Remora

Casus Belly-flop

Yes, so far the drums of war, about Iraq, have lacked one of those petty, European features -- namely, a cause. A reason that the U.S. should, at this moment, as Al Qaeda people are oozing between the Pakistani-Afghan border, decide to invade Iraq. The best the Bushite right can do is contained in this op-ed piece by Richard Brookhiser. Brookhiser's argument consists of this:
1. Al Qaeda, by itself, couldn't organize 19 hijackers in the U.S.
2. Thus, another entity organized those hijackers.
3. What entity hates the U.S.
4. Iraq
5. So, the U.S. is quite justified in attacking Iraq.

Wow. The incoherence of this argument makes me dizzy. If, indeed, Al Qaeda couldn't organize the 19 hijackers (organize, here, doesn't mean, well, train these guys in flying. It doesn't even mean any intensive training time. It means getting the hijackers the money to take flying lessons in the U.S., and then getting them to take boxcutters past airport security. That is what it means. Period), then, uh, why did we attack Afghanistan? Or was it the moral support offered by Iraq that gives us cause to make the invasion, and the attack on Afghanistan was a decoy? Brookhiser's explanations of this have to achieve two goals in the Bush apologetic. It has to explain, one, why Bush has so far shown an almost criminal negligence in going after the man, Osama bin Laden (who, according to our peerless leader, isn't, after all, that important. Tell that to the casualties of the WTC. Are these people for real? at least we didn't elect this chucklehead. that's about the best I can say). And then it has to explain why we should sacrifice American casualties going after Saddam Hussein. Here is Brookhiser's fantasy -- a fantasy shared, apparently, by the GOP leadership:

"But all the talk of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda will probably turn out to be a polite fiction. The notion that a fanatical son of a Saudi construction magnate could run a worldwide terror enterprise from Afghanistan or the Sudan, completely unassisted by professionals, is fantastic, isn�t it? If Donald Trump had a bloodthirsty crusader nephew, could he set himself up in the Yukon and successfully plot to destroy the most impressive buildings in Riyadh, if there are any? To be less whimsical: Could the Irish Republican Army blow up Big Ben? Are the Ulster Protestant terrorists capable of torching the Vatican?

Osama bin Laden has imagination and charisma, if you find dream interpretation and Koranic midrash charismatic. But isn�t it likely that he and his network have profited from the help of a government�and not the dirt-poor kakistocrats of Khartoum and Kabul? Who is the obvious candidate, in terms of both resources and grudges? Our intelligence agents have dismissed the report that hijacker Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi agent in Prague, but the Czechs have not backed down from it. At home, we are looking for a rogue American scientist as the source of last fall�s anthrax letters. But then came the story that one of the 9/11 hijackers checked into a hospital emergency room with lesions that the attending physician now says were consistent with exposure to anthrax. If that is true, where then did Osama bin Laden get his stash? If Saddam Hussein had been living a monk�s life, he would still be a danger, because he�s manufacturing nukes and germs to incinerate and poison Israelis and whoever else displeases him. But his vows of peace may already have been broken."

This is the type of logic used by people who think that Israel was behind the WTC attack. It amazes me that Brookhiser thinks he can get away with, well, this much distortion - this complete distortion -- of everything we have so far assembled about Mohammed Atta and his unmerry men. I'm amazed, I'm amazed... Will Bush' s incompetence in the end-game really be put across with this sham of a narrative? If so, we will certainly pay for it when that silly Osama guy, who it turns out we don't care about any way (uh, yes Mr. President!) or another grass-roots terrorist organization, decides to strike.