Suddenly All Of Our Enemies in Iraq Are “Al Qaeda”

With Bush plummeting further and further in the polls and Iraqmire being more disastrous than ever, our “leaders” have come up with a new spin. Since the public is still rightfully concerned about al Qaeda — Presto! Every enemy combatant that we've killed or captured in Iraq is now a high-ranking member of al Qaeda.

Isn't that great? We’re winning! Freedom is on the march! At this rate we'll be capturing Osama bin Laden any day now.

Without any changes in military strategy or any new intelligence information, yesterday’s “insurgents” have suddenly become today’s al Qaeda members. If you can't win, the next best option is to redefine all the terms.

It’s bad enough that the Pentagon is putting on this charade. Even worse — the “media” is marching right along in lockstep, dutifully re-christening all “insurgents” and “enemy combatants” as “al Qaeda.” The New York Times recently used the term “al Qaeda” nineteen times in an article describing American battles in Iraq.

These are desperate times. Bush and Cheney have constantly fallen back on generic terms like “terrorists” whenever they wanted to arouse mass paranoia. If some pesky reporter asks why we invaded Iraq — “the war on terror,” “fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here,” etc.

But referring specifically to al Qaeda just to push the right emotional buttons — this was always a level that even Bush wouldn’t stoop to. Until now.

Here is another example of a “news” story “reporting” on our war against "al Qaeda" in Iraq. We've all noticed the gradual change in the “media” as they’ve deteriorated from Watchdog to Lapdog. The mutation is now complete.

And here is another article on Bush’s desperate attempts to create the illusion of victory in Iraq by renaming and redefining everything.

For a larger view of the Bush Administration's history of lying, spinning and redefining, take this quiz. Had enough?