Get a load of this little tidbit dropped by the Pentagon on the Friday before Labor Day weekend:

Pentagon: Cold-blooded carnage soaring in Iraq

Here is just a tidbit of this feel good, heartwarming read:

Death squads and terrorists have ramped up attacks on civilians in Iraq, killing more than 1,600 people in cold-blooded “execution-style” slayings in July alone, a Pentagon report said Friday.

Increasing violence is affecting “all other measures of stability, reconstruction and transition,” according to the report, which examined the situation in June, July and August.

OK. So things aren’t going that well Iraq. It sounds like there is much work to be done, which of course means that the Bush administration has already claimed victory. He has decided, despite all possible evidence to the contrary, that it is “mission accomplished” regarding al Qaeda. This from an update to the administration’s terrorism strategy released today:

“The enemy we face today in the war on terror is not the same enemy we faced on September 11. Our effective counter terrorism efforts in part have forced the terrorists to evolve and modify their ways of doing business.”

I’m not convinced. The fact that terrorists have “evolved” and have been prompted to “modify their ways of doing business” does not seem all that reassuring to me. We haven’t evolved or modified our ways of doing business, and the results are plain to see in Iraq. Same old crap yeilds same old results. I guess Republicans don’t believe in evolution.

For them to claim such broad accomplishments would suggest some great underlying achievement. Here is what they have to say for themselves:

“We have deprived al Qaeda of safe haven in Afghanistan and helped a democratic government rise in its place. A multinational coalition joined by the Iraqis is aggressively prosecuting the war against the terrorists in Iraq.”

So we wiped out the Taliban. That brings us up to about 2002. Since then it’s been all about Iraq, which has been a total debacle. If Afghanistan was our last substantial achievement, what then, has Bush been doing for four years? Posturing, that’s what. That’s why they can dump numbers like “1600 Iraqi civilians executed in July” and not even care about it. Over 40,000 Iraqi civilians dead since the start of occupation, and over 2,600 American solders killed isn’t much of an accomplishment. Not with Iraq plunging into Civil war and the Taliban regaining strength in Afghanistan. Prosecutions for terrorism have rebounded to pre 9-11 numbers. NOTHING IS HAPPENING. As I’ve said before, the only people Republicans are any good at fighting are Democrats. It’s really nothing to brag about.

Alright, ready, because HERE IS THE BEST PART: On the same day that the government releases a report boasting about how the threat of al Qaeda has diminished, BUSH COMPARES BIN LADEN TO HITLER AGAIN. From CNN:

“Bin laden and his terrorists’ allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them,” the president said before the Military Officers Association of America and diplomatic representatives of other countries that have suffered terrorist attacks. “The question is `Will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say?”

How is it possible that Bin Laden is both Hitler reborn and totally insignificant? Why do we worry so much about what Osama thinks about our foreign policy, when we can’t even be bothered to capture him? It is possible that George W. Bush doesn’t know that Bin Laden is the leader of al Qaeda? That’s the only explanation that I can come up with. It’s either that, or he is trying to do drum up the fear vote for the sake of the mid-term elections while at the same time fronting a pathetic effort to bolster his ever weakening presidential power and tarnished historical legacy. I can’t decide.