Bush Again In Flight From Reality

Fred Kaplan's piece of 4/8/08 on slate.com picks apart the speech President Bush gave today on the Iraq war- or perhaps it was on Iran, or Al Qaeda, or terrorism. One particularly revealing claim made by Mr. Bush, in his speech replete with distortion and fabrication, is highlighted by Kaplan's question "But what does the war in Iraq have to do with a terrorist attack on the United States? Where is the link?"

We find the President imagining "Today, we face an enemy that is not only expansionist in its aims, but has actually attacked our homeland -- and intends to do so again." He conflates the attack(s) of 9/11/01 ("has actually attacked our homeland") with our war in Iraq ("today, we face an enemy") and throws in an element of fear ("and intends to do so again") for good measure. Then he moves on to claim "Iraq is the convergence point for two of the greatest threats to America in this new century -- al Qaeda and Iran," conveniently neglecting to tell us that the attack 6-7 years ago came from Al Qaeda- not from Al Qaeda in Iraq. (Retired Colonel Larry Wilkerson, chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, argues "I don't believe Iraq is a theatre in the war on terror.") He continues by contending "if we fail there" (in Iraq), "the Taliban in Afghanistan and al Qaeda in Pakistan would grow in confidence and boldness." Meanwhile, our effort against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, including any effort to locate bin Laden in northwestern Pakistan, has suffered from this Administration's obsession with its failed war in Iraq.

I could go on and on, but Kaplan already has done that for us. Besides, one could take hours to go into sufficient depth to rebut completely a president who long ago parted company with the truth.