[I recommend this BuzzFlash article.] Had none of these questionable events taken place, Al Gore would have won Florida by roughly 20,000 votes, instead of losing it by 537.

(According to USA Today, Katherine Harris' successor, Glenda Hood, will be overseeing the 2004 elections. Hood has the same conflict of interest that Harris did.)

"He [Bush] is a good friend and a man who values freedom with all his heart."

We just saw how much the Bush campaign valued everyone's freedom to vote.

How about freedom of assembly? I refer the reader to Mayor Bloomberg's attempt to stop antiwar protests outside the convention.

What about freedom of religion? Bush's drive to give Federal money to religious organizations is unconstitutional. [Source: The White House. See the Executive Order and the State of the Union address]

Does he believe in freedom of assembly? According to the New York Times, the FBI has been monitoring antiwar protests that are completely legal and peaceful. Does anyone believe this isn't intended to intimidate protesters? Does anyone think the FBI should be looking for terrorists instead?

"President Bush and the Republican Party believe in a government that spends less and taxes less so that families can keep more of their hard-earned money."

No, he doesn't. I'm sorry, Mr. Martinez, but the facts don't support your claim. As President, George W. Bush created the largest government bureaucracy in history and ran up the largest deficits in history in just two years - after Bill Clinton spent eight years working to balance the budget. It will take years for this country to recover from the damage George W. Bush has done.

"President Bush wants to cut taxes..."

You mean George W. Bush wants to run up even larger deficits and help the rich get even richer more than he already has? Heaven help us.

"... and John Kerry wants to raise taxes."

We've already been over this. As he says in his Plan for America, Kerry wants to return taxes to their 1999 levels. This will raise taxes on the wealthy (1% of the nation), but it should help the economy enough so that millionaires will make more money anyway - probably enough to offset their taxes. Kerry has said numerous times that he wants to cut taxes for the middle class. I don't know that Kerry will be able to do it, but here's my logic. George W. Bush promised to cut taxes for the middle class - and he didn't. I already know Bush can't or won't try to keep that promise. I want to give Kerry a chance.

"Then along came a President who wanted to make sure that all children could go as far as their hard work would take them."

What George W. Bush says he wants and what he's willing to fund are two very different things. The No Child Left Behind Act doesn't have enough money to actually help any children. According to the House Budget Committee, the Bush Administration is planning to cut education funding in 2006.

However, the war in Iraq - that members of the Bush Administration were planning at least two years before they came to power - wasn't even mentioned in the budgets George W. Bush submitted to Congress. The War in Iraq has been fought entirely on emergency funds. In other words, the government has spent $200 billion fighting a war when all their money was already budgeted for other things. [Source: The NewsHour.]

Think of what this nation could do with $200 billion invested in schools instead of in pointless wars. Tells you a little bit about George W. Bush's priorities, doesn't it?

He'll find a way to go to war in Iraq - but his own education programs? Those we can cut.

"If you believe that America's schools are leaving too many children behind and that every child can and must learn -- then your choice for President is George W. Bush."

With George W. Bush's record on education, he isn't qualified to be a school principal, much less President of the United States.

Maybe he could be a pre-school teacher, though. He seemed to prefer reading "My Pet Goat" over taking action when our country was under attack.

General Tommy Franks

Before I start commenting on General Franks' speech, I want to quote something he told Bob Woodward.

Douglas Feith is the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and a close ally of Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. In Plan of Attack, Franks gives his opinion of Secretary Feith: "I have to deal with the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth almost every day." [Source: Slate Magazine.]

Franks begins:

"The attacks of September 11th, brought a new enemy to our shores an enemy unlike any we've ever faced before."

According to George W. Bush, they also had a side effect he could take advantage of: the people rallied behind him. The count is in: September 11th was mentioned 58 times during the Republican Convention. That total demonstrates how ruthlessly Bush and company exploit the tragedy.

"In the battle for Iraq, we removed a brutal regime with an avowed hatred of America, a history of torturing its own people, and a history of using WMD against its neighbors and its own citizens."

General Franks is absolutely correct. Iraq's use of WMD was precisely that - history. By the time George W. Bush decided that it was high time we sent our troops in there and got rid of Saddam Hussein once and for all, Saddam no longer had any.

Invading Iraq in 2003 because of Saddam's WMD was as ludicrous as invading Cuba would be today. After all, Fidel Castro is a communist dictator who has oppressed his people and has a disturbing history with nuclear weapons. (Of course, the Soviets removed those weapons at the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 1960's. But this doesn't change the fact that Castro is an evil dictator who lives only 90 miles from Florida.)

"We removed a regime with well documented ties to terrorists like al Qaeda murderer Abu Zarqawi."

Well-documented ties? Maybe General Franks is thinking of someone else. Zarqawi is a terrorist and mass murderer - but there's as much evidence that Zarqawi was in Iraq working against Saddam as there is that Zarqawi was working for Saddam. [Source: the Sun Herald.]

"Today, in Afghanistan and Iraq, more than 50 million men, women and children have been liberated from tyranny and these countries are no longer safe harbors for those who would launch the next attack against America."

No thanks to George W. Bush.

Free elections will take place despite him, not because of him. In Afghanistan, the situation continues to be dire. Due to the fighting in Iraq, the United States is barely able to help.

In Iraq, as we've seen, there were originally no plans to hold elections. The Bush Administration hoped to replace Saddam Hussein with Ahmed Chalabi, and let Chalabi decide what kind of elections to hold - if any.

I wouldn't want a convicted embezzler making those kinds of decisions for any country, let alone one with the world's second-largest oil reserves.

"President Bush has built the largest coalition in the history of the world nations united together against terrorism."

That's arguably true - but General Franks is repeating the Bush Administration's cynical strategy of saying anything to tie the invasion of Iraq together with the War on Terror. The attack on Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.

Technically, George W. Bush did not build a coalition to fight terrorism. He didn't have to. After September 11th, most of the world's nations and people could not do enough to help the United States fight terrorism. NATO is still heavily involved in the rebuilding of Afghanistan.

Unfortunately for George W. Bush, the anti-terror coalition didn't want to help him conquer Iraq. They knew that any evidence connecting Saddam with Al Qaeda would be extremely dubious... because Saddam was too paranoid to trust terrorists whose stated purpose was to overthrow him.

General Franks is one of the top military officials in the United States. It's inconceivable that he isn't aware of this.

"When George W. Bush asked America's men and women to go to war, he gave them every resource the Nation possessed."

This isn't true either. Franks is a veteran of conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has to be aware that some soldiers were sent to Iraq with obsolete body armor. [Source: ABC News.] The Bush Administration later submitted an $87 billion request that they claimed would help the troops, but that's not what the request did.

