December 27 2004 - The war in Iraq has been the product of some of the greater fictions in recent memory. It’s also been the subject of some of the more confounding contradictions in modern warfare.

Our present campaign to bring democracy to Iraq at the point of a gun appears curious at best and viciously contradictory at worst. Most believe that democracy has the best chance of succeeding if it grows from the wishes of the governed and not from the orders of an occupying army.

Additionally, killing hundreds of Iraqis so that free and open elections can be held seems to contradict what the whole democratic process is supposedly all about. The question becomes — is it a free and open election if all those opposed to it must be killed before it can be held?

Furthermore, we have once again been reminded to our shame and embarrassment that we systematically abused Iraqi prisoners as a matter of policy. Much like the photos of Abu Ghraib, these new ACLU revelations contradict Bush’s earlier protestations that "never again will there be any torture chambers in Iraq."

Moreover, we are fighting a war that most Americans now believe not to be worth the cost. So not only does this war stand in open contradiction to what we believe in, it proceeds in open opposition to what we want done in our name.

To make matters worse, we appear to be losing this war, despite our best intentions. Although we remain resolute in our purpose, we cannot allow ourselves to be caught in the fantasy that there is some fixed number of insurgents and that their opposition to us will end on some fixed date.

Neither can we harbor the delusion that the Iraqi election will inexorably lead to a true and lasting democracy. Nor can we believe that protecting whatever semblance of democracy that might evolve there will keep us in Iraq for less than a decade. And by the end of that decade — at war’s end — the American death count will be several times greater than the 1,324 it stands at today.

At the beginning, an illusory latticework of fictional justifications held the war above all question and criticism. But by now, nothing holds it up. Claims of WMDs, collaborative connections between bin Laden and Saddam, and plans to re-start Iraq’s nuclear program now seem little more than the intentional, self-serving fictions they always have been.

Nevertheless, one fiction still keeps getting repeated, and yet no one appears ready to expose it for what it is. The fiction I refer to is that our brave soldiers in Iraq are defending America. They’re not.

From the beginning, America needed no defense against Iraq since it lacked all means to cause us serious harm. We had to go to Iraq before they could harm us — something that would not have happened had we decided wisely to remain at home.

In short, we were never defending America against an Iraqi threat because there never actually was any real Iraqi threat to America in the first place.

But such a threat may yet be looming. One need only listen to Bush’s claim that we are fighting the bloodthirsty insurgents on the streets of Iraq so that we won’t have to fight them on the streets of America.

What complete, total, and utter nonsense.

If we withdrew our troops from Iraq post-haste, does anyone seriously believe that the insurgents would then immediately follow us back across the Atlantic by ship, bringing with them their substantial weaponry? And once they have arrived on American shores, would they escape all notice and opposition so that they could easily re-commence hostilities on the streets of our cities?

Admittedly, the question has often been asked, but it needs to be asked once again: how completely bereft of sense and intelligence does Bush consider the American people to be?

Furthermore, if Islamic violence against the United States is as likely as Bush would have us believe, why has he left America with such porous borders, such dangerously vulnerable chemical and nuclear plants, and such abundantly penetrable shores where only 5% of incoming cargo is ever inspected?

Additionally, why do trucks and railway cars carrying dangerously hazardous material pass unprotected through American towns and cities everyday? And why are the railway cars bringing lethally radioactive spent nuclear fuel to Yucca Flats, Nevada, traveling similarly unprotected?

And how did a fake bomb — containing plastic explosives, a detonator, wiring, and a clock — somehow get past all screeners at a Newark airport on December 14, make its way onto Flight 70 with more than 200 passengers aboard, and travel all the way to the Netherlands undetected? Keep in mind that all screeners, or at least their supervisors, are supposedly well-trained by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), a part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Surely, Bush could have cancelled at least one tax cut so that more money could have been spent to better protect us at home.

Or is Bush as bereft of sense and intelligence as he believes us to be?