little red lie

A few months back I stumbled onto a piece of shit little political blog that spouts a lot of right wing nonsense. I go there from time to time to poke sticks at the Bush Monkeys. So today, when they posted about the 9/11 death toll being surpassed by the number of U.S. deaths in Iraq, I just had to laugh.

Critics of the war in Iraq will be quick to fashion this into an argument against the war. They’ll say that because more troops have died in Iraq than died on 9/11 the war wasn’t worth it, but I don’t think that’s a valid point.

It would be a valid point if our objective in Iraq were merely revenge, but it isn’t. Our objective in Iraq was to topple a totalitarian, terror-sponsoring regime to a) stop that regime’s sponsorship (tacit and otherwise) of international terrorism and b) impact other rogue, terror-sponsoring regimes in the region. Essentially, we’re not only fighting in Iraq because of 9/11 and other terror attacks originating from the middle east but also to prevent future attacks by changing the conditions in the middle east that cause terrorism in the first place.

Well fuck-o, maybe if Bush and Co. hadn't sold this war to the American people under false pretenses, it wouldn't be coming back to bite them in the ass now. Maybe if they hadn't repeatedly mentioned 9/11 in the same breath as Iraq, all the idiots who voted red wouldn't be so confused about who's really responsible for flying those planes into the towers. Then again, I'm not so sure the real reasons behind the war, oil and war profiteering, would've garnered any more support.