IN THE BACKWARDS WORLD.

IN THE BACKWARDS WORLD. The President's Independence Day speech contained this important reminder, one we have heard many, many times before:

Bush said victory in Iraq will require "more patience, more courage and more sacrifice.""If we were to quit Iraq before the job is done, the terrorists we are fighting would not declare victory and lay down their arms. They would follow us here," Bush said at the West Virginia Air National Guard.

So simple, isn't it? What is backwards about it is of course that it was the American military forces which drew the terrorists to Iraq in the first place. And now the troops can't leave, because of that. Otherwise the terrorists will follow us here. Or at least to Britain or Spain, I guess.It seems that in the backwards world each old blunder requires yet another blunder to correct it. In the backwards world Bush's allies in the war against terrorism include Saudi Arabia, the home of Wahhabism, and Pakistan where Osama bin Laden may be hiding and where General Musharraf has his work cut out for him in dancing the tightrope between his American allies and the politically powerful Taliban-like section.

-- J. Goodrich