I have a child with autism who enjoys watching certain sections of videos repeatedly.  He really likes it when I mimic the voices of the characters in the videos.  There is a section in Bug's Life where one of the ants asks the question, "You mean to tell me that our entire defensive strategy was concocted by clowns....(later in the the same dialogue Flick says, "The bird will work!"  If you substitute Surge for Bird and McCain for Flick you have the McSame storyline.

Let's look at the Gallup poll out yesterday that showed that a significantly larger percentage of Americans believe the surge has worked. The number has more than doubled from a few months ago.  The media never mentions one or two important components of that success.  I will.

1.  (From Factcheck.org) We are paying Iraqis, some of whom were formerly hostile insurgents, to police areas and fight terrorists. In late 2006, some Sunni Iraqis began to turn against foreign terrorist groups such as al Qaeda in Iraq. This is generally referred to as the Sunni Awakening or the Anbar Awakening. The U.S. military acted on this trend, according to the Congressional Research Service:

CRS: In the course of the “troop surge,” U.S. commanders have taken advantage of this Awakening trend by turning over informal security responsibility to 91,000 former militants called “Concerned Local Citizens” (CLC’s) or “Sons of Iraq” in exchange for an end to their anti-U.S. operations.

But the Army says that these individuals are not merely sitting idle. Commanding General of the Multi-National Forces in Iraq David Petraeus elaborated on their role in his testimony to Congress in April, saying the Sons of Iraq are "under contract to help Coalition and Iraqi Forces protect their neighborhoods and secure infrastructure and roads." He went on to say that they have "contributed to the discovery of improvised explosive devices and weapons and explosives caches."

And of course, these contracts come at a cost. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S. is paying about $16 million dollars a month to members of the Sons of Iraq. Petraeus emphasized during his testimony that the "savings in vehicles not lost because of reduced violence — not to mention the priceless lives saved — have far outweighed the cost of their monthly contracts."

Nonetheless, there is movement to shift these costs to the Iraqi government. In May, the Senate Armed Services Committee approved a measure prohibiting the U.S. from funding reconstruction efforts, such as the Sons of Iraq, that cost more than $2 million. And Petraeus says that "over 21,000 [members of the forces] have already been accepted into the Police or Army or other government jobs" and moved over to their payroll.

2.  Using statistics to lie. .. I've recently read but can't find the original reference to the pentagon's report omitting the number of people (US soldiers and Iraqi soldiers and civilians) killed by IEDs from the number of combat related deaths.  OF course the surge worked we're not getting shot at we're just getting blown up. IEDs aren't combat related deaths or casualties. Tell that to the families of dead soldiers and those soldiers who survived their IED injuries. If any one out there would like to help with that reference please do so. I'll find it eventually.

Greg Palast sent out an urgent email this morning with some disturbing revelations about wholesale voter purging.  He is looking for money to get a documentary produced. He wants this story out there.  If people on the ground in Colorado and New Mexico can verify these allegations please do so. 

If these are true, November 2008 will be much uglier than the "Butterfly Ballot Debacle of the Palm Beach Blue Hairs"  or the "Hi, I'm Katherine Harris and Your Votes Won't Count Shituation."

Obama is recruiting attorneys for Election day work. The fox is in the henhouse now and the chickens will be long gone by November.

Here is the text:
Obama Doesn't Sweat. He should.   by Greg Palast   In swing-state Colorado, the Republican Secretary of State conducted the biggest purge of voters in history, dumping a fifth of all registrations. Guess their color. In swing-state Florida, the state is refusing to accept about 85,000 new registrations from voter drives - overwhelming Black voters.   In swing state New Mexico, HALF of the Democrats of Mora, a dirt poor and overwhelmingly Hispanic county, found their registrations disappeared this year, courtesy of a Republican voting contractor.   In swing states Ohio and Nevada, new federal law is knocking out tens of thousands of voters who lost their homes to foreclosure.   My investigations partner spoke directly to Barack Obama about it. (When your partner is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., candidates take your phone call.) The cool, cool Senator Obama told Kennedy he was "concerned" about the integrity of the vote in the Southwest in particular.   He's concerned. I'm sweating.   It's time SOMEBODY raised the alarm about these missing voters; not to save Obama's candidacy – journalists should stay the heck away from partisan endorsements - but raise the alarm to save our sick democracy.