Put impolitely, it requires delusion, denial, and a good dose of ignorance.
It used to be that when reality and right wing propaganda disagreed, we were supposed to prefer right wing propaganda. If it turns out that the major player in Iraq is the Sunni insurgency, but the administration insisted it was al Qaeda, then the insurgents became al Qaeda. That much hasn't changed.
Raw Story:
President Bush, defending his troop surge in Iraq, insisted Thursday that the insurgents attacking US troops in Iraq "are the same ones who attacked us on Sept. 11."
Bush was speaking at a White House press conference on the same day an interim progress report on his troop surge in Iraq was released. Asked for proof of the connection between insurgents in Iraq and the 9/11 hijackers, Bush said both had pledged their allegiance to Osama bin Laden.
"The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq are the ones who attacked us on Sept. 11," Bush said.
This is a new line of crap -- that iraqi insurgents attacked us on 9/11. That'd be a good trick, since there weren't any iraqi insurgents in existence until we invaded Iraq. And there were a grand total of zero iraqis on those planes.
On the rare occassion that the Bush administration and reality seem to agree, reality is still wrong. When Michael Chertoff's 'gut feeling' that al Qaeda was going to attack the US was bouyed somewhat by a report that al Qaeda's never been stronger since 9/11, we were thrown into really weird propaganda world -- Chertoff was right and al Qaeda's a huge threat, while a classified report that told us that al Qaeda's actually strong enough to do it was wrong. Apparently, there's no reason why your BS has to be in agreement.
Times Online:
US intelligence chiefs held a White House summit yesterday to discuss a classified report that concluded that al-Qaeda is now stronger than at any time since September 11, 2001.
Details of the five-page document, entitled "Al-Qaeda better positioned to strike the West," were leaked amid growing signs that America is nervous about the prospect of another terrorist attack. There was particular concern that Europeans could be used to launch such operations.
[...]
The White House is wary of over-emphasising the threat because that would undermine President Bush's claim that "we're winning - al-Qaeda is on the run," when the US is having to admit only patchy progress in Iraq.
It points us to a damned good question -- why are we asked to believe that we're 'making progress' in this 'war on terror' on one hand, while being told that we're in just as much danger as we ever were on the other?...
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