Ironic Terrorism

I was struck by a thought while reading this post on Talking Points Memo. It discusses the circular logic of Bush's justification of the War in Iraq.

The way I see it, there are two disturbing explanations for those who choose to still believe in the justness of our cause.

The first group still believes that Saddam was a menace and a danger that had to be neutralized in Iraq. Most probably believe that a link exists between Saddam and Al Qaeda. The only way I can see someone believing this is if they truly believe that Islam and all tied to it are suspect, as it is readily apparent that there were (and still are thanks to the Iraq adventure) more threatening regimes in the world and that the Saddam/bin Laden nexus was manufactured.

The second and more 'rational' explanation of our continued presence in Iraq goes as follows: We thought they were terrorists(despite evidence to the contrary) so we invaded, turning a decent amount of the population into terrorists, however, if we leave now we embolden the terrorists. So we need to fight them where they are, which is what we wanted to do in the first place. We turn a population into terrorists, and then kill them and claim justification because they were terrorists. This is what the mainstream opinion on Iraq really supports. This is what I believed up until a few months ago. Now I think we need to move aggressively towards disengagement (I will post my thoughts on what our redeployments should look like shortly).

I don't know about you, but it makes me feel pretty sick to realize the horrible irony of it all.