If it Quacks Like a Canard

The media are reporting tonight that FBI agents have arrested a number of terrorist suspects in connection with an alleged plot to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago, as well as other prominent buildings. Aside from the questionable timing of the arrests, coming a full year after the group of suspects was infiltrated and investigated by law enforcement officials and much closer to the 2006 elections, one has to ask the question: if you believe the slogan put forth by President Bush and his supporters that "we're fighting the terrorists in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here," then why on earth are there terrorists here to fight? Obviously, that slogan is a canard. Don't forget that it is merely the latest in a long line of justifications for invading Iraq. The so-called "terrorists" were not in Iraq, and the "insurgents" in Iraq did not become insurgents, until the U.S. invaded there. The falsity of the slogan is also revealed by the Bush administration domestic spying programs -- both the warrantless illegal NSA interception of domestic phone calls and the warrantless illegal collection of our phone call data (and now, as has just been reported, the scrutiny of millions of Americans' bank records by federal agents). Again, if fighting "terrorists" in Iraq truly was a substitute for fighting them here at home, such warrantless spying would be unnecessary.

At least half the country knows that the silly slogan about fighting terrorists in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here is a canard. The other half also know it, but they want to believe that it is true, so they ignore reality.

Don't let them.