CONFUSION RAINS

I was going to say that it reigns (or reins), but both of those suggest control, and there is no control of the confusion that floods the media with non-stop nonsense. It keeps pouring. The same pre-fab fables and fabrications are repeated without end. One of these is the 9/11 connection to Iraq. 70% of the G. I.s in Iraq think they are there to avenge 9/11. 80% of Fox viewers believe the same thing.

How can so many be so confused? "No credible connection found," said the 9/11 Commission. Pres. Bush admits no connection has been found. But he keeps the fiction alive by insisting that all terrorists are connected. They aren't. That's hogwash. We support Israeli terrorism against unarmed civilians in Palestine and Lebanon. We support torture in many places. That's terrorism. We have supported terrorism in Central and South America for years, along with the use of torture. (See Noam Chomsky: Hegemony or Survival? For chapter and verse on our record in this regard.)

"If we don't win there, they'll follow us here." Guess what? If we do win there, they'll follow us here. In fact, more so. Ergo, Iraq is irrelevant to what happens here. Who exactly are "they" who will follow us here if we lose there, but not if we win? Is it Iraqi's, who make up 95% of the Sunni insurgency? They have their hands full with the Shia, and will, for the forseeable future. Is it the Shia, whose militias are fighting each other for control in Iraq? Won't they have their hands full with each other? They have no interest in us, except to get us out of Iraq so they can finish off the Sunnis there, including al Qaeda, against whom they are mortal enemies.

All of that could change of course, should we be dumb enought to attack Iran. Then the Shia in Iraq would turn on us there in full force. That is the only case in which they might join forces with al Qaeda Sunnis. Al Qaeda considers the Shia apostate Muslims, worse than infidels, and to be killed at every opportunity, as Zawahiri was urging before we did him in.

Mr. Bush does not believe for one instant that Iraqis will follow us here and fight us in the streets of San Francisco. If he did, we'd be spending the bucks here on homeland security that we are wasting in Iraq. Sen. Boxer said that the cost of one week in Iraq (2.5 billion) would pay the full cost of inspecting all our ports and the cargo containers coming in to them. It's not being done. Nor is the checked baggage going into the holds of our airliners thoroughly inspected. So we aren't serious about security. It's a fear factor: more empty talk.

Bush says it isn't a civil war over there, because only a few violent people are doing all the killing. It isn't the number of killers that's important. It's the number of victims, and why they are killed. The educated middle class are steadily leaving Iraq in the thousands. That's how you know it's a civil war. "We are losing each day, as an average, 50 to 60 people (killed) throughout the country, if not more," former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi told the British Broadcasting Corp. last month. "If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is." God does, but Bush doesn't. Someone should tell him. He hasn't a clue what's going on, or why. And our guys and gals keep dying, along with scores of Iraqis each day. What should we do?

Let me hear: jgoodwin004@centuryTel.net

The Sunni insurgency in Iraq is 95% Iraqis.