"President Bush has increased basic pay for men and women in uniform by more than 20 percent... He has provided strong support for military families who sacrifice so much. President George W. Bush has provided unprecedented support for these heroes... This President remembers our veterans and is keeping America's promise to those who have sacrificed so much for us all."

I honor and respect General Franks' military service on behalf of our nation, but given his contempt for neoconservatives like Douglas Feith - who value ideology over facts - I have to wonder why General Franks is working for the election of a warmonger like Bush.

Bush hasn't increased basic pay - he's cut it. [Sources: the San Francisco Chronicle, Common Dreams, and the Democratic Party.] Bush has also cut veterans' benefits, and wants to cut them further. [Sources: Veterans for Peace, Common Dreams, USA Today, the Democratic Party.]

"I choose George W. Bush because he is a leader we can depend on to make the tough decisions and the right decisions."

If you call lying to start a war the right decision, then yes. Senator Graham thinks this could be an impeachable offense. So do former White House counsel John W. Dean and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

"I choose George W. Bush because his vision to take the fight to the terrorists is the best way to protect our country."

Eleven hundred of our soldiers have been killed in Iraq. [Source: Iraq Coalition Casualties] America's heart breaks for our fallen heroes.

General, we needed those eleven hundred here to protect our nation from terrorists. Instead, they were sent on a wild goose chase after nonexistent weapons.

One of those soldiers was Sgt. Ryan M. Campbell. Will his sacrifice be in vain?

"I choose George W. Bush because he stands up for the American fighting man and woman and because he remembers our veterans."

He remembers them by cutting their benefits?
[Source: Veterans for Peace.]

General, why are you supporting George W. Bush? He is destroying the military. He is ruining the institutions that have been your life's work.

Governor George Pataki of New York

"The past few evenings we have spoken of September 11th, of our heroes and of those we lost."

Enough already. Last night, Senator Zell Miller spoke reverently of Wendell Wilkie, who would rather lose an election than make national security a partisan issue. The Republicans' harping on about 9/11 reeks of hypocrisy. If Miller is right and national security shouldn't be a partisan issue, neither should the massacre of 3,000 innocent people on September 11th.

"When he [Bush] said he was going to do something, he meant it."

Like not create huge deficits? [Source: The White House]

Or hunt down Osama Bin Laden? [Source: BuzzFlash]

Instead, we got tax cuts for rich people during a recession. We got the war in Iraq.

"He inherited a recession, and then came September 11th. But George Bush said he would turn around the economy and create new jobs. He said he'd do it. And he did."

Inherited a recession? Well, hey, if Bush supporters say it often enough, it must make it true, right? Like saying that Saddam Hussein had Al-Qaeda ties and WMD made that true.

He created new jobs? Well, maybe he did - but not enough to offset the jobs lost on his watch. [Source: the Democratic Party]

"He said he would cut taxes on the middle class, and ease the tax burden on all Americans. He said he'd do it. And he did."

Yes, he said it. And no, he didn't do it. According to the AFL-CIO, Governor Pataki is wrong.

"He said he'd apply tougher standards to our schools."

More testing doesn't help if you don't improve the schools.

"And George Bush said he'd fight to allow the power of faith to help our young and help our troubled."

Yes, he did do that - in his first month in office. [Source: the White House.]

I really wish he had spent his first month in office acquainting himself with the Constitution instead of trampling it. The First Amendment reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

End of story.

"He [Kerry] was for the war, and then he was against the war."

Pataki is lying. Senator Kerry has never once said he was against the war. He always said he was for it. What he did say was that he would listen to the generals' advice instead of dismissing it. [Source: JohnKerry.com]

"I will have a Secretary of Defense who will listen to the best advice of our military leaders."

What did Bush's Defense Secretary do? Donald Rumsfeld fired Army Secretary Thomas White and General Eric Shinseki when they told him an Iraq occupation would require more troops than Rumsfeld wanted to believe. Circumstances proved White and Shinseki correct. [Source: USA Today.]

Pataki continues:

"Then he [Kerry] was for it but he wouldn't fund it."

I direct the reader to my analysis of the $87 billion request, above. The items in that bill were so ludicrous that it defies all logic that even an dimwit like George W. Bush would ask for it, much less that Congress would actually approve it.

But they did.

"Then he'd fund it but he wasn't for it."

I have no idea what Governor Pataki is talking about here. Based on what we've seen so far, I can only assume he's lying about Kerry's record.

"He was for the PATRIOT Act until he was against it."

Here is what John Kerry has actually said about the PATRIOT Act. [Source: JohnKerry.com]

"We will strengthen some parts of the PATRIOT Act... We will revise parts of the PATRIOT Act such as the library provisions to better protect our freedom... We believe in an America where freedom is what we fight for, not what we give up."

I suppose Governor Pataki doesn't understand that a Senator can support some parts of a 300 page bill and oppose other parts. (George Bush, senior, asked Congress for the line-item veto power several times.)

"This fall we're going to win one for the Gipper. But our opponents - they're going lose one with the Flipper."

Ronald Reagan would be incensed by the so-called PATRIOT Act and the War in Iraq. Reagan confronted the Soviet Union and Iran, and faced them down - without going to war. According to his speechwriter, Peggy Noonan, "Reagan... believed that government out of control is the main threat to individual freedom in the modern world." [Source: What I Saw at the Revolution: A Political Life in the Reagan Era] If John Kerry is a flip-flopper because he agrees with some parts of a 300-page bill and disagrees with other parts, so is every politician in this country, including President Bush, senior. Governor Pataki displays a woeful ignorance of the way Congress works.

Now, let's look at John Kerry's record of flips. There is an article at Slate Magazine.

Now, let's compare George W. Bush's flops. If you don't trust the Democratic Party, try American Progress.

Hmm.

Who seems more trustworthy to you?

"I thank God that on September 11th, we had a president who didn't wring his hands and wonder what America had done wrong to deserve this attack."

Maybe he didn't "wring his hands," but he did sit there reading a picture book to preschoolers for seven minutes after he was told of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center. Bush thought reading children's books was more important than defending the country. I'm shocked by Governor Pataki's audacity in making these claims in New York City.

Did America do anything to deserve this attack? Of course not. Even those with legitimate grievances against American foreign policy would never sanction the slaughter of 3,000 innocent civilians.

But we do need a President who understands the enemy we're fighting. Driving the Taliban from power was a serious blow to Al-Qaeda, and was the right decision. The unprovoked attack on Iraq helped Al-Qaeda, and was a terrible mistake.

"I thank God we had a president who understood that America was attacked, not for what we had done wrong, but for what we do right."

This kind of simple-minded naivete has no place in American politics.

Let's have a small dose of reality here. There are several reasons Al-Qaeda and their supporters hate the United States.

