Did you know that Little George

has a pet name for his penis?

He calls it Mr Al, after al-Qaeda

He tempts Laura on their once-a-year fuck

"Would Laura like to see Mr. Al?

Oh, look! Mr Al's growing bigger!

As big as the world-wide war on terror!"

Yes, I've seen 'Mr. Al'. It's about this big"

Bush nearly always gives these propaganda speeches

in front of US service personnel,

no doubt believing that a large dose of jingoism

will help the indoctrination go down

His approach uses broad, crude strokes

as he desperately attempts to link the Iraq war

to an event that Americans remember deeply

- the Sept. 11 attacks. He is again looking for

that knee-jerk response to those attacks.

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Bush tried yet again on Tuesday to strengthen the connection between al Qaeda and the unceasing Iraq war, using his latest ptopaganda technique to prod people into remembering the threat of attack at home.

By stressing al Qaeda's burgeoning operation in Iraq, Bush again aimed to frame the war in the public's mind as a matter of protecting the U.S.

Yet the war itself has turned into a valuable recruiting tool for al Qaeda, senior intelligence officials concede.

Little George is up against highly skeptical audiences with 18 months left in office. The public has largely lost faith in the war, Congress is weighing ways to end it, and international partners have fading memories of the 2001 attacks against the U.S.

Bush nearly always gives these propaganda speeches in front of US service personnel, no doubt believing that a large dose of jingoism will help the indoctrination go down.

In the afternoon speech he warned that al Qaeda anywhere remains a catastrophic threat to the U.S., nowhere more so than from its base in Iraq.

Bush claimedd he was using declassified information about al Qaeda's operation for his speech.

His goal is to show that al Qaeda in Iraq is a core part of the overall terror network -- a direct jab at those who say U.S. troops in Iraq are bogged down against the wrong enemy.

Bush chose Charleston Air Force Base, a vital launching point for cargo and military personnel headed to Iraq.

He watched crates of supplies being loaded onto a C-17 at the base, which ships thousands of tons of cargo to front-line troops.

Bush's approach uses broad, crude strokes as he desperately attempts to link the Iraq war to an event that Americans remember deeply -- the Sept. 11 attacks. He is again looking for that knee-jerk response to those attacks.

the fact is that violent infighting among Iraqis has caused much of the U.S. to see little point in the U.S. mission.

Never Mind the Propaganda. Here's the Reality

Iraq is a godsend to Al Qaeda because it stirs up so much anger in the Muslim world, and generates incalculable support for Al Qaeda's cause.

It would be natural for Al Qaeda to leverage all the contacts and capabilities that America's occupation has handed them, but one shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the only reasons that there is an Al Qaeda in Iraq are the American invasion and occupation.

Here's a typical rationale from the neocons:

"If you poke the hornets' nest they are bound to push back. That doesn't suggest to me that we shouldn't be doing it."

But maybe it does suggest that you shouldn't be doing it, especially if it turns out that the hornets only came to the nest after you poked it.

According to the Neocon-Bush field-of-dreams logic, we could create even more central fronts on terrorism by invading other Arab countries, because Al Qaeda will come in to oppose the invasion, gathering up even more local support. If you invade Arab countries, they will come.

Al Qaeda has never represented more than 10 percent of the Iraqi resistance, but nowadays you hear that American troops are being deployed in whole provinces to fight just against Al Qaeda.

The image of Al Qaeda in Iraq is elevated, and it is almost as if there was no more home-grown resistance, and that nationalism and hatred of foreign occupation no longer existed as a reason to oppose the United States.

One suspects this is because the American public isn't going to any longer support a war against Baathists and "dead enders," as the Iraqi resistance used to be called, but they might be persuaded to stay the course if you brand everyone in the Sunni resistance Qaeda.

The suggestion that if we leave Iraq Al Qaeda will take over the country is absurd. Excepting Kurdistan, if anyone is likely to take over Iraq at the end of this fiasco it will be the Shia, whom Al Qaeda and other Sunni extremists view as apostates.

The eventual withdrawal of American troops will lessen Al Qaeda's support in Iraq because its whole reason for being there is to resist the American occupation.

And the intelligence report suggests that we are creating more terrorists than we are killing.

Only by the most torturous magical thinking can the Iraq tragedy be interpreted as anything other than a colossal mistake that has distracted from the goal of defeating Islamic extremism and its attending terrorism.

The longer the Iraq tragedy remains on stage the more there will be for Al Qaeda to exploit.

The more Iraq remains a magnet for jihadi hornets, the more nests we will have to poke.

Given that Iraq has presented Osama bin Laden with undreamed of opportunities to raise resources and recruit operatives to attack America, it is no wonder he considers Iraq the central front.

The wonder is that the Bush administration is still falling into its self-dug trap.

H. D. S. Greenway @ IHT