Current Events Watch

I have OCD. I really do, but I won’t bore you with the specifics of my particular mental disorder. ADD, nope. RLS, don’t have that, either. Nor do I have OSA, and am not plagued with any other of the many alpha-ailments that I’ve learned about from watching the pharmaceutical company commercials on TV. Who knew? But at least, so far, I have only OCD. Good to know, though, that if I ever do become afflicted with any other ABC malady, I can ask my doctor about (fill in the blank), because there’s no doubt a drug for that.

Acronyms are fun. Easy to remember, and a great marketing tool for the drug companies! Although I don’t know of anything on the market to cure my OCD, there’s a prescription for almost everything else…

Remember our prescription for Iraq’s WMD? “Ask your doctor about Shock and Awe. Side effects may include…” Well, okay, WMD turned out to be a mis-diagnosis. Still left with the side effects, however. Never mind. Sometimes that happens. But guess what? Now we do have, without question, no second opinion needed, AQI! Al Qaeda in Iraq. Which, don’t forget, was not a pre-existing condition. Cause: Invasion and Occupation.

There were so many blatant lies told to justify the Iraq war, one being, in addition to the WMD fabrication, the connection between Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda’s Bin Laden. “Overwhelming evidence“, Cheney said.

Dick.

Nope, didn’t exist. In fact, we then found out it seems the two didn’t even get along so well. Of course they both hated the U.S., but Osama and Saddam certainly weren’t Jihadist bunk buddies, either. I guess if you can’t “smoke ‘em out of their caves in Afghanistan”, you just make up shit as an excuse to bomb another country for absolutely no reason.

And so now we’re left with AQI, and according to this New York Times’ article published today, the government is claiming that the original AQ, the real deal, is expected to cultivate more cooperation with AQI and regional terrorist groups… “Perhaps most significantly, Al Qaeda will probably try to use contacts with a separate group called Al Qaeda in Iraq to foment Sunni extremists, raise resources and recruit operatives for more attacks in the United States.”

Holy Terror, Batman!

I personally think it’s BS, but of course, anything is possible. They are entirely different groups, with no real connection, and I think these comments that the government released today, published not only in the NYT article but in all major media outlets, propagating the fear factor once again, are a follow up to the Michael Chertoff gut-feeling speech that I ranted about a few days ago. His gut feeling that we were going to have an attack this summer! Now the official statement is that we’ll have an attack within the next three years.

Whatever. It’s all propaganda initiated to cause fear, as a distraction from the miserable failures here at home and the corruption of this administration.

Still, our invasion provided, without question, yet another reason for certain folks to hate the U.S., giving organizations like the AQI a fertile environment in which to thrive. As Ron Paul said on Bill Maher (yikes, I’m quoting a Republican! but I like Ron Paul):

“If we think we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred, then we have a problem. They don’t come here to attack us because we’re rich and we’re free, they come and attack us because we’re over there.”

Exactly. So if there really is a threat of an attack, this summer or within the next three years, who is really to blame? My gut feeling is that we probably need to re-evaluate our Mideast policies and occupations and maybe this threat of attack, whether this summer or within three years (why not make it ten, just to be sure?), won’t be an issue.

If only I could ask my doctor about, well, anything to get rid of GWB. Side effects be damned, can’t be any worse than the disease. I can at least live with my OCD.

al qaeda, al qaeda in iraq, terrorist threat, dick cheney, george bush, terrorism, fear