The Soviet Union was the greatest hypocrisy the world has ever known. Soviet propaganda declared that the country's ordinary workers were in control of the government. In reality, the Soviet Union was a totalitarian dictatorship, possibly the most brutal of the Twentieth Century. Stalin alone murdered around fifteen million Soviet citizens, a significant portion of whom were loyal communists.

It was the Soviet Union's stated aim to conquer the world. They claimed they wanted to "liberate" the ordinary working people around the world who were being repressed by their governments. In reality, the Soviets repressed the people they conquered worse than their native governments had.

The United States and our NATO allies joined forces to prevent this. In the name of pragmatism, the United States also made alliances with anyone who would oppose Soviet expansion.

In many cases, this was a splendid idea. The United States and Australia, for instance, have enjoyed a mutually beneficial alliance for decades.

In other cases, this turned out to be, well, not so good. Some of our Cold War allies were pro-American dictators. Among these dictators were Augusto Pinochet of Chile and Chun Doo Hwan of South Korea.

Another Cold War ally was the racist government of South Africa that established apartheid.

Unfortunately, there were a few other dictatorships that the United States helped during the Cold War... dictatorships with significant Muslim populations. These included:

Alas, doing things peacefully was not Suharto's style, as MIT professor Noam Chomsky pointed out in Mother Jones. From 1985-1988, the United States' Ambassador to Indonesia was a certain Paul Wolfowitz. In an article, Wolfowitz called Indonesia "a model of moderation." The truth? The Asia Times has demonstrated that some of the worst atrocities of Suharto's reign happened when Wolfowitz was urging greater American cooperation with him.

Remember him? He despised the United States, in part because we supported the Shah.

When the Iranians seized the American Embassy staff as hostages and caused a host of other problems for the United States, we threw our support behind Iran's arch-rival:

Don't get me wrong. The countries I've mentioned are great nations with rich cultures and histories. I'm sure the citizens of these countries would agree that they are better off living free.

But in the case of Iran, the religious leaders who run the country still talk about American support for the Shah when they condemn our country. The Iranian people still live under tyranny. A repressive theocracy replaced a repressive monarchy.

Then there's Iraq. Are the Iraqi people better off without Saddam? In most ways, yes they are. But ask almost any Iraqi, and they will tell you that living under the occupation of a country on the other side of the planet whose soldiers can't speak Arabic isn't much of an improvement. [Source: USA Today.]

Fortunately for the United States, the current de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Abdullah, is a close ally of the United States and a personal friend of the Bush family. According to journalist Craig Unger, the Bush family has had business ties with the Saudi royal family going back decades.

The problem is: what if the Saudi royal family is overthrown?

Could that happen? Well, like the Shah of Iran, the Saudi government doesn't have the best human rights record. [Source: the US State Department.]

Saudi Arabia isn't the best example of a country with equal rights for women, either. [Source: Amnesty International]

Although Saudi Arabia is an honorable nation, the state religion there is the puritanical Wahabbi branch of Sunni Islam. Wahabbism is the fundamentalist, militant sect that has been perverted and exploited by Osama Bin Laden. The Islam of the Koran teaches the brotherhood of all Muslims, and tolerance of the People of the Book (Jews and Christians.) Wahabbism, contrariwise, preaches the repression of women (which is not in the Koran) and considers an enemy anyone who does not agree with their narrow, reactionary interpretation of Islam - even fellow Muslims. [Source: GlobalSecurity.org.]

Saudi Arabia - birthplace of Osama Bin Laden and 15 of the 19 September 11th hijackers - is our closest ally in the Arab world. America's friendship with the Saudis must continue, but we must urge them to treat their own people with respect and justice. Instead of promoting democracy in the Middle East and ending support for authoritarian governments, George W. Bush has turned a blind eye to human rights abuses there and held the Wahabbi serpent to our chest.

Bush has actually promised to end American support for repressive regimes in the Middle East and to promote democracy there. ("We're challenging the enemies of reform, confronting the allies of terror, and expecting a higher standard from our friends. For too long, American policy looked away while men and women were oppressed, their rights ignored and their hopes stifled. That era is over, and we can be confident.") [Source: The White House.]

But according to Common Dreams, Bush's rhetoric means nothing. He still supports repressive regimes, including Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan.

Since the overthrow of the Taliban, the only country that practices this dark age perversion of Islam is the genocidal regime ruling Sudan. (For information on the ongoing Darfur genocide, see data.org.)

This means Al-Qaeda is dedicated to the overthrow of nearly every Muslim government worldwide. Because these governments do not practice Osama Bin Laden's brand of demented fundamentalism, Al-Qaeda considers them corrupt.

The problem is, some of them actually ARE corrupt. Some Muslim countries are ruled by dictators, such as Syria, Libya, Turkmenistan, and our allies Pakistan and Uzbekistan. Then there's Somalia, where there is no functioning government. Somalia is by all accounts a "failed state." Among Bin Laden's other declared enemies are the Saudi monarchy, democratic Indonesia and Turkey, and Saddam Hussein.

All these governments have good reason to oppose Bin Laden, who wants to overthrow them all. Most of the world's Muslims don't want to live under the Taliban, either. However, there's one thing that many of the world's Muslims agree on: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I am not going to debate the merits of that ongoing tragedy here. In a nutshell, I believe that there is right and wrong on both sides. Israel is one of the few democracies in the Middle East, and deserves our support. It is likewise easy to sympathize with the plight of the Palestinians, who don't have a country of their own.

However, no matter which side you support, it is essential to realize that the world's many Muslim nations almost universally think Israel is in the wrong. Whether this is fair to the Israelis or not, it is important to recognize that the overwhelming majority of the world's Muslims believe this.

I was proud to support Israel during the governments of Prime Ministers Rabin and Barak. But, the fact is, the Israeli army has been guilty of human rights abuses.

Israel has been the victim of three unprovoked attacks by their Arab neighbors. In the last war, Israel captured three areas. These "Occupied Territories" are Syria's Golan Heights, Jordan's West Bank, and Egypt's Gaza Strip.

The problem is, in contravention of international law and United Nations resolutions, Israel has been settling civilians in these territories.

Of course, Syria wants the Golan Heights back. For their part, Jordan and Egypt have given up the Gaza Strip and West Bank to be a new country for the Palestinians.

In 2001, Ariel Sharon was elected Prime Minister of Israel. Under his governance, things took steady turn for the worse. Much of the progress made by Prime Ministers Rabin and Barak was lost.

For instance, Sharon's government has been building a "security wall" to keep Israeli settlements separate from Palestinian areas. Detractors call this the "apartheid wall."

Presidents Carter, Bush (senior), and Clinton worked hard to help the Israelis and Arabs make peace. Significant progress was made: President Carter helped forge the famous Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt, and President Clinton helped write a similar peace treaty between Israel and Jordan. During these times, the United States was respected and admired by Arab nations. President Bush, senior, was able to recruit Arab nations to the coalition that drove Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait.

