I am very curious about the chain of events whereby the rhetoric of all of these major news sources suddenly makes a clear and deliberate shift. Because I cannot believe that each of these reporters is simply aping what someone else is doing. Not because I think they have such integrity, but because that doesn't seem efficient enough for those in power. There have to be meetings and decisions made, no? So, does someone in the gummint, I don't know, have lunch with a newspaper owner, telling him about the new linguistic strategery, who then speaks with his editorial staff, who then speak with the reporters in their units? And how does that conversation go, exactly? I keep thinking of that scene in All the President's Men where Ben Bradlee discusses Watergate with his editors and who is going to write the story and how it happened, etc. I am trying to imagine a scene like that where someone like Bradlee tells his editors that "we will now refer to all insurgents in Iraq as 'al-Qaida,' no exceptions." What would be the rationale? And wouldn't there be any questions? And if a reporter said, "no, that is simply not accurate," what would happen? And finally, if there are directives about this, maybe even written down, why doesn't this get out? I suppose I am being naive but I don't get how these things are pulled off with such ease, and why no one leaks anything about them. It makes me crazy.

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Remember that plan to deploy units into neighborhoods to stabilize them ... uh, that's not mentioned.

What we're doing to stabilize "the capital" -- apparently -- is stabilizing (aka - attacking, clearing, etc.) outlying areas that we believe attacks on the capital come from ... many of which -- the article mentions -- we have not engaged much, if at all, in years.

There's more and it's worse ... The plan is dependent on Iraqi forces and the news on the Iraqi is unchanged ....

Oh, and:

A senior commander in Iraq, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said that U.S. plans do not call for holding cleared areas. Rather he said, the "Battle of the Baghdad Belts," as some in the military call the new offensive, is a series of raids designed to reduce attacks on the capital and thus support the main effort, which is to improve the security of Baghdad's population.

we don't plan to stick around to hold these area ... man, these flashbacks are getting worse ...

Let's face it: if Osama Bin Laden had access to the courts, he could sue Al Qaeda in Iraq and win hands down. It's like if someone in Iraq thought that because of the lawlessness there, they could get away with opening a burger stand and calling it "McDonalds in Iraq". Oh wait-- the real McDonalds is already in Iraq, aren't they? But the real Al Qaeda isn't -- at least not in the form of AQI. It's a separate group that took on the name for a bit of borrowed "prestige", right? They should have to run a little disclaimer under their name in fine print for the lawyers: "Al Qaeda in Iraq is not affilliated with Al Qaeda, Inc., and no relationship between the groups should be inferrred."

Greenwald,

Again you lambast the MSM, rightly, for parroting administration spin. And again you commit exactly the same crime:

You write "...the people who hijacked those planes and flew them into our buildings: "Al Qaeda.""

Who hijacked the planes? We don't know that anyone hijacked any planes, as the only "evidence" is transcripts (yes, transcripts, not original recordings) of alleged cellphone conversations between passengers and various people on the ground. One reason that this "evidence" is suspect is that it cannot be demonstrated that cellphone conversations between passengers on fast-moving airplanes above 8,000 feet and the ground are actually possible. On 9/11 they were not even technically feasible. Another clue is that none of the "hijacked" aircraft crew managed to send out a distress signal (SOP), despite the advance notice they would have had if the accounts of hostage taking and knifings by the "hijackers" were true.

We don't even know if the "hijacked" planes were the same ones that hit the buildings since, in clear violation of law and SOP, there were no NTSB post-crash investigations. Contrast this with the painstaking reconstruction of flight 800 which crashed after takeoff into Long Island Sound.

You have swallowed a fake story and, for reasons of your own, refuse to examine the facts that contradict your preferred version of events. As I have said before, until you resolve this dichotomy you are no better than those you profess to despise.

Shame on you!

I like the “two-fers” where you exemplify the administration’s mendacity of the last six years and MSM’s central role in enabling it. Unfortunately, I wish the examples weren’t so current, that at least the MSM would have become a bit more skeptical before spinning the administration's latest tales of success or important corners turned in Iraq.

When is the MSM’s position going to change from the default (and when are administration apologists going to quit trying to come up with some contorted rationalization) that the administration is telling it like it is and not trying to make this all about their so-called global war on terrorism - to simplify this costly, complicated quagmire down to a “Good vs. Evil” worldview, as Glenn so clearly describes? They have been spreading misinformation on Iraq and conflating it with Al Qaeda/terrorism since 9/11, and propaganda and censorship are about all they have left to prop up their extremism. That the MSM continues to abet the process is truly indicative of their collapse as a reliable, independent voice.

There are hundreds of different tribal alliances in this civil war, some of which probably reconfigure on weekly basis if not more frequently, and this arrogant, ham-handed administration whose Decider did not know Shia from Sunni before the invasion and who heretofore has shown no talent or taste for diplomacy thinks it can play this delicate military/political game to its ultimate advantage? Ri-i-i-ight!

Also, with all these different strains involved in the conflict, I always wondered how the dead fighters were so readily identified as Al Qaeda. Glad Larry Tepper was able to explain it to me in his comment above. I guess those that are identified as Al Qaeda leaders are the Platinum card members.

Finally, congratulations on your book, Glenn. As another good “two-fer,” I am pre-ordering it piggy-backed with Al Gore’s to save the freight charge, and can’t wait to read them.