- What a coincidence.
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- Back in September and October, the Bush administration
was busy building up its latest bogeyman, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian
terrorist allegedly aligned with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
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- Al-Zarqawi, the administration told us, was holed up
in Fallujah, a city of around 300,000 souls about 40 miles west of Baghdad.
From this stronghold, he was directing the operations of the "foreign
fighters," Arabs who had come from all over the world for the opportunity
to kill an American soldier.
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- Why didn't we just go in and get that evildoer, some
wondered. With a straight face, Bush told us that we would have to wait
until Iraqi President Ayad Allawi gave us permission.
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- On its face, the assertion was ludicrous. Was this the
same George W. Bush who vowed that American soldiers would never fight
under the command of the United Nations? Now submitting to the whim of
some unelected potentate in a wartorn country we are occupying?
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- As usual, the Washington press corps swallowed the administration's
line without question. No eyebrows were raised even when Allawi decided
the ideal time for the Fallujah operation to begin would be immediately
after the American election.
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- Since then, five American soldiers have died each day,
and another 52 have been wounded. Each and every day. The city of Fallujah
has been bombed to rubble, and untold thousands of innocent Iraqi men,
women and children have been slaughtered.
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- As for the bogeyman Zarqawi? Oh, he got away, taking
with him his cadre of foreign fighters and leaving behind a well-armed
rear guard of local militia. It seems that the two months Bush gifted him
between the announcement of the Fallujah assault and its actual launch
provided more than enough time to escape.
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- The concentration of American forces in Fallujah has
allowed insurgents in Mosul, Baghdad and the southern "Triangle of
Death" to ramp up their activities, and an unequaled reign of terror
has spread throughout the country.
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- In the annals of military history, it is difficult to
find a more egregious example of a military operation dictated so completely
by domestic political concerns. The battle for Fallujah is yet another
pointless chapter in a sad war that didn't have to be fought in the first
place.
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- http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/editorial179.html
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