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Byrd & Clinton: No Mention of al Qaeda

By Michael Goldfarb
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Senators Byrd and Clinton coauthored a piece for the New York Daily News today calling for Congress to end the American role in “a civil war nobody voted for.” Say the senators,

If the Bush administration believes that the current war, as it is being executed, is critical to America’s future, then it should make the case and let the people decide. Explain to the public why our young men and women should be sent into the middle of a fight between religious factions. Explain why we should continue to devote $10 billion each month to this fight.

Well, they won’t get much of an argument from us for pointing out that the administration does a lousy job of making its case for Iraq being the central front in the war on terror, but then again, the enemy has done a damn good job of making that case for us. This from the AP this week:

A new video by Al-Qaeda’s deputy leader left no doubt about what the terror network claims is at stake in Iraq- describing it as a centerpiece of its anti-American fight and insisting the Iraqi insurgency is under its direct leadership.

Al Qaeda, however, is not even mentioned by Byrd and Clinton in this piece, nor is the word ‘terrorist.’ The point is that it is not possible to have a serious discussion about Iraq that makes no mention of al Qaeda. And the AP piece goes on:

But the proclamations by Ayman Al-Zawahri carried another unintended message: reflecting the current troubles confronting the Sunni extremists in Iraq, experts said. The Islamic State of Iraq, the insurgent umbrella group that is claimed by Al-Qaeda, has faced ideological criticism from some militants, and rival armed groups have even joined US battles against it. A US-led offensive northwest of Baghdad -in one of the Islamic State’s strongholds -may have temporarily disrupted and scattered insurgent forces. “Some of the developments suggest that it (the Islamic State) is more fragile than it was before,” said Bruce Hoffman, a Washington-based terrorism expert at the Rand Corp think tank.

Iraq is the central front in the war on terror as the terrorists understand it, and furthermore we are making real progress in defeating them over there. The war is also taking a toll on the U.S. military, and on the families of those who serve, but Byrd and Clinton must acknowledge that their sacrifice is in service of the war against al Qaeda–not in policing “a fight between religious factions.” And in that context, $10 billion seems pretty reasonable, if not a bargain.

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