The Ministry of Logic

And snarling Dick Cheney continues to channel Joseph Goebbels; furnishing a gathering of Marines with enough bullshit, steaming, bubbling and reeking, to fertilize all the poppy fields in Afghanistan forever.

We're fighting al Qaeda in Iraq, not local insurgents, not the Iranian trained operatives we were blaming last week, not the sectarian militias who are united only in their desire to have us long gone. We're facing an organized army led from a central headquarters, and we have to fight them in Iraq because they're fighting us in Iraq. Never mind that it isn't true that Iraq wants us there. Never mind that it doesn't make sense to fight "them" in Iraq, if the leaders are in Afghanistan. Never mind that there would be no al Qaeda in Iraq, if indeed there really are more than a few, if we hadn't invaded and allowed the complete collapse of law and order because of an arrogant preference for political theory over sound military advice.

"If you support the war on terror, then you ought to support it where the terrorists are fighting us,"

Or in other words, if you support A then you should support B where B is, even though the relationship between A and B cannot be shown. These arguments should be preserved in logic textbooks for students to study forever. One hopes that the marines forced to listen to this infantile babble have had enough training to wonder why, if we're not fighting Iraqis in the streets of Iraq, we would have to concentrate on foot soldiers and ignore the possibility of going after the alleged leaders in their headquarters; have enough military know-how to ask why we have to let "the enemy" choose the battleground. But I can only hope they are tired enough of the slaughter, the flag waving, the lying and the dying to see through it all.