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Sheep. We’re a society of sheep. The Washington Post polled the county and found that 69% of Americans believed it was likely that Saddam was personally involved in the 9/11 attacks carried out by al-Qaeda. This despite no actual evidence any relationship between bin Laden and Hussein existed. This despite all intelligence stating that bin Laden and Hussein disliked each other. This entirely because it is the fodder fed to us by the administration as part of the war justification propaganda. Sun Tsu said, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” This could have been motivation for Saddam and Osama to team up, but it was never positioned that way. Somehow it was twisted to become, “My enemy and my other enemy must be friends.” What crap. Shame on us.

In a similar vein, there is a lot of scrambling to determine if the bombings in Iraq are related incidents. Is there a single group behind them? No one knows for sure, but personally, I think they are likely unrelated. Every terrorist group out there with an anti-American agenda is likely converging on Baghdad. There is no reason for us to take solace in the fact that no new attacks have taken place on U.S. soil in the last 2 years. It is far easier for these groups to launch attacks on us overseas, and I think this is exactly what’s happening in Iraq. It’s open season on Americans there. Are these groups working together now? Probably not. If they are, in a way, we are responsible for bringing them together. But likely they are not working cooperatively any more than a field full of deer hunters are working together. A common goal and common tactics do not imply a coordinated effort.

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I’m anxious to see what the U.N. has to say to G.W. about the request he will likely make for international forces in Iraq. There’s no way Bush will take any sort of a concillitory position here. He will doubtless play this as a “concession” to “let the U.N. play a role”. However, everyone has to clearly recognize that this so-called concession is only coming about because the rebuilding of Iraq is more difficult and way more expensive than Bush and his cronies planned. Now they need help bailing our collective butt out of this quagmire. While it would be petty of the U.N. to thumb it’s nose and say they told us so, it would be stupid for them to just jump in and help. This is an opportunity for the U.N. to re-establish its credibility as a world political force. They should demand concessions from Bush as compensation for their support. This should include some level of control in Iraq. It’s not like Bush can claim his plan is working. The only plan faltering more is the Israeli-Palestinian road map. We started this, we have to take accountability for that. But a little humility on our part would go a long way toward re-establishing our credibility as well, and possibly getting us out of the hole we’re in.