Read Peter Bergen's new piece in the New York Times, Enemy of My Enemy. He asserts that the "overwhelming evidence" leaders like Cheney used to justify the invasion of Iraq is essentially "nothing". Recently, the US Military released documents they "captured in Iraq", which includes some Afghan heresay about a connection. Here is their disclaimer, which kind of made me laugh:

The US Government has made no determination regarding the authenticity of the documents, validity or factual accuracy of the information contained therein, or the quality of any translations....

What I don't find shocking is that, even with the strategically timed release of these documents, many of which are likely forged anyways, we end up with, well, nothing to back up this Saddam-Qaida assertion. Yet why do people still cling onto it? I think it is clear that three years into the Iraq War, the supporters of this war have very little to go on. George Tenet's WMD "slam-dunk" got rejected like Denham Brown's three-point shot against George Mason last Sunday. And spreading freedom and democracy by building an Islamic State? Even your most "patriotic" war-supporter is probably aware that the role of women has been knocked back about 100 years since we took out Saddam. Perhaps the return to "Saddam was connected to al-Qaida" is due to the war-supporters (like Jay Ambrose and a little fly who buzzes around my comments section) coming full circle. With no clear mission in Iraq, they must keep us blind, frightened and confused in the smokescreen of false intelligence and hearsay. Then, over the next ten years, the US will be able to finish its real mission: building 14 long-term American Military bases in Iraq to be used for future attacks against oil-rich nations in the Middle East. Dick Cheney can't say it out loud, but that's been the real mission all along.

Jay Ambrose is a whack-job who wants you to love the War in Iraq, which, according to Bush, will be a problem for "future Presidents" to deal with. So of course Ambrose was overjoyed that only a few thousand people showed up to protest the 3rd Anniversary of the War. To him, that meant Americans must have finally accepted the Totalitarian Propaganda used to justify the invasion, namely the suggestion that Saddam was the secret mastermind of 9/11, which is an absolute fantasy. Anyways, here is his column followed my response. Excuse the scanning job on Ambrose's column, I couldn't help it from slanting to the Right.

I was published in the Examiner today. Download the print edition, and look on Page 14.

More on this later. I need to actually do some real work for a few minutes.

"I mean, I didn't ask for this job. I didn't campaign for it. I got drafted. And delighted to serve."

Last Sunday Dick Cheney assured Face the Nation that, despite his low poll numbers, he would never back down from being Vice President of the United States. What a courageous man he is. With an approval rating at 19%, it takes a lot of balls not to cut and run. Cheney has long proved himself a man of service to his nation. Except of course during the Vietnam war, when he applied for and received five (5) deferments to avoid the draft. Five. But let's not pass judgement here. Cheney would have happily served in Vietnam, assuming the following were true:

1. The Viet Cong were domestically bred, wing-clipped birds.
2. Before raids, the Viet Cong were removed from cages and stuck upside down into thick brush where they remained stunned and motionless.
3. U.S. troops were driven to the exact spots where the Viet Cong had been placed into the brush.
4. After stirring them from the brush using barking dogs, U.S. troops were allowed to mercilessly fire upon the Viet Cong with M-16s as they attemped to flee.

Given those circumstances, our Vice President would have bravely fought in Vietnam, with only an occasional friendly-fire incident to blemish his otherwise valiant service to this nation.