I protest.

Surrealism.

The Austin American Statesman tells us, "U.S. abandons plan for greater U.N. role in Iraq." This is hardly surprising; the surprise is that the White House considered it at all. The bottom line is that

"The administration is not willing to confront going to the Security Council and saying, 'We really need to make Iraq an international operation,"' said an administration official.

It would embarrass George Bush, and of course the neocon idiots would never stand for it:

Rumsfeld, according to administration officials, vehemently opposes any dilution of military authority over Iraq by involving the United Nations, either through U.N. peacekeepers or indirectly in any U.N. authorization of forces from other countries.

Rumsfeld being one of those "neocon idiots."

None of this is surprising in the least. The story becomes a bit surreal, though, when the same "administration official" quoted above continues,

"You can make a case that it would be better to do that, but, right now, the situation in Iraq is not that dire."

"Not that dire." Either this "administration official" is named "Wolfowitz" or the person has been living on Mars for the last few months. Unfortunately, he's not alone in saying stuff like this:

"The last thing we need is a loss of momentum over the efforts to get things under control in Iraq," said a Western diplomat involved in these discussions. "Besides, the violence in Iraq is not as bad as everyone thinks it is."

"A loss of momentum???" There's no "momentum" to lose! The situation is getting worse by the day, more and more American kids are dying every day, and this guy tries to tell us that the violence isn't "as bad as everyone thinks it is."

I wonder what these people might think about that. I suspect that the American soldiers there might also disagree, right, skippy?

The Statesman article, though, concludes with this:

Some experts say, however, that sooner or later, the United States may have to change its mind again, particularly if conditions in Iraq deteriorate drastically. U.N. officials involved in peacekeeping efforts in Afghanistan and the Balkans say that the total number of troops in Iraq may have to double before the security situation gets under control.

Um, yeah. And then what are Bush, Rumsfeld and the rest going to say? "Oops?" Or are they just going to continue to pretend that it isn't happening?

It must be nice to be able to live one's entire life in a fantasy world. Too bad that people are dying because of it, though.