George W. Bush abandoned this wise policy as soon soon as he came to power. In one of the first Cabinet meetings, Bush and Cheney declared the Israeli-Palestinian peace process was unimportant. The cause of all the Mideast's problems, they announced, was Saddam Hussein. [Sources: Against All Enemies; The Price of Loyalty] I was disappointed to see President Bush abandoning years of American peace efforts, but I was flabbergasted to learn that Dick Cheney - who had been Secretary of Defense under George Bush, senior - was behind this. Surely Cheney had learned something from working with the elder Bush and helping implement his wise policies in support of peace?

Apparently not. Cheney should have understood Arab and Muslim animosity towards Israel. He should have understood that Saddam Hussein was impotent, and the real troublemakers of the Mideast were the Taliban and Iran. And he should have understood that an American invasion and occupation of Iraq would be equated in the minds of the world's Arabs and Muslims with the Israeli occupation of, and human rights abuses in, the Occupied Territories. [See the BBC article on Jenin.]

During the first Gulf War of 1991, Saddam Hussein cynically presented himself as the champion of the Palestinian cause. He expected that by attacking Israel, verbally and militarily, he would rally the other Arab nations to his side. It didn't work, of course: the other Arabs weren't gullible enough to think Saddam's conquest and looting of Kuwait was somehow done to benefit the Palestinians.

Part of the reason this didn't work is because President Bush, senior, strongly and logically articulated the American position in language that the Arabs and Muslims could understand and respect. He also used the leverage he gained as the victor in that conflict to work hard for an Israeli-Palestinian peace.

A decade later, someone else presented himself as a champion of the Palestinian cause: Osama Bin Laden.

Bin Laden preaches that the United States and Israel are partners in a gigantic conspiracy to conquer the Middle East and kill off its Arab and Muslim peoples. This is, of course, utterly absurd.

However, instead of showing his father's wisdom in combatting this propaganda, what has George W. Bush done?

Although he still talks about the so-called "road map," George W. Bush forever destroyed his credibility with Arabs by agreeing with Sharon that the Palestinians should not have any say in deciding where their country is or where its borders are. Many Palestinians fear, with good reason, that any "independent" Palestine may be a few small enclaves that have no territorial continuity. These enclaves will be surrounded by fortified Israeli walls that separate Palestinians from their farmlands.

This doesn't mean that everyone in the United States believes in these principles. For instance, the National Organization for Women documents cases of Senator Trent Lott, Congressman Tom Delay, and Attorney General Ashcroft blasting critics as unpatriotic. The Democratic Party adds Congressman Hastert to the list.

Those who claim it's treason to criticize the current administration obviously don't value freedom of speech very highly.

Jerry Falwell, a leader of the American religious right, blamed Americans who aren't Christian (such as Buddhists and Jews) for the tragedy of September 11th. His rant also blamed those who believe in equality for women and members of the pro-choice movement.

"I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way - all of them who have tried to secularize America - I point the finger in their face, and say, 'you helped this happen.'" [Source: ABC News.]

Suffice it to say, Rev. Falwell doesn't believe in freedom of religion.

In my opinion, the First Amendment is simple common sense. In America, we can practice any religion we choose, so long as we don't seek to impose our religious views on others.

In the same way, in the United States, people like Larry Flynt have the freedom to print pornography. If you're like me, and you think that pornography is disgusting, you don't have to buy Flynt's magazines. But I respect his First Amendment rights, and as long as there are people who want to buy what he prints, then Flynt's allowed to print away. Censorship is wrong, period.

I hope that one day Larry Flynt will go out of business. But censorship is not the solution.

Now, Arab countries don't have these kinds of traditions. Osama Bin Laden points to these differences, and says, aha! Look at those corrupt Americans! They watch pornography - therefore they are morally bankrupt and must be killed!

Well, no. Americans have the freedom of choice. We can choose to watch pornography - or we can turn it off. We can choose to watch television shows that we disagree with, or we can turn them off. We can choose to read novels that challenge our ideas about religion, like Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses or my own Dark Side of the Sun. Or, we can choose not to buy them and not to read them.

Bin Laden disagrees. He believes that pornography should be censored, as should everything else he doesn't like. He also believes that women should not work, should not be educated, and if - God forbid - they ever leave their homes, their bodies should be completely covered so that their beauty will not tempt any passing men. A different kind of Muslim fundamentalist, Ayatollah Khomeini, ordered the death of Salman Rushdie - a fellow Muslim living in another country - for writing a novel he didn't like. How many mainstream Muslims would agree with this?

The cultural differences between Western nations, including America, and Islamic nations can be bridged. Just because it's not illegal here to produce pornography doesn't mean that all Americans believe in it or support it.

That also means that when American culture and Islamic culture interact, we don't expect Muslims to embrace our culture. We respect Islam, and we ask Muslims to respect America. We will not force them to be like us. We don't hate them, and don't expect them to hate us.

Muslims in America are completely free to practice their religion. We have much in common. Jews, Christians, Muslims, and many Native Americans all worship the same loving God. Islam teaches the brotherhood of all Muslims. Likewise, Christianity teaches that all people must love their neighbor as themselves, and love, forgive, and bless their enemies.

We know that most Muslims don't want to live in a country where their religion is perverted to restrict their freedom and human rights, the way Mullah Mohammed Omar would have it.

Most Americans wouldn't want to live in an America with Jerry Falwell as President, either. Americans respect Falwell's opinion - that his brand of Christianity is the only right way and should be imposed on everyone - but we don't share it. Americans won't live in the kind of country Falwell wants - the kind of culture that brought about the Salem Witch Trials.

Like the Muslims of other nations, all Americans (except perhaps Rush Limbaugh) were shocked and appalled by the pictures that came out of Abu Ghraib. George W. Bush was right about one thing: that's not what America is about. But we don't agree with Bush's arrogance, and believe me, we intend to vote him out of office as soon as humanly possible.

It's the convergence of all these things that Osama Bin Laden has perverted into his homicidal philosophy.

Bin Laden wishes to force the world's Muslims to live in the moral straight jacket of his dark-ages interpretation of Sunni Islam. What Bin Laden calls "freedom" is a country where unelected religious leaders tell you what to think and enforce their will at gunpoint. That isn't freedom at all, and I imagine most Christians and Muslims would agree with me. Bin Laden is no more a real Muslim than David Koresh was a real Christian.

I believe that the vast majority of Muslims are like the vast majority of Christians and Jews. They believe that religion is part of one's culture, a moral compass, and a source of strength - not a straight jacket.

To sum up, Osama Bin Laden's objective is to establish a huge nation that unites all the world's Muslims under his repressive perversion of Sunni theology. He is using America's alliance with Israel against us. He claims that the United States and Israel are partners in a hypocritical empire, greedy for land and oil, that hates Arabs, Arab culture, and the Islamic religion.

