Let's Do the Time Warp Again

Chester notes that insurgent leaders in Iraq and some members of the US Congress are currently singing from the same hymnal.

That song sounded familiar to me - and in fact there was a slightly different version being sung back in April 2004

Meanwhile, in Washington, leading Senate Democrats offered their encouragement to the troops:

Mr. Byrd, the chamber's senior Democrat, said yesterday that the Bush administration has "blundered" and that the United States should not be trying to increase troop strength. "We should instead be working toward an exit strategy," he said.

"Surely, I am not the only one who hears echoes of Vietnam in this development. Surely, the administration recognizes that increasing the U.S. troop presence in Iraq will only suck us deeper into the maelstrom of violence that has become the hallmark of that unfortunate country," the West Virginian said on the Senate floor.

His criticism follows that by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, who on Monday called Iraq "George Bush's Vietnam" and said the situation has created a credibility gap between the president and Americans.

Byrd was recently praised for his longevity by fellow Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), who said the West Virginia Democrat, member of the Ku Klux Klan before taking office and opponent of the 1964 Civil Right Act, "would have been right during the great conflict of Civil War in this nation."

Back in Iraq, Kennedy's claim won support from Iraqi Shi'ite leader Moqtada al-Sadr, who took time out from leading his fanatical band of insurgents in combat with American soldiers to echo the comparison:

"I call upon the American people to stand beside their brethren, the Iraqi people, who are suffering an injustice by your rulers and the occupying army, to help them in the transfer of power to honest Iraqis," Sadr said in a statement issued by his office in the southern city of Najaf. "Otherwise, Iraq will be another Vietnam for America and the occupiers."

United States forces are confronting a broad-based Shiite uprising that goes well beyond supporters of one militant Islamic cleric who has been the focus of American counterinsurgency efforts, United States intelligence officials said Wednesday.

That assertion contradicts repeated statements by the Bush administration and American officials in Iraq. On Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that they did not believe the United States was facing a broad-based Shiite insurgency. Administration officials have portrayed Moktada al-Sadr, a rebel Shiite cleric who is wanted by American forces, as the catalyst of the rising violence within the Shiite community of Iraq.

But intelligence officials now say that there is evidence that the insurgency goes beyond Mr. Sadr and his militia, and that a much larger number of Shiites have turned against the American-led occupation of Iraq, even if they are not all actively aiding the uprising.

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The result is that the United States is facing two broad-based insurgencies that are now on parallel tracks.

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The Bush administration has sought to portray the opposition much more narrowly. In the Sunni insurgency, the White House and the Pentagon have focused on the role of the former leaders of the Baath Party and Saddam Hussein's government, while in the Shiite rebellion they have focused almost exclusively on the role of Mr. Sadr. Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon that the fighting in Iraq was just the work of "thugs, gangs and terrorists," and not a popular uprising. General Myers added that "it's not a Shiite uprising. Sadr has a very small following."

Remember that one next time you read quotes from unnamed "intelligence officials" trumpeting defeat in the NY Times.

Or when next you hear US Congressmen being echoed by terrorists - or vice-versa.