"Invited"

Brandon Snider at Antiwar.com links to a delightful exchange between White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan and Helen Thomas:

Q The other day -- in fact, this week, you said that we, the United States, is in Afghanistan and Iraq by invitation. Would you like to correct that incredible distortion of American history --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, we are -- that's where we currently --

Q -- in view of your credibility is already mired? How can you say that?

MR. McCLELLAN: Helen, I think everyone in this room knows that you're taking that comment out of context. There are two democratically-elected governments in Iraq and --

Q Were we invited into Iraq?

MR. McCLELLAN: There are two democratically-elected governments now in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we are there at their invitation. They are sovereign governments, and we are there today --

Q You mean if they had asked us out, that we would have left?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, Helen, I'm talking about today. We are there at their invitation. They are sovereign governments -- Q I'm talking about today, too.

MR. McCLELLAN: -- and we are doing all we can to train and equip their security forces so that they can provide for their own security as they move forward on a free and democratic future. Q Did we invade those countries?

A crime against the English Language, Right? By any reasonable, non-bizarro world standard, we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq (justifiably in the former, insanely in the latter) and installed in power the "sovereign" governments that "invited" us to stay.

However, it didn't take much effort to find people who think that Helen Thomas is the crazy one, like this guy who described the exchange as a "classic Helen Thomas inanity" without adding any reasoning of his own. This guy, who says that Thomas is " off of her medications again" at least provides a reason for why she is so nuts: "it is obvious to all but the most obtuse that when the Administration says that we are currently in Afghanistan and Iraq by invitation, they mean that the current legitimate government in power has extended the invitation, not the previous theocracy or dictatorship."

I still can't understand how we can be invited to invade a country after the fact. Perhaps after I take my meds . . .