This mirrors what other people-in-the-know, such as Richard Clarke, have said.

The Party Line response is to “remind” us that we weren’t in Iraq on 9/11, a logical falacy because no one has said Iraq created terrorism.

It has been widely reported that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, al Qaeda lost a lot of support in the Muslim world. A lot of people who didn’t particularly like the United States nevertheless said “Well damn, this killing of thousands of people and flying planes into buildings, this is not something I can support”, and al Qaeda was reportedly waning significantly. Our initial fair and measured response in Afghanistan did little to damage our standing nor help that of al Qaeda.

Then came Iraq, which everyone except the talking heads on the Right and their associated non-thinking “ditto-heads” knew was unfounded, un-supportable and ill advised. And in the subsequent years, al Qaeda has had a huge resurgence while we have fallen in world view to a point far lower than in the years immediately before the 9/11 attacks.

So what does it matter that we were attacked before we went into Iraq?

If I catch a stomach flu, and just as it starts to get better, I go out and locate and eat a batch of bad clams, it is clear that my eating of old seafood made my digestive tract’s symptoms worse. And it is also fair to say that I initially got sick well before I ever ate the clams. What doesn’t make sense at all is to claim that because of the prior bout with nausea, that clearly the clams didn’t make things worse, or that somehow the clams were a good idea in response to the earlier illness.

But I suppose I’m preaching to the choir here. The frustrating thing is, those who most need to hear this are the ones least willing to listen.

Liam.

I have never been so ready for a change in our Government as I am today, brother…

M.