Does Bin Laden really care about the Palestinians? I doubt it. He is using that issue to gain the support of Muslims and Arabs who resent Israel's human rights abuses.

So why did Bin Laden attack the United States?

Even though the United States and Bin Laden had been allies against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the presence of non-Muslim soldiers in Saudi Arabia made Bin Laden see red. The United States, he determined, must be driven out of Saudi Arabia and the Saudi Monarchy brought down... presumably with himself taking their place.

That is why Bin Laden attacked the United States. Rejection of American freedom to choose is part of it, but that is the smallest factor.

The worst part is, George W. Bush has gone out of his way to prove Bin Laden's case for him.

After 9/11, Afghan-American author Tamim Ansary wrote:

"We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West.

"And guess what: That's bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants. That's why he did this... He really believes Islam would beat the West. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the West wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose.

"Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden does. Anyone else?"

Bin Laden hoped that the United States would respond to the September 11th attacks by slaughtering Muslims. This would convince mainstream Muslims that Bin Laden was right about the United States being evil.

Bush has played into Bin Laden's hands. He didn't immediately begin an indiscriminate rampage against the Islamic world, as Bin Laden had hoped - but he did attack Iraq a year and a half later. So far, 15,000 Iraqis are dead, and the casualties continue to rise. (There may be as many as 100,000 dead.) Moderate Muslims now have cause to hate the United States.

The ironies keep piling up. Bin Laden's other objective was to get the American military to leave Saudi Arabia - which we did.

Bin Laden believes that, if his terrorist organization can be shown to cause significant damage to the United States, it will inspire Muslim radicals living in "corrupt" states to overthrow their own governments and join him.

The United States can kill or capture members of Al-Qaeda, but this is only a first step, and the least significant one. The United States must engage in a dialogue with people all over the world, and present an ideology that is more attractive than Bin Laden's terror and murder. If we don't win the war of ideas, killing terrorists will only help create more terrorists.

In the United States, Bush still has some credibility left. He doesn't in other countries. He says he supports a Palestinian state, but his pro-Israel actions speak louder. Bush says the War on Terror isn't a war against Muslims, but he invaded Iraq and killed 15,000 of their people.

I am not an apologist for Osama Bin Laden. He is a psychotic murderer, responsible for the deaths of thousands. He has perverted the compassionate religion of Islam to justify killing anyone he doesn't like - including fellow Muslims who don't agree with him. Like David Koresh, Bin Laden uses religious language to cloak his psychopathic behavior.

But we will never be victorious in the war against Al-Qaeda and other terrorists if we don't understand the enemy we're fighting. No one ever won a battle through wilful ignorance of their enemy.

Governor Pataki continues:

"You know the history. Osama bin Laden declared war on America -- and then came the attacks -- the first World Trade Center, the embassies, the USS Cole -- hundreds dead, thousands injured. How I wish the administration at that time, in those years had done something. How I wished they had moved to protect us -- but they didn't do it."

Pataki's lying. When Al-Qaeda attacked the USS Cole and our embassies in Africa, Clinton responded with military force. Unfortunately for Clinton, whenever he used military force, he was condemned as a chicken-hawk because he'd never been in the military himself. With a perverse irony, almost the entire cadre of George W. Bush's senior advisors have never served in the military, either. Those that did never saw combat.

The NSA Counter-terrorism chief, Richard A. Clarke, wrote in Against All Enemies about how Clinton fought Al-Qaeda terrorism and Iranian-sponsored terrorism with admirable determination. (I was surprised to find how intelligent and decisive Clinton was. I never heard any of this stuff when it was going on.)

When Al-Qaeda was identified as a resourceful anti-American terrorist organization, Clinton moved against them, notably in Bosnia and Sudan. For all Pataki's anti-Clinton rhetoric, the 42nd President did indeed issue orders to hunt down and capture or kill Osama Bin Laden. [Source: CNN.]

The problem was, the CIA couldn't find him. Heck, we're three years into the War on Terror, and we still haven't found him. The one time when the CIA was certain they had located Bin Laden, Clinton decided not to order air strikes - because Bin Laden was in a hospital. Clinton decided not to bomb the hospital because the cost in innocent lives would be too high.

Given what we know now, was that decision the correct one? Maybe, maybe not. (But imagine the headlines: "Clinton Bombs Afghan Hospital to Strike Obscure Extremist - Hundreds Killed.") But it's untrue that Clinton took no action against terrorists. According to Clarke, in many ways Clinton's efforts against Al Qaeda were more effective than Bush's.

"On September 11th, Al Qaeda attacked again. But this time they made a terrible mistake. There's one thing they didn't bank on. They didn't bank on George W. Bush."

Actually, they did bank on George W. Bush - literally. When Bush came to power, he took firm action regarding the Taliban - a militia that Bush at War establishes as so closely interlinked with Al-Qaeda as to be the same organization.

Bush gave them 43 million dollars. [Source: The Nation.]

As Governor Pataki points out, Al-Qaeda attacked us several times in the 1990's. According to the Constitution, it is treason to give aid to America's enemies.

"With supreme guts and rightness President Bush went into Iraq."

He sent our troops in, you mean. It doesn't take that much "guts" to send other people into battle. I doubt that going to fight in Iraq himself - or sending his own children - ever entered into Bush's mind.

Perhaps Governor Pataki mis-spoke, and he meant "self-righteousness" when he said "rightness."

Pataki doesn't mention the other qualities George W. Bush exhibited when he made the decision to attack Iraq in March, 2003...

Or was it in January 2003, when he told the Saudi Ambassador of his decision? [Source: CBS News]

Or was it in late 2002, when Secretary Colin Powell and British Prime Minister Tony Blair convinced a reluctant Bush to seek United Nations backing? [Source: Seattle Times]

Or was it in mid-2002, when he ordered Franks to start preparing for a war with Iraq? [Source: Seattle Times]

Or maybe in 2000, when he came to power and told Paul O'Neill about it?

Or maybe it was 1998, when Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Perle decided it had to be done. [Source: Project for the New American Century]

The qualities Bush exhibited include recklessness, incompetence, greed, close-mindedness, stubbornness, arrogance, and warmongering. With no WMD, no al-Qaeda links, and a "liberation" tainted by Abu Ghraib and 15,000 casualties, Governor Pataki is wrong to include "rightness" in the list.

"The US had asked for peace, went to the UN time and again, asked Saddam to step aside."

That's ludicrous. George W. Bush pushed for a new UN resolution ordering Saddam to disarm, and a second authorizing military force against him. He got the first one; he didn't get the second one. The closer we got to war, the clearer it became that Bush intended to conquer Iraq, with or without the UN, regardless of the facts or of popular opinion. My perception was vindicated by Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack, in which we learn that the only reason Bush even consulted the United Nations is because Colin Powell and Tony Blair talked him into it.

