Cheney: "They'll follow us"

The damning statement, "They'll follow us," really opened my eyes to the Bush Administration's perception of this war. Dick Cheney stated that if we leave Iraq, then the terrorists will see this as a sign of weakness and then come after us.

Here's what I believe is the reality of this situation. Firstly, Bush knows he can't defeat the terrorist. We know that now. They don't fight by the rules of war, they defy logic, and they are random. Anyone can be a terrorist. There is no one nationality for them. Even Americans have joined their ranks. With this on his mind, Bush (well his advisors) he had to find a way to take this unwinnable war to another location. Bush had to create a ruse to get the terrorists to stop attacking the US directly and at the same time devise a plan to take the American public's attention away from his impotent foreign and domestic policies; ergo, the war in Iraq.

When Bush invaded Iraq he opened up that country to a massive infiltration of terrorists. He knew they (since most of them are Muslim) would rally to the Iraqi cause. Instead of attacking buildings in the US, the terrorists would begin to attack soldiers and military infrastructure in Iraq. (Pretty sneaky.)

By creating a diversion, Americans could begin to forget about their troubles and 9/11. I've said it before, Americans are as fickle as they come. If you dangle a set of keys in front of us, we will forget the sky is falling down around us. Bush dangled some keys in front of us. He took the war away from America. He gathered the majority of the terrorists' focus into a single location. He also sent the American focus away from his inability to directly engage the terrorists by bringing down a relatively light-touch in terms of countries--Iraq--and occupying it.

Now what do we have? We have a relatively terrorist free USA. The terrorists are killing off American soldiers slowly (that's what the soldiers signed up for right: to protect, serve and die?) in some God-forsaken land, where the people don't even believe in Jesus, that is 12,000 miles away, Iraqi citizens are truly the ones paying the costs of this war with their infrastructure, lives, and independence, so we can sit at home and worry about the price of gasoline and how the kids are going to go to college this fall.

So, Dick, that's pretty clever, I have to admit. I hadn't even taken that into consideration as a ruse for war. Divide and conquer. The terrorists on one side and the American public on the other. I know one thing is for certain, Bush never thought of this plan by himself!