I was reading news reports about the suicide bombers who targeted hotels in Amman, Jordan, when three words clicked in my mind. I kept reading those words over and over without note, when it suddenly hit me. Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Iraq ia now a center for al-Qaeda operations. It was not prior to the US invasion and occupation. One of the few countries in the Middle East in which al-Qaeda was NOT apparent was Iraq. If the Bush administration declared war on terrorism in the form of al-Qaeda, then up until the invasion and occupation, Iraq never was a battleground in that war. The United States brought al-Qaeda terrorim into Iraq. I'm sure the Iraqi people are appropriately thankful for that.

For those of you who are righteously proclaiming that Saddam Hussein was a brutal and bloody tyrant and it would have been unconscionable for the United States to allow his regime to continue: Stick it in your hypocritcal ear.

The United States gladly supports brutal, bloody regimes as long as it is in the best economic or military interests of America. America has no higher moral ground on which it stands, and if you believe that then for God's sake stop watching FOX News and start seeking news sources that specialize in reporting the facts and the truth. America went to war against Libya and Muammar Ghadafi during the first Bush administration. Now we're all buddies. Not because Ghadafi is any less a brutal dictator, but because he supports key US foreign policies. The House of Saud has ruled Saudi Arabia with an iron fist, sucking up the nation's oil profits and leaving the rest of the country to struggle by. Islamic extremism is alive and well in Saudi Arabia, but the Saudi royal family tolerates the religious intolerance as long as the extremists refrain from overthrowing the House of Saud. (Although the Bush administration does a superb job of confusing the issue, most of the 9/11 suicide bombers and Osama bin Laden all came from Saudi Arabia.) It is a tenuous peace destined to falter.

And as bad as Saddam Hussein was, he kept al-Qaeda out of Iraq. But he was picked as George W. Bush's tyrant du jour to justify starting ANOTHER war because Republicans love starting wars so they can beat the nationalism drums to bolster their popularity. And as a result we now have AL-QAEDA IN IRAQ. And the organization sent four suicide bombers into Jordan to inflict death and destruction on innocents, which three of them did and the fourth would have except her bomb belt misfired.

So thank you, George W. Bush, for expanding al-Qaeda operations into yet another country in the Middle East. I have to wonder, though, whether it might not be better to curtail al-Qaeda expansion instead.