Bush intended to wage war against Saddam, no matter what.

"But Saddam would not be moved. So President Bush moved him."

This isn't true either. Saddam Hussein had a long history of obstructing weapons inspectors, and unilaterally expelled them in 1998. But he caved in to American pressure and allowed inspections again in October, 2002. [Source: the BBC.]

"There are those who still say that there was no reason to liberate Iraq. They ask about weapons of mass destruction. On September 11th in New York we learned that in the hands of a monster, a box cutter is a weapon of mass destruction. And Saddam Hussein was a monster -- a walking, talking weapon of mass destruction."

Of course there was a reason. But Iraq was less of a threat than Iran or North Korea - or Al-Qaeda, for that matter. The war in Iraq has made Al-Qaeda stronger. [Source: Time Magazine]

Saddam butchered thousands of his own people and started two wars of conquest. But it sounds like Governor Pataki is suggesting that the 66-year old dictator was about to strap a bomb to his chest, hitch hike to Washington, and blow himself up on the steps of the White House.

Let's take a serious look at Iraqi intelligence. Saddam relied on his intelligence service to help him wage war against Iran - a stalemate in which both sides lost. Saddam presumably asked them if anyone would care if he conquered Kuwait, and they likely told him no. Big mistake. Saddam then ordered his intelligence service to assassinate former President Bush, senior.

Obviously, George H.W. Bush is still alive. Iraqi intelligence botched the plan, got caught, and then-President Clinton responded with bombs. These bombs likely destroyed what remained of Saddam's WMD. [Source: the Washington Post.]

The Iraqi intelligence service is the laughingstock of the Middle East. My joke about Saddam Hussein hitching a ride to Washington and blowing himself up in a useless gesture that wouldn't damage anything else is probably more likely than Iraqi spies using nonexistent WMD to attack us, or Saddam giving those phantom weapons to terrorists he had no reason to trust.

"He [Kerry] said that in the future 'any attack would be met with a swift and certain response.' Well, respectfully, Senator, that's not good enough. We've already been attacked, time and again."

In 2002, the Bush Administration decided to use a lie to sell the conquest of Iraq to the American people.

They decided to portray it as part of the War on Terror.

They decided to mention September 11th and Iraq in the same sentence whenever possible, thus creating a link in people's minds where one didn't exist in real life.

They decided to sow fear - such as Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address. Bush said: "Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans -- this time armed by Saddam Hussein." [Source: the White House.]

Condoleeza Rice said "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." [Source: CNN.]

Of course, the common sense logic that Saddam would never arm his sworn enemies was hushed up.

And now Bush's supporters are using that same lie to ridicule John Kerry.

In the quote above, Senator Kerry was talking about the War in Iraq, not the War on Terror. We are at war with al-Qaeda, a murderous organization that killed thousands of civilians in an unprovoked attack. We did not choose the War on Terror; but now that it has begun, we must win.

John Kerry understands this.

We had no cause to go to war with Iraq, a country that had never attacked us. But George W. Bush did choose to attack Iraq. He started a second war when we hadn't yet won the first one. And because of this recklessness, we're in danger of losing both. But George W. Bush does not understand this.

As we've seen, the invasion of Iraq has played into Osama Bin Laden's hands.

"America did not choose this war. But we have a President who chooses to win it."

Are you sure? On August 31, Bush said that the War on Terror cannot be won. [Source: ABC News]

The next day, Bush reversed himself and said the War on Terror can be won. [Source: the Seattle Times]

I suppose this means Bush doesn't think he's above criticism forever... just for a good long while.

Governor Pataki is correct when he said that America did not choose the War on Terror. We were attacked, and we must win - the war of ideas as well as the war of firepower.

But George W. Bush and his advisors did choose to attack Iraq.

It's not enough just to wake up one morning and decide you want to win. George W. Bush has chosen to fight the War on Terror in wilful ignorance, with a closed mind. We'll never win that way.

Brute force is not enough to win any war. Force must be combined with wisdom. Wisdom must advise us what to strike, when to strike, and how to strike.

George W. Bush loves brute force. He decided to attack Iraq, and no logic and no facts would dissuade him. And because Bush used force without wisdom, America is in a weaker position then before.

And finally:

George W. Bush

"In the heart of this great city, we saw tragedy arrive on a quiet morning."

I suppose it's only fitting that Bush would begin his speech by exploiting the deaths on 9/11 for his political gain.

That man has the luck of the devil. His presidency has been as much of a dismal failure as any of the businesses he ran into the ground.

But because our nation was attacked - and he was in the right place at the right time - the country rallied behind him. And he hasn't hesitated to milk that for every drop he can get. September 11th was the best thing that ever happened to George W. Bush's political career.

A few months ago I was riding the train on the way to an antiwar protest. The train operator pulled me aside and whispered that someone was offended by the sign I was carrying, and had complained to her.

"Yeah, well, I'm offended too!" I joked. "That's why I'm protesting!"

The same principle applies here.

"I will always be the proud and grateful son of George and Barbara Bush."

Yet you showed contempt for your father's efforts to make peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. When the United Nations and Arab nations refused to help you pursue your vendetta against Saddam, you went to war anyway. Your father proved the importance of allies.

George H.W. Bush would have never done anything so reckless. He said as much in his memoir, A World Transformed.

"I believe in the energy and innovative spirit of America's workers, entrepreneurs, farmers, and ranchers so we unleashed that energy with the largest tax relief in a generation. Because we acted, our economy is growing again, and creating jobs, and nothing will hold us back."

No, Mr. Bush. Your tax relief did not affect the people you mentioned. The growth you mention isn't because of you, it's despite you. You've pointed to some new statistic about jobs or growth several times over the last four years to take credit for American work, and later have had to back off because the news didn't turn out to be as good as you'd claimed, or because some bad news came out the next day.

"I am running with a compassionate conservative philosophy: that government should help people improve their lives, not try to run their lives."

Mr. Bush, your deeds outweigh your words. If you think that government shouldn't try to run people's lives, why are you fighting for a constitutional amendment empowering the government to decide who's allowed to marry whom?

Why has your Justice Department infiltrated antiwar protests?

How can you say this with a straight face?

"To create jobs, my plan will encourage investment and expansion by restraining federal spending, reducing regulation, and making tax relief permanent."

If you truly believe in restraining federal spending, why have you created the largest bureaucracy in history and run up the largest deficits in history? Even your father's deadlock with the Democratic Congress of the 1980's never resulted in anything this bad. Why should anyone believe that, in a second term, you will do the precise opposite of everything you've done in your first term?

What kind of fools do you take us for?

