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'The closer we get to the end of the Bush administration, the more honest become some of the assessments of where we are in Iraq and where we're going.

Consider these comments by Army Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, at last week's hearings on Capitol Hill:

• There is progress, but it's "fragile."

• There's no light at the end of the tunnel.

• The end is not in sight.'

'A January 21st Los Angeles Times Iraq piece by Ned Parker and Saif Rasheed led with an inter-tribal suicide bombing at a gathering in Fallujah in which members of the pro-American Anbar Awakening Council were killed. ("Asked why one member of his Albu Issa tribe would kill another, Aftan compared it to school shootings that happen in the United States.") Twenty-six paragraphs later, the story ended this way:

    "The U.S. military also said in a statement that it had dropped 19,000 pounds of explosives on the farmland of Arab Jabour south of Baghdad. The strikes targeted buried bombs and weapons caches.

    "In the last 10 days, the military has dropped nearly 100,000 pounds of explosives on the area, which has been a gateway for Sunni militants into Baghdad."'

100,000 pounds of explosives. My my my. Of course, it is absolutely and completely verboten to suggest in any way shape or form that 'our' tactics sometimes, in some ways, resemble those of Nazi Germany. The 'N' word is, as is well known, only to be applied to 'liberals', 'socialists' and 'communists'. (cf Jonah Goldberg).

'The Americans believe they have now found the secret of success in counterinsurgency in the formula they have adopted for the "surge" in Iraq - a combination of sticks and carrots, incentives and arms for local groups and tribes. Plus a lot of airpower - much more than is presently making the news reports.'

This last is true and very important. As the Washington Post recently reported: 'The U.S.-led coalition dropped 1,447 bombs on Iraq last year, an average of nearly four a day, compared with 229 bombs, or about four each week, in 2006.'

The other main thing to bear in mind when considering any given media story is to ask oneself, NOT if it's 'true', but instead: 'Who would benefit if it was widely believed that this was true?'. Cui bono is, unfortunately, as relevant as it ever was.