[Sonart]

Persecution is a reality for Christians in intolerant nations abroad.

So?

I do not view Bush's fliers as anything which plays on fears. It is a warning. Is using a warning to obtain political support consistent with playing on fear?

It is if you tell the American people, who are terrified and angry after the horrendous attack 9/11, that another country is on the verge of attacking us with even worse weapons and that they were involved with the 9/11 attack, neither of which were true.

Oh really? Which lie are they or I holding onto?

They misled us into believing Iraq had large stockpiles of B/C weapons and ongoing programs to create more.

The misled us into believing that they had an active nuclear program and were only years, if not months, from having a nuclear bomb.

The misled us into believing Iraq had close ties to al-Qaeda.

Lie #1: Saddam had WMDs. --Disproven by Sarin bomb

Actually, the Sarin bomb proved pretty much the exact opposite. The insurgents captured with it didn't even know what it was. They thought they were simply constructing a standard IED using an explosive artillery shell, as was a standard procedure.

Kyran, no one denies there were B/C munitions years ago. The idea that one or two were lost or misplaced over the previous decade, only to turn up years later in the hands of street rabble scrounging whatever they could find is understandable. The idea that vast stockpiles of weapons existed and not a single portion had been found hidden is not understandable.

If the Sarin bomb was NOT the exception that proved the rule, then why weren't any others found?

Lie #2: Saddam had working WMDs. -- Disproven by live Sarin bomb; mix was active

Why waste a good example when you can use it twice.

In that case, I'll simply use my answer twice. See above.

--Disproven by truckloads (of WMDs) being moved from an Iraqi depot hours before UN inspectors arrived, prior to the US invasion, as shown in Colin Powell's report to Congress and broadcast on CNN.

Which went... where? I'm afraid all the evidence presented by Bush and Powell has been either debunked or unsupported. Or from Bush's favorite Iranian spy, Ahmed Chalabi and his band of merry defectors.

Lie #4: No Iraq-alQaeda connection. --Disproven by mounting evidence; here's a tidbit.

Hmmmm, The Weekly Standard. That would be William Kristol's magazine, wouldn't it. I can't imagine he and his fellow NeoCons might have a vested interest in finding something, anything connecting the two. Yet a month after The Standard article, the 9/11 Commission reported NO connection between the two. I'm assuming they had access to the same information.

Lie #5: Saddam would never help al-Qaeda. --Complete and utter assumption ignoring 1) the fact that Saddam has paid the families of suicide bombers in the past who martyred themselves in the attack of Israel...

Oh the horror. And let's not forget the Saddam allowed Abu Nidal to live out his retirement in Iraq too.

Meanwhile, Iran has a clear, incontrovertable connection to active support of Hamas and Hezbolla and North Korea was shipping weapons to the Palestinians by the boatload. Makes Saddam look like kind of a piker, doesn't it.

2) the fact that person(s) responsible for the first WTC attack were given shelter by Saddam.

Not surprising, since three of them were Iraqis: Ramzi Yousef, Musab Yasin and Abdul Yasin. The rest were Palestinian and an Egyption, plus one planted FBI informant, another Egyption.