Did you hear about the 24 Iraqis who plotted to blow up a bunch of airplanes flying across the Atlantic Ocean?
Oh, that's right. They weren't Iraqis. They were Pakistanis.
Did you hear that Osama bin Laden is hiding in Iraq?
Whoa, check that. That would be Pakistan.
And did you know that Iraq has nuclear bombs and sold that technology to Iran and North Korea?
Oops, I meant Pakistan, not Iraq.
And how about Iraq supporting Islamic terrorism against its democratic neighbors?
Oh, that would be Pakistan, again.
And now there is a new warning that al Qaeda may attack Americans in India. And where would these attackers be coming from?
Again, Pakistan.
And so the central front on the war on terror is Pakistan, right?
No, that would be Iraq.
Why do I get the feeling that Abbott and Costello are running this war?
I'd like to believe that our president simply doesn't know geography and sent our troops to the wrong country. Because the alternative is that he decided to let the terrorists go in order to engage in Dick Cheney's plan to create a shake-and-bake democracy in Iraq to secure that country's oil reserves for American companies to profit from.
What angers me most is that for three-plus years we have listened to Bush and Cheney accuse anyone who opposed their little Iraq project of being in league with our enemies, while they let the real terrorists regroup and plot more attacks against us.
They tell us that daring to criticize the president makes us look weak. That's like saying that if Bush was walking around at a state dinner with his fly down, we shouldn't tell him because it might make him look stupid.
Hey, George! The real war on terror is two countries over! You would think Condi Rice would be shaking her head, complaining about men never stopping to ask directions.
What someone should really ask is why Bush didn't send 150,000 troops to Pakistan and Afghanistan to hunt these people down before they could plot to kill thousands more of our people. If he had attacked the right country to begin with, maybe we wouldn't have to worry about exploding sports drinks and toothpaste on airplanes.
Will it take a Pakistani terrorist with a nuclear bomb to finally get the point across that Iraq is not the central front in the war on terror?
With this latest plot, Bush and his people are thumping their chests, trying to act like they really are doing a great job. In truth, they are the ones who love terrorism. It's the only political card they have left to play, as the rest of their agenda has been crushed under the weight of massive incompetence. They rejoice with every terror alert. Fear is their friend.
Someone once said you can judge the character of a person by the friends they keep.
Our friends in the Middle East are Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. One of them is the most repressive regime in the world, holding us hostage over oil while its citizens fly airplanes into our buildings. The other is harboring our enemies and spreading nuclear technology around like Johnny Appleseed.
So what does that say about us?
Perhaps it's just massive geographic ignorance that has led us to make such a mess out of a part of the world we depend on the most. We need to admit that all we want from them is their oil. They can have the rest. It shouldn't be such a big deal. We ship over dollars, they ship back crude. Then they spend their dollars on crappy American movies and music, and provide Michael Jackson a home away from our children. Everybody wins.
But no, we can't have that. If there were peace in the Middle East, oil would be back down to $40 a barrel, and American oil companies wouldn't be posting record profits. Halliburton would be bankrupt. And that wouldn't set well with our first oilman president and vice president, or the people who put them in power.
For years, the Bush Administration has denied this is all about oil. Their view is that terrorism and the cause of freedom are why we are in Iraq.
The rest of the world knows it's about oil, or else we would be waging war where our real enemies are.
• Kirk Caraway is the Nevada Appeal Internet editor. Reach him at kcaraway@nevadaappeal.com or comment online at www.nevadaappeal.com