CAPTION

From a speech President Bush gave titled “Plan for Victory” to United States Naval Academy Annapolis, Maryland on November 30, 2005.

“Yet the terrorists have made it clear that Iraq is the central front in their war against humanity, and so we must recognize Iraq as the central front in the war on terror.”

By itself and within the context of that speech, the President suggests that our reason for being in Iraq is we were taken there by the enemy during our global war on terror. We know this is false for several reasons:

There was no link between Al Queda and Saddam’s government in Iraq. In fact, there is much evidence to show that Saddam was wary of all Islamic fundamentalists, especially those he could not control.
The current insurgency is made mostly local Iraqis
It’s natural and predictable that when a foreign power invades an Islamic country that muslims from around the world would join the battle. This same thing happened when Russia invaded Afganistan, and back then, Ronald Reagan called these men “freedom fighters,” not “terrorists.”

But this is the issue with the “War on Terrorism.” Terrorism is an abstract noun describing a tactic. It provides an easy way to rhetorically stack the cards in any debate.