War on Terror Vs. War in Iraq

Remember the good ol' days before September 11, 2001? That was back when Saddam Hussein was pretty much a minor nuissance out there and all of America's threats were pretty much unknown to most Americans.

After Afghanistan was taken down, it wasn't long before Hussein's Iraq was in the sites of the American war machine. Hussein's atrocities to his own people were second to the threat Hussein's regime posed to America. In front of that was that Hussein was sponsoring terrorism, had nuclear and bio-chemical weapons and was an imminent threat to the USA.

No such weapons were ever found in Iraq and no links to the September 11th attacks and Hussein were ever discovered. It was, however, maintained that Hussein was friendly to terrorists and supported them even if they weren't the ones who took out the World Trade Center. Despite this, the War on Terror and the one in Iraq were one in the same for a long time. Then about six months ago, republicans started getting ready for mid-term elections.

Right now, public opinion polls show that people believe republicans are the best bet at dealing with the War on Terror, but not so great on the War in Iraq. Consequently, you hear a lot of talk from pundits and politicians that reinforce this idea that the two things are not the same.

In the war's early days and the days leading up to the Iraqi invasion, to suggest this was anything less than a War on Terror was almost treasonous. To say this campaign was for anything other than defeating terrorism was un-American. Now, not so much.

Now, as the war is still going on and probably will for years to come, its approval is waning. Someone got the idea to separate the two. Now, the "War on Terror" refers to efforts against terrorist threats on US targets primarily in the US and the "War in Iraq" specifically refers to battles within the borders of Iraq. Since there have been no major attacks in the US, they can say the War on Terror is going well because nothing bad is happening. Those people killing US soldiers and Iraqi civilians in Iraq are no longer called terrorists; they are insurgents.

Think about this: someone drafted a poll and started asking people about their opinions on the War(s) in such a fashion as to allow a person to say he felt Bush was doing a bad job fighting in Iraq, but a good job fighting terrorism.

The War in Iraq is part of the War on Terror and the two things are not separable. Moving US forces into Iraq has provided a place for terrorists to strike at the US without hitting US civilians. It probably wasn't planned this way, but that is what it has become and that is a huge part of the reason we've not seen attacks within out borders.

Bush is not a bad leader because he made bad decisions or because he moved hastily into war or even because he can't admit there might have been a better way to achieve his goals in Iraq than to invade and occupy. Bush is a bad leader because he pandered to fear and bloodlust to support the invasion of Iraq and now he is placating the growing anti-war sentiment with boastful reports about his War on Terror sans Iraq.