I find the language of the Bush administration so misleading, which should come as no surprise. What does come as a surprise is how stupid the press is about it. Bush and Cheney keep saying, "Saddam was connected to Al Queda"…but being connected to Al Queda is not the same as participating in the terror activities of Al Queda, which were finally put to rest by the 911 commission preliminary report.

What is so amazing about the Bush and Cheney statements is its logic leaps. I could also connect Saddam to Kevin Bacon and say, "Saddam and Kevin Bacon are connected." But Kevin Bacon had no more to do with 911 than Saddam. It would be just as silly, though, to run headlines as the press did with Saddam that "Kevin Bacon is alleged to be connected to the 911 plot". Even more sinister, I could say, "Bush connected to 911 plot" by connecting Bush Jr, to Bush Sr, to investments with bin laden's as partners, to Osama. But it no more means he was involved in the plot just because I can connect those dots.

Basically, Bush/Cheney argument with Saddam is all related to Zarqawi. It is not agreed that Zarqawi is a member of Al Queda…he runs his own organization, and was actually against the Saddam government, as was Al Queda. Zarqawi was with a Kurdish Islamic group in the North of Iraq trying to secede from the Saddam brutality toward the Kurds, including Islamic Kurds. There is some question as to whether Zarqawi received medical treatment in Baghdad, but Ramzi Yousef received treatment in the US from US doctors, does that mean they are alligned? Zarqawi is far more ticked about the ties between Jordan and the US, if you believe much of the intelligence reporting not coming from the US government. Al Queda and Zarqawi's group are both Islamic Fundamentalist groups, but they are not necessarily one and the same. What's worse is that the US government knows this, but for political reasons has disinformed its own public putting us more at risk, in my estimation. There is even some question that the so called bragging letter by Zarqawi is no more real than letters related to yellow cake we base state of the union speeches on.

But Bush and Cheney say, "Zarqawi is alligned with Al Queda against the US, Zarqawi was in Iraq, therefore Saddam was harboring Al Queda terrorists." The logic flaws are so obvious they do not even need to be stated to most thinking people not blinded by Lee Greenwood songs. Unfortunately, that Greenwood stuff is everywhere. Maybe we should link him to not serving in Vietnam? Oh wait, that's true.