCain is not what something is, but rather what it is called.

In truth, why wouldn't he think that? Why wouldn't he believe that that he can repeatedly conflate Shiite militants with Al-Qaeda in Iraq? He is, after all, running to largely continue the policies of our current Conflator-in-Chief.

It's not that John McCain doesn't know the difference between the two sects; it's that he is willfully conflating the two to fit his desired political narrative.

However, this isn't a diary that simply begins with Sen. McCain's repeated "misstatements" and the inability of the mainstream media to adequately probe this pattern. No, this diary needs a bit of context to rightly underscore how important both the repeated "misstatements" are; and, the complicity of the press in the consequences of not rightly fleshing them out.

The title may be dramatic, but the subject is vitally important.  Whether you favor an immediate withdrawal, phased, limited, a continuation or an up-surge, Iraq is important.  It doesn't matter if you're an American or a European or a Middle Easterner- Iraq is important.  It's something that we have heard and will continue to hear a lot about this week, along with next week, and the week after..  indeed, we'll be hearing about Iraq for decades to come no matter what we do.  Unfortunately, no matter what we do, saving the Iraqi people from an outright civil-war may be nearly impossible unless something just as horrible takes place.

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.

What seems to matter to Sen. John McCain is not what something is, but rather what it is called.  

In truth, why wouldn't he think that?  Why wouldn't he believe that that he can systematically conflate Shiite militants with Al-Qaeda in Iraq?  He did, after all, learn at the foot of his mentor with regard to these type of tactics.

It's not that John McCain doesn't know the difference; it's that he is willfully conflating the two to fit his desired political narrative.

Rush transcript:

John McCain: Do you still view al Qaeda in Iraq as a major threat?

David Petraeus: It is still a major threat, though it is certainly not as major a threat as it was say 15 months ago.

McCain: Certainly not an obscure sect of the Shi'ites overall?

Petraeus: No.

McCain: Or Sunnis or anybody else.

Will the media report this?

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.