Myth: The invasion of Iraq was a response to Sept 11th.

After the 9/11 Commissioners reported they were unable to confirm specific evidence of an Iraq connection to the 9/11 attacks, the lib [sic] media went bonkers, irrationally concluding that there were never any links, ever. (Rush Limbaugh, “Iraq Al-Qaeda links”, 6/30/05)

There never would have been an Iraq war without 9/11, which drastically reduced the country's tolerance for a hostile Arab who had sought weapons of mass destruction before and was likely to do so again…. Supporters of a radical Islamic ideology struck American on 9/11. The war on terror is not a fight against a tactic (as the name falsely suggests), but against that ideology. The appeal of an ideology ebbs and flows with perceptions of its success. Communism advanced in the third world after its victory in Vietnam. The Islamists would get a similar boost if they were to prevail in Iraq. (editorial, “The Day that Binds”, National Review Online 6/29/05)

As everyone should know by now, President Bush based his decision to attack on intelligence information provided to him and which he didn't pressure the intelligence agencies to exaggerate…. As I've written before, Democrats are the ones who are lying when they say they weren't relying on the very same intelligence in supporting the Iraq war resolution. (David Limbaugh, “Will the real liars please stand up?”, Townhall 7/1/05)

Bush reminded the world that, following 9/11, he had warned that the War on Terror would be no walk in the park. And he reminded them why America must fight on in Iraq. Actually, it's quite simple: "We fight today because terrorists want to attack our country and kill our citizens — and Iraq is where they are making their stand. (editorial, "Fighting to the Finish", New York Post, , June 29, 2005)

Reality

         

In fact, President Bush’s quote that The New York Post cites approvingly has it backwards.  The 9/11 commission found, as Rush Limbaugh concedes, that Al-Qaeda and Iraq had no “operational relationship.”  Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration’s constant claims that Iraq’s Ba’ath regime was working with Al-Qaeda has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now that we are occupying an Arab-Muslim country, it has become a magnet for terrorists, Al-Qaeda and others, who carry out attacks on Iraqi civilians and American troops alongside remnants of the Ba’ath regime.  But to argue that our presence in Iraq is therefore justified reverses the causality.  They are there because we are there, not the other way around as conservative pundits would have it.

"Oxy" Rush Limbaugh obfuscates this fact by pointing to the existence of “links” between Al-Qaeda and Iraq before September 11th.  The standard of evidence he uses for “links” between Saddam Hussein’s government and Al-Qaeda could just as easily be used to claim that President Bush has “links” to Kim Jong-Il, e.g. officials from their respective governments have met.  If fighting a war against Al-Qaeda means overthrowing every government with that level of connection to Osama bin Laden, the U.S. has a long list of wars to start, the very first being against Bush’s close friends, the kleptocratic Saudi royal family.  We know better than to take the administration and its flunkies like Limbaugh at their word. The supposed Al-Qaeda involvement was just a smokescreen for their pre-existing agenda of invading Iraq.

Meanwhile, National Review Online, in addition to falsely implying that Saddam Hussein’s government shared Al-Qaeda’s  Islamist philosophy, dispenses with the pretense about any actual connection between Iraq and Sept 11th and reverts to simple racism, saying 9/11 “drastically reduced the country's tolerance for a hostile Arab.”  Give them credit for bluntness. But the fact that Saddam Hussein shares an ethincity with Osama bin Laden does not turn September 11th into a justification for the invasion of Iraq—unless you’re a racist.

 

Myth: All anti-war protesters are communist, anti-American and support despotic regimes like those in North Korea.

Basically, two groups, International ANSWER and United for Peace and Justice, are organizing the protests," said AIM editor Cliff Kincaid. "And both are associated with radical Islamic groups and communist regimes, including North Korea and Cuba.

People are free to oppose the Iraq war," said Kincaid, "but the media should give the public the facts about how Marxist agitators are manipulating the protests in order to produce an American defeat in Iraq and embolden America's enemies. (Accuracy In Media, June 28, 2005)

Reality

             

While ANSWER is indeed a very radical group it is irresponsible to assert that they are associated with the regime in North Korea, as AIM does, without any evidence to support that accusation. United for Peace and Justice, on the other hand, is a broad coalition of according to their website, “more than 1300 local and national groups throughout the United States”.  In keeping with conservative journalistic standards, AIM offers no evidence of even one of these groups having any actual assocation with the governments of North Korea and Cuba.  But hundreds of thousands of people who have attended UFPJ rallies. Are they all communists? No, they are not. They are good, patriotic Americans engaging in protest (a hallmark of free societies, guys) against a wrongheaded war that was sold to us with lies.

Unlike ANSWER, UFPJ has no official position on North Korea or Cuba.  One would hope that the rightwing media would at least have the decency to confront the anti-war groups over their ideas, rather than resorting to McCarthy era name-calling and hate-mongering.  But with the rightwing media we have these days, that’s obviously too much to hope for.