CONFUSING OUR TERMS.

Throughout this Senate hearing, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker have persisted in shortening "Al Qaeda in Iraq" to plain old "Al Qaeda," despite the fact that these two organization have different leaderships, geneses, and missions. Yet when Crocker mentioned "Hezbollah in Iraq," he made sure to clarify, "That doesn't imply a connection to Lebanese Hezbollah."

Hmm. Could there, just maybe, be a political motivation for confusing our "Al Qaeda" terms?

--Dana Goldstein