9/11, Iraq: Two wrongs don't make anything right U.S. Troops, Iraqis shouldn't die for Bin Laden's crime By Ric N. Caric, Lexington Herald-Leader, September 25, 2006 In my office, I keep a picture of a plane plowing into the World Trade Center. I also keep a picture of an American soldier carrying another American soldier in a body bag. The two photographs go together because the Bush administration decided to leverage the 9/11 attacks into an invasion of Iraq and an effort to establish right-wing social and political dominance in the United States. The horrific viciousness and destructiveness of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, will always be paired with the monumental cynicism of the Bush administration's response. Defense neo-cons like Paul Wolfowitz had been hoping for a pretext to invade Iraq; 9/11 gave them their chance. Irving Kristol, John Bolton and John Yoo chafed at the constraints of the U.S. Constitution, American human rights laws and international law. The 9/11 attacks allowed them to luxuriate in the romance of torture, run roughshod over due process and create an illegal international system of secret prisons. President Bush's political adviser Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney wanted a bigger stick for beating the Democrats and liberals; 9/11 was the biggest stick of all. Ultimately, Osama bin Laden and the Bush administration will get only part of what they deserve. The Bush administration and the political right will meet their electoral Dien Bien Phu in 2008 if not this November. But many of them deserve to be arrested for crimes against humanity. Bin Laden won't live long after the Bush administration leaves office. The main thing keeping him alive and global terrorism in business is worldwide revulsion over the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. Yet, even though bin Laden's days are numbered, he won't receive nearly as many deaths as he deserves. There is a certain mutual dependence between the Bush administration and bin Laden's al-Qaida. More than 2,900 dead in the 9/11 attacks, and the number of American soldiers who have died in Iraq is climbing toward 2,900. Al-Qaida's 9/11 attacks gave the Bush administration its chance to pursue the global political and military domination that conservative think-tankers had been dreaming of since the fall of the Soviet Union. Likewise, Bush's invasion of Iraq allowed bin Laden to see his dreams of global jihad come to life. Both sides get to live their fantasies. Still, I should have a third picture -- one of those who have died in Iraq as a result of the invasion. There have been more than 50,000 deaths there over the last three years, and now there are 1,500 dead civilians a month. It's as if Iraq has had more than 16 of its own 9/11s. Now, Iraq's civilian dead seem just as much a part of the 9/11 story as the dead at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania -- and as the American combat casualties. The Bush administration and al-Qaida did not kill all the Iraqi dead, they started the chain reactions that led to the nightmare in Iraq. Bush and bin Laden should share the blame for the many thousands of Iraqis who have died as a result of their fantasies. There may yet be some redemption for 9/11; I hope so. Right now though, the Bush administration and al-Qaida have merely teamed up to dig the hole deeper.