Arianna and "Rummy's Disease"!

[leftchick]

<snip>

But those days are long gone, buried beneath a cascade of body bags and on-going horrors. Quaint and quirky have given way to delusional, as Rumsfeld has crossed the line into a place with little connection to reality. Call it Rummy's Disease, an affliction that is apparently highly contagious.

Just look at the symptoms being exhibited by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Miliki. A man normally given to clear-eyed, sober assessments, such as when he told the members of the Iraq parliament this week that the country had one "last chance" to avoid an all-out civil war, saying of his national reconciliation plan: "If it fails, I don't know what the destiny of Iraq will be." (Two guesses: a) all-out civil war b) all-out civil war.)

But put Miliki in sniffing distance of Rummy and he suddenly starts talking nonsense. "The security forces are still in control of the situation," he said on Tuesday. "We have the capacity, if necessary, to impose order and suppress those who rebel against the state."

"Still in control of the situation"? What country is he talking about? The one where over 100 people have been killed in the last 96 hours? "The capacity to impose order"? Who is he kidding? Fifty-thousand troops were moved into Baghdad last month as part of Operation Together Forward, yet violence in the capitol has escalated.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/rummys-disease-the-delu_b_24941.html