On the contrary - I believe that if you should be elected President this November, you will take that as an endorsement of the reckless incompetence you've practiced so far. You will have a legitimate claim to the unilateral power you've exercised for the last four years, and you will use that power even more arrogantly. If that happens, God help us all.

"I will lead a bipartisan effort to reform and simplify the federal tax code."

This is a great idea! I think that is something this nation needs.

Will you keep that promise?

Did you keep the promise that the deficits "will be small and short-term"?

Have you kept your pledge to curb our dependence on Mideast oil?

Did you keep the promise that our troops would never be used for nation building?

Did you keep the promise that we'd capture Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive"?

Did you keep the promise that your foreign policy would be "humble" but "strong", so countries would "welcome us?"

Did you stand by your stated position that the states have jurisdiction over marriage laws, not the Federal government?

Did the tragedy at Abu Ghraib help you restore "honor and dignity" to the White House?

I'm sorry, Mr. Bush. I don't believe you have any interest in simplifying the tax code. I see no reason to believe a word you say.

(And you're trying to brand Kerry as a flip-flopper. Give me a break - that's the oil spill calling the fountain pen "black.")

"We will change outdated labor laws to offer comp-time and flex-time."

I can't believe this cynicism. According to the AFL-CIO, you have already acted to deny these things to American workers.

"We are transforming our schools by raising standards and focusing on results."

We are? With what?

You've promised education reform, but you have provided no money with which to implement these reforms. All we've ever got from you are empty slogans and good intentions. Some of our schools are already on the road to hell, and your good intentions are not helping.

"After supporting my education reforms, he [Kerry] now wants to dilute them."

I don't know what you're referring to, sir, but your argument makes no sense. You can't dilute an empty glass.

John Kerry put it this way:

"When President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act, he said the right things. He asked more from our schools and pledged to give them the resources to get the job done. And then he promptly broke his word, providing schools $27 billion less than he had promised, literally leaving millions of children behind."

Bush continues:

"To pay for that spending, he [Kerry] is running on a platform of increasing taxes, and that's the kind of promise a politician usually keeps."

Well, we've got a choice between a tiny percentage of rich people having slightly higher taxes, or deficits so high they're wrecking the economy. The people of California have already decided that we need to make tough choices. The people of America must choose the same.

Someone once said the following about George W. Bush:

"Now look, if you want someone who will spin a lot of words describing a whole convoluted process and then end up supporting legislation that is supported by the big drug companies, this is your man...
"If you want somebody who believes that we were better off eight years ago than we are now, and that we ought to go back to the kind of policies that we had back then, emphasizing tax cuts mainly for the wealthy, here is your man."

They called Al Gore a lot of things. They called him uncharismatic. They called him an exaggerator and a bore.

They should have called him a prophet.

"His policies of tax and spend of expanding government rather than expanding opportunity are the policies of the past."

Mr. Bush, not only have you expanded the size of the government and the size of the deficits, you have expanded the government into our library and medical records with the PATRIOT Act, and you are trying to expand the government into our marriages and our bedrooms.

By your own logic, these are the things of the past. Your presidency should be as well.

Earlier in the convention, Governor Schwartzenegger said that "If you believe that government should be accountable to the people, not the people to the government...then you are a Republican!"

Mr. Bush, you don't believe in accountability. You're only pretending to be a Republican. You're a plutocrat. You became President via an unfair Republican primary season and an election scandal in Florida, and you thought that made you King.

"Because religious charities provide a safety net of mercy and compassion, our government must never discriminate against them."

As long as we're talking about the politics of the past, I would like to quote a former President of the United States. He wrote:

"Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christianity, in exclusion of all other Sects?"

That was James Madison, in 1785.

I have made a case against this in George W. Bush Versus the Bill Of Rights. What Bush is proposing will create discrimination, not prevent it. On top of that, it's unconstitutional.

So now the First Amendment discriminates, and the Bill of Rights is bad for freedom. What's next? War is peace, freedom is slavery, wet is dry, and black is white?

"Because the union of a man and woman deserves an honored place in our society, I support the protection of marriage against activist judges. And I will continue to appoint federal judges who know the difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law."

If you wish to protect us from activist judges, sir, your first deed should be to fire Dick Cheney, appoint Al Gore in his place, and resign.

The ultraconservative religious officials who condemned Galileo for teaching that the Earth orbits the Sun also believed they were preserving one of the basic tenets of civilization.

But they were wrong. You are likewise wrong in your effort to take upon yourself the power to tell Americans whom we can marry.

You have some nerve to imply that our nation's separation of church and state discriminates, and then champion a discriminating law in the next sentence.

Earlier at the convention, Congressman Portman called for a ban on frivolous lawsuits. What we need to do is ban frivolous attempts to change the Constitution.

"So we have fought the terrorists across the earth not for pride, not for power, but because the lives of our citizens are at stake."

You have done more than that.

You have launched an unprovoked attack on an oil-rich nation that posed no threat.

Harvard professor Jessica Stern wrote: "America has taken a country that was not a terrorist threat and turned it into one."

I have taken to calling the Project for the New American Century's plan to dominate the world with military force the "Wolfowitz Master Plan," because the man who is now your Deputy Defense Secretary helped write it. The report specifically calls for the conquest of Iraq to increase American power.

But maybe it's possible that you're telling the truth, and you're not the power-mad warmonger that the war in Iraq has made you seem. If you're not motivated by the pursuit of power, why did you attack Iraq? It certainly wasn't to prevent Saddam Hussein from giving nonexistent weapons of mass destruction to Al-Qaeda terrorists who wanted to kill him.

Iraq has a very valuable commodity: oil. Maybe it was Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Feith and Perle who were pursuing power, and you were pursuing wealth.

If you wished to preserve the lives of our citizens, you wouldn't have sent hundreds of thousands of our soldiers into danger attacking a country where we had no business going. Eleven hundred of our bravest won't be coming back. [Source: Iraq Coalition Casualties]

"We are transforming our military and reforming and strengthening our intelligence services."

You once said that "America and our allies are fighting a new kind of war against a different kind of enemy." [Source: the White House]

But the military restructuring you've done has made our country more prepared to fight conventional wars - when we already have the most powerful military in human history. [Source: Insight Magazine]

But there are times when conventional force isn't the answer. Your attack on Iraq has proved one thing: brute force can't accomplish everything.

"We are staying on the offensive striking terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them here at home."

Like the terrorists in Iraq? The terrorists who didn't exist until we took over the country?

The conquest of Iraq was not part of the War on Terror. You know that, and no claims to the contrary will make that true. You need to give up your obsession with Saddam. You keep repeating that he was involved in terrorism, but that hasn't been true for thirteen years. Next you'll be telling us that the earth is flat.

