Dispelling The Last Argument For The War In Iraq

OK, does anyone still believe the myth that "we can fight them over there so we won't have to fight them here"? Or the myth that any one man or political party is going to keep you safe?

I, for one, have more faith in the legend of King Arthur & Camelot.

This past Tuesday's arrests of suspected terrorists in Cherry Hill, NJ (USA) clearly illustrates that the current administration doesn't know exactly who "they" are and where "they" are?

These arrests also seem to dispel the last argument that the Bush administration uses for justifying the continued presence of US troops in Iraq. For as the Washington Post article points out "Had they not offered up an alleged jihadist video to be duplicated at a nearby Circuit City, they might never have been spotted. "

Clearly there will be no painless way for American troops to exit Iraq. In fact there is little doubt that there will be full scale civil war between Sunni and Shia. Sadly, neighboring nations will choose sides and intervene. But this is an aftermath that those in the CIA, Pentagon and State Department should have foreseen. And, if they saw this coming should have exhited the same courage that they ask of the troops on the ground, and spoken out.

But don't think I'm laying the blame solely at the feet of the Bush administration, Pentagon or State Department. As Americans we all have a little blood on our hands. The legacy of the Iraq War rests at the feet of:

• all who were complicit with selling the justification for invading Iraq;
• all who knew the lies but remained quiet;
• all who voted for the present administration based on fear;
• all who did not vote at all;
• all who lived through Viet Nam, saw the parallels and said nothing,
• all who did not protest the injustice,
• and all who believe that it is better to fight them anywhere than fight them in our own backyard and escape the real toll of war.

So now that we all agree that Saddam Hussein was not linked to the attacks on 9/11,

and Saddam Hussein was not an immediate threat to the US,

and no huge stockpiles of WMD were found in Iraq,

maybe the only myth left is that America can wait until November 2008 for a change.

plk


excerpt from

The Terrorists Next Door?
Plot Suspects Lived Quietly in Suburb

By Anthony Faiola and Dale Russakoff
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 10, 2007; A01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/09/AR2007050902695_pf.html

Experts have warned that the next big terrorist threat will come from homegrown extremists, unaffiliated with al Qaeda but harboring resentments fostered by materials easily available from the Internet. In fact, the few who have shown themselves thus far prove that there is no stereotype.

Most of the men arrested Tuesday were European rather than Middle Eastern. They hail from one of the most pro-American and secular parts of the Muslim world -- the ethnic Albanian regions of Macedonia, where gratitude for U.S. assistance in Kosovo during the 1990s still runs high.

They live in a garden-variety subdivision like those on the outskirts of cities from Washington, D.C., to Seattle -- once-homogeneous communities now quickly becoming ethnically and racially mixed. Their children play soccer and video games with the neighbors' kids; they hawked their roofing business at Friday prayers.

Had they not offered up an alleged jihadist video to be duplicated at a nearby Circuit City, they might never have been spotted.