Operation NewSpeak

As the stomach churns:

In the marble rotunda of Al Faw Palace, one of the lavish former homes of Saddam Hussein that serves as the American military headquarters in Baghdad, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Gen. Ray Odierno sounded the same theme in a made-for-television ceremony to inaugurate Operation New Dawn, as the post-combat phase has been named. The United States, they said, was moving toward an exit after seven years of war but would not abandon the country.

A "made-for-television ceremony?" What other sort of exercise do our supervisors undertake?

So, they say, the war's over. Big whoop. The war's been over for more seven and a half years. The occupation, of course, continues, as it will indefinitely. The force structure has shifted marginally away from regulars and toward mercenaries. Otherwise, what's changed? What's going to change?

Oh, yes, all hail Operation New Dawn. Yowza, yowza.