The next stop on the Bush administration propaganda train will arrive in September, when the militarists announce that the troop escalation, uh, surge, is working. The so-called Petraeus Report will allow President Ding-Dong to prolong the war and kill more American soldiers, not to mention countless Iraqis who commited the crime of living in the country that we decided to turn into a civil war zone.

The "surge" update will be with us after Labor Day. September is a good month for propaganda. The famous pronouncement from one of Bushie's flunkies a few years ago was that you always promote a new product in September, when the American public starts to pay attention again. This official was talking about promoting the Iraq War. Like a can of tomato paste or a new cell phone, the time to push forward is September.

The American people ain't buying it, though. According to CNN, "A majority of Americans don't trust the upcoming report by the Army's top commander in Iraq on the progress of the war and even if they did, it wouldn't change their mind, according to a new poll. President Bush frequently has asked Congress -- and the American people -- to withhold judgment on his so-called troop surge in Iraq until Gen. David Petraeus, the commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, issue their progress report in September. But according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Thursday, 53 percent of people polled said they suspect that the military assessment of the situation will try to make it sound better than it actually is. Forty-three percent said they do trust the report."

The American people, 70 percent of whom supported the war when it started, generally like war if the enemy can be demonized. That is what happened in 2003, when the war started. Now the government has to flim-flam its way through the hearts and minds of the American public. According to the L.A. Times, the surge status report, which is supposed to be written by Gen. Patraeus, will actually be written by the Bush White House. The paper reports (midway through its story on the war) that "Despite Bush’s repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government. And though Petraeus and Crocker will present their recommendations on Capitol Hill, legislation passed by Congress leaves it to the president to decide how to interpret the report’s data."

If the war never should have been started, how can a military commander's report be used to further the war? True, the argument goes that the war is finally paying off, more than four years later. That's like trying to burn down the neighbor's house and then patting yourself on the back for helping to put the fire out.