excerpts from The Big Republican Book of Lies

No. 38: "If we dont fight the terrorists in Iraq, then we'll have to fight them here."

Seriously? Okay, for now let's put aside the amoral issue of wanting to fight your gunbattles in the back yard of a third, uninvolved person, and concentrate on the idea that the terrorists cannot come to America while we're tying up our manpower on the other side of the planet.

But wait, number 38 is related to this one:

No. 21: "it is possible to win the War On Terror."

For now we'll also put aside the idea that we can somehow conduct some sort of a "war" on terror (an Orwellian concept if I've ever heard one, and also no. 6 in the Big Book), and I'll just say that I think WWII has warped the American way of thinking about war. Wars are almost never that neatly ended. Hell, even WWII wasnt neatly ended, since it spawned the Cold War, which spawned the Korean War (still going on) and the Viet Nam War (repercussions of which are still being felt in this very war in Iraq), and the mess that was Afghanistan in the 1980's, which led to a base of operations for bin Laden which led to 9-11.
But terrorists are not soldiers. They are criminals, murderers and thugs, who have turned to violence to get their way (or vengeance for not getting their way, or both). Bush has made many mistakes since 9-11, but I suspect that one of the biggies will turn out to be the legitimization of al-Queda by treating them with the seriousness one would give to a rogue nation. They are serious, but they are police serious, not military serious. Or, rather, they werent military serious, until the Bush Administration gave them sovereignty.

But hey, just for funsies, let's imagine the scene as Republicans seem to think it will go if we pull out of Iraq:

Look Hassan! The Great Satan is running home! No longer will he spend billions of dollars on trying to force us to be like him! No longer will his country be torn in two as it debates whether they should be here or not! No longer will their overstretched military sacrifice soldiers for Big Oil! We have WON, Hassan, WE HAVE WON!!!
Quickly, tell the others! Now that they have fled, we will follow them through the magic Baghdad gate, which as every terrorist knows is the only way to reach America now that the Department of Homeland Security has secured the Great Satan's borders.
Oh, and Hassan, tell Achmed to let everyone know, it's time to start killing each other! Now that the Americans have left, we can finally do just as we please! Allah Akbar!
Where's the cookie jar, Hassan? I'm hungry! Hey, that's my kool-aid!

Ooooo. Maybe I should be worried.
Nah, I'm sure they'll have a wizard collapse the gate after the last soldier gets through. Then we'll be safe.


(Just in case you're curious, Ronald Reagan's godhood is No. 12)