Red State / Blue State | An election season blog

In the December 2001 edition of the Atlantic, David Brooks wrote an essay titled "One Nation, Slightly Divisible," in which he suggested that America is divided largely into two political cultures, one "red" and one "blue." His idea is based on those electoral maps in 2000 that colored majority-Republican states in red and majority-Democratic states in blue. Brooks' witty essay pictures the red-state voter as trending rural, a salt-of-the-earth type, concerned with individual liberty and family values, whereas the "blue" voter trends urban, more of a book-reader, a Beltway-savvy intellectual, the environmentally conscious soccer mom or dad.

Cliches? Maybe. But Brooks does have his finger on two very strong currents in the American votership. It's not that Pennsylvania is a "blue state" or Alabama is a "red state." It's that our two political cultures don't talk to each other much, or even know much about each other. To bridge that gap, we've brought together two "red" voters - John Franklin and Cynthia Sneed - and two "blue" voters, Terri Falbo and Timothy Horner. Each week, they'll ponder and debate the issues arising in the election campaign. The hope is that they'll model an intelligent discussion, a great big conference room where red and blue sit down together.

Joe Franklin, Red Stater

Question Seven: John Kerry is telling audiences that U.S. involvement in Iraq was the wrong war at the wrong time. President Bush has continued to describe the war and subsequent occupation as a central front in the war on terrorism. Is the war in Iraq connected to a war against terrorism?

Certainly the war in Iraq is related to the war against terrorism. Remember, this terrorism started during or shortly after the liberation of Kuwait. That is when Osama bin Laden decided the American infidels were trespassing in holy places on the Arabian peninsula. Subsequently he ordered that Americans around the world be killed.

I recall that shortly after 9/11, the President stated that U.S. forces would go after nations supporting terrorists. I can see Iraq as well as a half a dozen other countries in the area supporting terrorist activities. Just last week, it was reported that one of Osama bin Laden's henchmen, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was present in Iraq. On Thursday, four al-Qaeda suspects were arrested in Iraq.

Other connections between al-Qaeda and Iraq include a meeting between bin Laden and Iraq's head of intelligence in Khartoum, Sudan, in 1994. William Cohen, former Secretary of Defense, revealed in the 9/11 hearings that a top lieutenant of bin Laden’s met in Baghdad with Iraq's top nerve gas expert. Osama bin Laden does not care for Saddam Hussein, but yet there were these connections as well as others. What was the purpose of these meetings? Tea and crumpets?

To be sure, in searching for connections between the war in Iraq and the war against terrorism, I found numerous instances of reports that were later discredited. Yet some have been corroborated, yet the media seem to be downplaying them. It does take a rocket scientist to see that Sadam and his sons, Udai and Qusay, ran a terrorist regime.

On many of the talk shows one hears these sissies saying that the United States had no basis or reason for invading Iraq, that Iraq had not attacked us. The war often is described as "Bush's war" or "Cheney's war." Well, Germany never attacked the United States. Should we then call World War Two "Roosevelt's War"?

Certainly there is a connection between the war in Iraq and the war against terrorism. Haven't you heard the old adage, "birds of a feather flock together"?

posted at # 2:19 PM