“Better to fight the terrorists over there…

…than here.” That’s a rationale I keep hearing for the war in Iraq from the Republicans. For example, Bill Frist, the Senate Majority Leader, said it as recently one of this last weekend’s Sunday morning talk shows.

The problem is just it not so. It’s a part of the Big Lie that George Bush and his henchmen keep spewing to justify their unjustified war and, more importantly, to desperately try to stay in power.

The Iraq war is not a war against terrorists, at least not al Qaeda. It is a civil war that has more to do with differing interpretations of religious doctrine --- say if Catholics and Lutherans started shooting at each other over whether the Virgin Mary was a legitimate intercessory with Christ --- and has more with “get backs” for who was “in” under Saddam Hussein and who wasn’t than it does terrorists. So, the fact is we are not really fighting terrorists in Iraq we are bogged down in a civil war.

But let’s say for the sake or argument that Iraq was about facing terrorists.

First, the dilemma presented --- that it’s better to fight them over there (in other words, in some other country) than here (in the United States) --- is a false dilemma; it is a gross oversimplification of the choices. Just because we are fighting them over there it does not necessarily follow that they cannot still attack us in some way here.

Second, and to me more importantly, when we say that it’s better to fight them over there (in other words, in someone else’s country) than here (in the United States), what message are we sending? Isn’t it that we Americans would rather blow up your homes and your businesses (pick any country other than the U.S.), and that we would rather see your citizens killed and maimed, than ours? You be our surrogates in this so-called war on terror, while we drive around allegedly safely in our gas-guzzling SUVs.

Once again --- a theme I have harped at repeatedly --- this self-important, arrogant and decidedly unchristian attitude is what helps al Qaeda recruit. Every time George Bush or Bill Frist repeats that slogan it makes us less, not more safe.