Left I on the News

The latest variation of the "surge" - a "surge" in attempting to talk to the resistance:

The U.S. military is working more aggressively to forge cease-fires with Iraqi militants and quell the violence around Baghdad... a top U.S. commander said Thursday.

"We are talking about cease-fires, and maybe signing some things that say they won't conduct operations against the government of Iraq or against coalition forces," Odierno said from Camp Victory in Baghdad.

Leaving what? Just conducting operations against civilians?

That was funny enough. But actually what tickled my funny bone was this:

Odierno said he believes that about 80 percent of the enemy fighters — including key Sunni insurgent groups and Shiite militia — could be brought into the political process [or, are "reconcilable," according to another quote in the article].

Don't you just love statistics? How on earth could you possibly arrive at such a statistic? Naturally, you can't, you pull it out of the same place that the U.S. military seems to be pulling its new "strategy" for "victory." Come to think of it, the word "victory" doesn't appear anywhere in the article, other than the name of the Camp from which Odierno spoke.