We are quickly learning the depth and breadth of the lies we were told in order to get national backing for the war effort in the first place. Some of those lies were obvious to those of us who paid close attention prior to the war. The false link between Al Queda and Saddam lives on in the minds of many of our nation's voters. Will it survive to the next election? Possibly, people are not very open-minded about these highly emotional issues that have been cast in the metal of patriotic response to a perceived threat. It is sorting the false threats from the real threats that will keep our nation safe in the end. The agenda's of the hawks that are running this administration are interfering with that perceptual challenge. It is one thing to cast Saddam in the role of evil dictator and yet another to manufacture evidence of a link to Al Queda. It is one thing to detect Saddam's Imperial dreams and another to base an invasion on weapons that provided an imminent threat to the USA, which by all evidence did not exist. Our perception of threat and its basis in reality is far too important for these tactics by this administration to simply be given a pass. We need real intelligence far too much for the twisting and warping that has occurred in this case to become the source of our national consciousness of a very real terrorist threat.

It is a million times more likely that the chaos that continues in Russia will bring access to nuclear weaponry for terrorist groups than one will be developed by Iraq or Iran and used for that purpose. Pakistan holds the Islamic bomb today and is far more likely to inadvertently arm terrorists with one of those weapons than any other nation on earth. North Korea is several hundred times the threat to us in regard to nuclear capability that exists anywhere else in the world right now. We are not only failing to negotiate with them, but we are also threatening them with military action. It appears to be a rather hollow threat while we are so completely engaged in Iraq where the threat was far less imminent. We are also approaching this issue in a way that might bring a response from China that we could regret. China seems unlikely to support a war on the Korean Peninsula but that could change easily if it proved to be in their interest to demonstrate our strategic weakness in the area. All in all it appears our kicking this particular tar baby in Iraq has weakened our power to respond elsewhere in the world to far greater threats than those posed by Saddam. That is the problem with manufactured threats, they occupy our attention while the real threats creep closer and become more likely to do us harm.

The disservice done the public by this administration's disinformation campaign in regard to Iraq comes closer to treason than any opponent to this misadventure could have come. Vilifying France and Germany and calling the UN irrelevant in light of the current state of affairs in the world appears to have been shortsighted and rather foolish. Ignoring Korea and focusing on the Middle East may win an election but it may lose us far more in the end than taking the time to use international cooperation to remove Saddam would have done. While our fearless leadership is focused on its Middle East bellybutton and chanting mantras of "we are the peacemakers" the rest of the world's body politic is watching in amazement. No one else in the world believes that the lies Bush and his advisors told about Iraq have any reality in them. This is a bad position for our nation to be in particularly in regard to our international credibility. After such a great level of international cooperation in regard to the war on terror and massive international sympathy for the events of 9/11 we have come to this. We are now an international pariah in regard to our invasion of Iraq. Our military is weaker for that effort and our economy is not recovering. The greatest threat to us all still stems from an international terrorist movement given aid and comfort by our presence in Iraq. What will it take to awaken the great American public to these facts? Time and contemplation appear to be all we need. Will we be given enough time by terrorists and other potential enemies? Only the future will tell. God bless and keep you safe in these threatening times.