Dotage and dolt

"If we don't fight them there, we will be fighting them here or in (fill in the blank with the name of your favorite American city or area)."

We hear this quote periodically. We heard it at the start of the Iraq war and we hear it now that the occupation of Iraq is under scrutiny with many wanting to pull the plug on it completely.

We heard this quote come from the neocons, who originated it, and now we hear it from right wing political pundits.

Examining the quote and placing it in a different context may help to shed some light on its implicit message.

The idea is to literally take the fight to the enemy, right to the lands where the enemy lives and exists. We know that the Iraqis are not the enemy of the American people. Also we know that Saddam Hussein had no connections with Al Qaeda in fact they were enemies. This is common knowledge. Turns out Al Qaeda was not present in Iraq at the beginning of the war but are there now as a result of the war.

Consequently, shouldn't the quote be appropriately amended to: "If we don't fight them there, we will be fighting them here, but if when we go to fight them there and they are not there, then we will fight them there when they arrive."

The oopsy daisy in the case of the Iraq war is that the enemy was not there. Can you imagine if doctors went about treating life threatening diseases with the same sense of impunity. "We went into your abdomen to remove a suspected pancreatic tumor. We didn't find one there but in the process of the surgery we damaged your kidney, so we decided to remove the damaged kidney. Fortunately for you if we didn't remove the kidney, you might now be dead. You are one lucky person!" You are to say, well thank you very much, as you are handed a bill for both the pancreatic non tumor and the kidney removal.

Bush is visiting Vietnam. He has commented on the Vietnam war with words to the effect that the USA left Vietnam too soon and that it takes time for things like the Vietnam war to produce desirable results.

When was the last time a Vietnamese person came up to you and said: "If you had only napalmed us for a few more years, we might now be the 51st state. We sure do miss that napalm."