Why We Fight

It turns out that most of the enemy combatants held at Guantanamo aren't terrorists or even affiliated with al-Qaeda but Taliban, a domestic fundamentalist Islamic group in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In Iraq it is a similar situation. al-Qaeda in Iraq is not a terrorist organization but Sunni political insurrectionists. The Mahdi army is the militia wing of the Sadrist organization, which also has no interest in international terrorist activity. These are the people we fight in Iraq.

We have not killed or captured an actual terrorist or even terrorist organizer, since the very early days following 9/11. The startling facts, after 5 years of war are that there is no real terrorist activity in Iraq and never was. In Afghanistan, the situation is a little less clear. While there were al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan at the time of the 9/11 attacks, there is no evidence that they remained there for the long term or that they are there now. If the object of the al-Qaeda organization is to recruit and train potential terrorists for activities against Western nations, then they have certainly moved someplace where their activities are more sheltered from observation. It is very likely that the terrorist leaders are safely ensconced in family compounds, in the Gulf states, surrounded by friends and family, where they are perfectly safe from any molestation by American authorities or anyone else.

Non-partisan, embedded reporters like Michael Yon and Bill Roggio are very good at explaining and documenting the activities of our troops in the Middle East. What they neglect to focus on is that, at present, in neither country are we engaged in anti-terrorist activity but rather in aiding our puppet governments in their efforts to suppress domestic political opposition.

The Bush administration lies. They lie about all aspects of American armed intervention in the Middle East. The Military high command and intelligence structure backs them up in their lies. Whether this is because they are actually culpable or simply suffering from some misplaced sense of loyalty, is unclear. Reporters like Roggio and Yon are certainly culpable and for all their claims of impartiality, bear a much closer relation to Josef Goebbels than Edward R. Murrow. They are a disgrace to the profession of journalism. They could have been documenting the wholesale slaughter and destruction of society in the Middle East, instead, they spend their time covering "chicken drops", in neighborhoods pathetically grateful for a little peace, after extended periods of siege, murder and destruction.