I can’t get over the image of two old men, slumped down in their easy chairs after a circle jerk, complimenting each other for the beauty of their final surges, ignoring completely how flaccid the aftermath has become. But it’s more than two, as the think tank ideologues surround them, still masturbating furiously, contributing their own bit of precious bodily fluids to their quest for empire, just as they saw airbrushed empire in the centerfold of Fantasyboy mogulzine.

Glenn Greenwald also directs us to an equally eloquent essay by IOZ about the world of fantasy and fib these now-flaccid mortals still inhabit, trying to sell the same lies General Westmoreland sold to a skeptical American majority: “here’s fresh proof of success” they say, amid the concrete rat mazes of Baghdad and the oil spoils of Basra now being fought for openly.

This is not the way democracy is given birth. It’s not even close to a test tube birthing. It’s chaos, occasionally limited by military might and backdoor negotiating. And the only thing thriving is the rough beast of violent death, the most predictable reality of their fantasy world, next to the monetary gain of a few at the blood expense of the many.

It’s not just constitutional lawyers and bloggers providing fogcutting vision amid the circle jerk. Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post adds a healthy overview of numerous mainstream media sources who no longer - as some once did - accept the word of the hunched over men. They report the reality of the war now, with the airbrush excluded and the old men exposed, flaccid and delusional.

For the Times of London, James Hider reports:

Abu Iman barely flinched when the Iraqi Government ordered his unit of special police to move against al-Mahdi Army fighters in Basra.

His response, while swift, was not what British and US military trainers who have spent the past five years schooling the Iraqi security forces would have hoped for. He and 15 of his comrades took off their uniforms, kept their government-issued rifles and went over to the other side without a second thought.

Such turncoats are the thread that could unravel the British Army’s policy in southern Iraq. The military hoped that local forces would be able to combat extremists and allow the Army to withdraw gradually from the battle-scarred and untamed oil city that has fallen under the sway of Islamic fundamentalists, oil smugglers and petty tribal warlords. But if the British taught the police to shoot straight, they failed to instil a sense of unwavering loyalty to the State.

“We know the outcome of the fighting in advance because we already defeated the British in the streets of Basra and forced them to withdraw to their base,” Abu Iman told The Times.

“If we go back a bit, everyone remembers the fight with the US in Najaf and the damage and defeat we inflicted on them. Do you think the Iraqi Army is better than those armies? We are right and the Government is wrong. [Nouri al] Maliki [the Iraqi Prime Minister] is driving his Government into the ground.”

The reason for his apparent switch of sides was simple: the 36-year-old was already a member of the al-Mahdi Army which, like other militias, has massively infiltrated the British-trained police force in the southern oil city. He claimed that hundreds of others from the 16,000-strong force have also defected to the rebels’ ranks.Abu Iman joined the new Iraqi police force after the invasion, joining the Mugawil, a special police unit infamous for brutality, kidnapping and sectarian murders.

“We already heard two weeks ago that we were going to attack the Mahdi Army, so we were ready,” he said. “I decided to take off my uniform and join my brothers and friends in the Mahdi Army. All these years, we were like a scream in the face of the dictator and the occupation.” He said: “I joined the police because I believed we have to protect Basra and save it with our own hands. You can see we were the first fighters to take on Sadd-am and his regime, the best example being the Shabaniya uprising.”

Abu Iman said that the fighting raging in Basra yesterday was intense because the al-Mahdi Army was operating on its own turf. He was confident that the Shia militia would prevail because its cause was just.

“The Iraqi Army is already defeated from within. They come to Basra with fear in their hearts, knowing they have to fight their brothers, the sons of Iraq, because of an order from Bush and his friends in the Iraq Government. For this reason, all of the battles are going in the Mahdi Army’s favour.”

And from the Washington Post’s Foreign Service correspondents - Sudarsan Raghavan and Sholnn Freeman - today we see the conflict drawing more US troops in, back in Baghdad.

Fester at The Newshoggers describes the force ratios in Basra, indicating the Basra residents hold the upper hand in the battle:

Besides desertions and defections, another significant problem is force ratios. During the Second Battle of Fallujah, the US attacking forces were composed of a composite division as six battalions led the main attack, another battalion as a diversion force, and two battalions as local reserves. Additionally an Iraqi Army brigade was present as a mop-up/press release force. The defending forces would have been the equivlant of two or three battalions of light infantry and local insurgents/neighborhood militias. Fallujah was a city of roughly 300,00 residents before the assault. And this assualt was supported by theatre level artillery and air support. And despite this large armored and heavy infantry force with excellent air support, plenty of helicopter mobility and firepower, superior logistics, the defending force was able to inflict heavy absolute and proportional casualties — roughly 10% of the US force was wounded or killed, and many infantry companies saw 30% to 50% casualty levels.

The Iraqi Army force in Basra is a single division of lightly supported infantry with some US/UK locally controlled air support, minimal artillery, minimal aviation support. Basra is a city of 2.6 million people (2003) and it is overwhelmingly Shi’ite. If one assumes that one half of one percent of the male population are available to be called up for Mahdi Army fighting units, the defenders have numerical parity with the attacking force. That is never a good thing, especially when the defenders are on their own grounds, fighting from prepared positions in dense urban networks and have higher morale and more firepower than the attackers.

And no matter how the old men stroke it, they can’t get it up for a successful climax.