On Terrorists and Monsters

"We're fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here."

So went the Bush Administration's refrain for justifying the Iraq war for most of its second term.
General Richard Clarke nicely critiqued this theory when he called for Bush's "Puppy-dog theory of terrorism" to be put to sleep. He said:

Does the President think terrorists are puppy dogs? He keeps saying that terrorists will "follow us home" like lost dogs. This will only happen, however, he says, if we "lose" in Iraq.

The puppy dog theory is the corollary to earlier sloganeering that proved the President had never studied logic: "We are fighting terrorists in Iraq so that we will not have to face them and fight them in the streets of our own cities."

Remarkably, in his attempt to embrace the failed Iraqi adventure even more than the President, Sen. John McCain is now parroting the line. "We lose this war and come home, they'll follow us home," he says.

What's truly odd is how this three year-old's theory about monsters matches precisely with Bush's theory of terrorism. "If he gonna come in here....he will kick my ass....so I'm gonna kick his ass!"