BCT Editorial – 2/20/07

This page was last updated on February 22, 2007.

Excuses, excuses; Editorial; Beaver County Times; February 20, 2007.

Rather than waste time on a point-by-point critique of this editorial, I’ll destroy its “credibility” by addressing only one paragraph.

Toward the end of the editorial we’re told, “Bush would not have to be complaining about Afghanistan’s poppy crop if U.S.-led forces had not been drained of equipment and personnel when the focus shifted to Iraq, a known non-haven for terrorists.”

Yes, that’s correct. The Times actually claimed Iraq was “a known non-haven for terrorists.” Sadly, this isn’t the first time.

As I’ve done numerous times before, let’s look at the myth claiming Iraq was the only place on Earth without terrorists.

· Saddam Hussein paid $25,000 rewards to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

· Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was in Iraq before the invasion. Because of wounds, he hid there after he fled from Afghanistan in 2002. As a reminder, Zarqawi was the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq until we killed him during June 2006.

· The convicted chief conspirator of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Ramzi Yousef, reached the United States with an Iraqi passport. Yousef was also the mastermind behind the failed 1994 Bojinka Plot intended to blow up multiple planes over the Pacific Ocean en route to the U.S.

· The bomb maker for the 1993 WTC bombing – Abdul Rahman Yasin (an American citizen) – ended up in Iraq after the bombing.

· The mastermind of the 1985 Achille Lauro hijacking, during which the terrorists killed a wheelchair-bound American (Leon Klinghoffer), lived in Baghdad since 1994 and was captured there in April 2003 by U.S. Special Forces.

· During the 2003 Iraq invasion, our troops found at least two terrorist training camps, including one with an airplane fuselage to practice hijackings.

· Even the Clinton administration documented cooperation between Iraq and al-Qaida.

Yep, it’s clear Iraq was “a known non-haven for terrorists” – not. You’d think people who get paid to write this stuff would at least come up with lies not so easily proven false.