CHENEY CONFLATES WAR ON TERROR WITH IRAQI INSURGENCY

Alissa J. Rubin writes today in The New York Times that Vice President Dick Cheney told the troops in Iraq that their fight was an integral part of the War on Terror.

"Mr. Cheney framed the troops’ efforts as part of the fight against global terrorism and made no promise that an end was in sight.

"“We’re fighting a war against terror,” the vice president said, according to the prepared text of his remarks. “We are here, above all, because the terrorists who have declared war on America and other free nations have made Iraq the central front in that war.” "

This is just more bluster and spin from one of chief architects of the worst foreign policy mistake in United States history. Cheney's wants so much to justify the administration's Iraq catastrophe that he illegitimately conflates bin Laden's Islamist campaign against the West with the Iraqi insurgency. Let's get this straight once and for all, Mr. V.P. There is no connection between Osama's tactics of terrorism and the Baathists fueling the insurgency that your guy Bremer threw out of the government and civil service.

Iraq is not part of the "global War on Terror." No amount of spin or outright lying can change this fundamental reality. Soldiers of the United States are currently occupying a proud Arab country, whose history and culture far surpass that of America. The reason Iraqis are trying to kill American soldiers has nothing to do with Bush and Cheney's War on Terror. It has everything to do with hatred of a foreign occupier and national pride.