BCT Editorial – 9/15/04

This page was last updated on September 16, 2004.

Unbelievable; Editorial; Beaver County Times; September 15, 2004.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“Here’s something to think about, courtesy of Steven Conn, associate professor of history at Ohio State University.

“‘Many Americans, I among them, feel a shocked disbelief when we read that many in the Islamic world continue to believe that the Sept. 11 attacks were staged by Israelis or the Bush administration or both,’ he wrote in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

“‘But are those who believe that really any different from the majority of Americans who, according to a recent poll, continue to believe that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and that he was involved in the 9/11 attacks?

“‘In both cases, people cling to an idea despite overwhelming evidence that it is wrong because it satisfies some emotional, irrational yearning.’”

[RWC] Is the Times, via Steven Conn, trying to tell us that the deranged fantasies of people who want us dead are on equal footing with rational thought?

Regarding the Saddam Hussein link to 9/11, I don’t know how to answer that other than to say Iraq was – and is – hip deep with terrorists so assuming a link was not irrational. That said, the Bush administration did not spread that thought and in fact stated numerous times there were no known links regarding 9/11.

The idea of WMD in Iraq was not only rational, but also completely logical. Iraq had used WMD during the Iran War and on its own citizens. An inventory check of Iraq’s WMD by the United Nations showed a large amount of WMD was – and continues to be – unaccounted for. Further, two WMD – mustard gas and sarin – shells were used to attack coalition forces during May 2004. Are we to believe they were the only WMD shells in Iraq?

“Want another example of people denying reality despite overwhelming evidence in support of it? Look at the number of Americas who have bought into the big lie that the war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq are one and the same.”

[RWC] The “big lie” is that the Iraq invasion is not a battle in the war on terrorism. To believe Iraq is not a battle in the war on terror is to believe the hallucination that pre-war Iraq was a peaceful country where children ran through fields of flowers flying kites.