Did You Know...

In a page 1 news story, Washington Post reporter Anne Kornblut accuses Sarah Palin of asserting “that the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.”

Just one problem: Palin said no such thing. She simply said that Iraq-bound U.S. troops would “defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.”

As McCain Campaign blogger Michael Goldfarb notes, “It seems we are to assume that this group [al Qaeda in Iraq], despite sharing a name and leadership with the group responsible for the 9/11 attacks, has nothing at all to do with those who ‘planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.’”

No connection at all?

Video of Palin’s speech here.

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Since they think tying 9/11 and Iraq together is headline news now, perhaps the Washington Post can next publish a front-page story slamming our troops for making a connection between 9/11 and fighting in Iraq. Let me reprint one of the excerpts I posted in my main 9/11 anniversary post yesterday:

Sgt. Desion Fulks watched the World Trade Center towers come down on television from Fort Rucker, Ala. He re-enlisted three weeks later.

Capt. Joseph Mason, a reservist at the time, immediately volunteered for combat duty after watching what happened in New York and Washington, D.C. He deployed to Iraq two years later with the first wave a troops.

“I was sitting at home, looking at the television, seeing the carnage of the Pentagon and the Trade towers, and I felt I had to do something,” he said.

Both men, and about 5,000 other soldiers with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Cavalry Division from Fort Hood, Texas begin training at Fort Irwin on Thursday, the seven-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and one other commercial jet. Many of the soldiers, who will deploy to Iraq at the end of December, said the images of Sept. 11, 2001 still flash through their minds.

“I will never forget what happened on 9/11,” said Sgt. 1st Class Mark Linares. “It’s been so long since 9/11, but it is still in my mind like it was yesterday.”

Linares, who was with the 82nd Airborne Division when the attacks occurred and knew he would be one of the first soldiers on the ground where ever they had to go. Some soldiers in the 82nd Airborne were in Afghanistan the next month. Capt. Jennifer Bowersox was part of a unit that went to Kuwait when the ground war in Iraq began in 2003. She said then soldiers talked about Sept. 11 as their reason, and they still talk about it today.

“It must be on every soldier’s mind. It’s certainly on mine,” she said. “You’re wearing the American flag on your sleeve. You’re thinking this happened in my nation, and we can never allow it to happen in the United States again.”