"Four years ago, Afghanistan was the home base of al-Qaida, Pakistan was a transit point for terrorist groups, Saudi Arabia was fertile ground for terrorist fundraising, Libya was secretly pursuing nuclear weapons, Iraq was a gathering threat, and al Qaida was largely unchallenged as it planned attacks. Today, the government of a free Afghanistan is fighting terror, Pakistan is capturing terrorist leaders, Saudi Arabia is making raids and arrests, Libya is dismantling its weapons programs, the army of a free Iraq is fighting for freedom, and more than three-quarters of al Qaida's key members and associates have been detained or killed."

Oh, give it up. Afghanistan will lose the fight against terror without our help. The Saudis have begun to fight Al-Qaeda's fund raising, but there is still a long way to go. Iraq was not a gathering threat. The only country where there's been progress is Libya, and they were nowhere near as dangerous as Iran and North Korea still are.

And now that Qaddafi has given up his WMD programs, will he be welcomed with open arms? He's still a dictator with a career of aggression against neighboring Chad. He still has a history of supporting and sponsoring international terrorism. In 2016, will another President named Bush decide to attack Libya in order to finish the job you did not?

"This progress involved careful diplomacy, clear moral purpose, and some tough decisions."

You abandoned diplomacy when the United Nations found your flimsy evidence and bogus logic too hard to swallow.

It's immoral to bear false witness. It's immoral to covet your neighbor's oil. It's immoral to steal it. It's immoral to kill.

"We knew Saddam Hussein's record of aggression and support for terror."

Yes - thirteen years ago. Iran also supported terror, and still does.

Iran has also had a history of aggression. Against All Enemies details Iran's attempt to take over neighboring Bahrain.

Iran is still pursuing WMD's.

Dude, you attacked the wrong country.

Your war in Iraq has stretched the American military so thin that we are unable to deal with Iran. The same thing has happened to American credibility. The lack of any WMD in Iraq means the United States cannot confront the Iranians regarding their nuclear program.

"Because we acted to defend our country, the murderous regimes of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban are history, more than 50 million people have been liberated..."

Once again, you're repeating the same lie you've used ever since some of your neoconservative advisors came up with the idea (apparently on the very morning of September 11th) of using the War on Terror as an excuse to invade Iraq. [Sources: Utne Magazine, CBS News, the Sunday Herald]

But they are two different conflicts, and you know it. We are losing the war in Iraq, and we're losing the War on Terror because you started the war in Iraq.

"... and democracy is coming to the broader Middle East."

Then why did you try to prevent direct elections in Iraq?

They've had a bogus "democracy" there for years. The apparatus for elections was all in place. Remember last year, when Saddam claimed to have been elected unanimously?

The invasion of Iraq wasn't to create a democracy there, was it? It was to replace Saddam Hussein with Ahmed Chalabi. It was to allow Dick Cheney's old firm Halliburton to rebuild the Iraqi oil industry. It was to allow Condoleeza Rice's old firm Chevron to take over the exports. [Source: Executive Order of 5/22/2003]

"Iraq now has a strong Prime Minister..."

Yes, things went wrong, didn't they? Paul Bremer and Ahmed Chalabi didn't get along as well as you thought they would. Chalabi's a convicted embezzler, after all. It soon became clear that he wouldn't work as Iraq's new strongman when it turned out that he was up to his old tricks. He's now wanted for counterfeiting, and there are indications that he might have been an Iranian spy the whole time. [Source: the BBC]

As journalist Sidney Blumenthal put it, "Either Chalabi perpetrated the greatest con since the Trojan horse, or he was the agent of influence for the most successful intelligence operation conducted by Iran, or both."

It looks like the Iranians duped you into taking out Saddam Hussein for them.

Good job.

The new, "strong Prime Minister" of Iraq is our second choice, a former Saddam supporter named Iyad Allawi. Allawi is an admitted car bomber with a violent history, and there's no reason to think he'll be any different now that he's supposedly running his own country. [Source: the New Yorker.]

I say 'supposedly' because he has no authority over the 140,000 American troops who are still there trying to keep the peace in a country whose people overwhelmingly want us to leave. [Source: USA Today]

"Free governments in the Middle East will fight terrorists instead of harboring them, and that helps us keep the peace."

So, we've imposed "freedom" in Iraq at gunpoint, demonstrated how much Americans value freedom of the press by closing newspapers there, and shown our commitment to human dignity at Abu Ghraib. And despite all this work, the only democracies in the Mideast today are Turkey and Israel - the exact same situation as prevailed in 1949.

So, who's next for your "liberation?"

"I proposed, and the Congress overwhelmingly passed, 87 billion dollars in funding needed by our troops doing battle in Afghanistan and Iraq."

And now the unelected guy who has delusions of a mandate engages in this absurd deception himself. That $87 billion harkened back to the $500 hammers and $50,000 toilet seats of the 1980's.

Bush is lying here. There were no bullets in that $87 billion.

There was money for fuel - $900 million to import gasoline into the world's second largest oil producer. The importer? A Halliburton subsidiary.

There was $2 million for 40 Halliburton-provided garbage trucks.

Mr. Bush, your request for another $87 billion was shamefully wasteful. It did not support our troops - it insulted them.

"My opponent and his running mate voted against this money for bullets, and fuel, and vehicles, and body armor. When asked to explain his vote, the Senator said, 'I actually did vote for the 87 billion dollars before I voted against it.' Then he said he was 'proud' of that vote. Then, when pressed, he said it was a 'complicated' matter. There is nothing complicated about supporting our troops in combat."

First, let's get a few things straight. As we saw above, only a minute fraction of that $87 billion actually went to support our troops in combat. Providing adequate body armor is a necessity - one that Bush thought they could do without in the first place.

According to the Washington Post, "Kerry voted for an alternative version of the bill that would have funded some of the spending by raising taxes on incomes greater than $312,000. For his part, Bush had vowed to veto a version of the bill that passed that would have converted half of the Iraq rebuilding plan into a loan."

"About 40 nations stand beside us in Afghanistan, and some 30 in Iraq."

No matter how often or how loudly you proclaim that the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq are part of the same war against terror, it's still a lie.

You didn't mention that there were only two countries that stood beside us in what you called the "major combat operations" phase, the dangerous part where real warfare was involved and the coalition would conquer Iraq in a cake walk. Neither of those two had soldiers that spoke Arabic, so no one in the coalition could actually hold a conversation with the Iraqis we were liberating. But hey, they speak English in both Britain and Australia, so at least the coalition soldiers could talk to each other.

Everybody else in the "coalition of the willing" arrived afterwards to provide peacekeepers. The ongoing war is so unpopular in many of those countries that a number of them have already pulled out.

(See above for more details on those countries.)

"Again, my opponent takes a different approach. In the midst of war, he has called America's allies, quote, a 'coalition of the coerced and the bribed.'"

That's not a quote - it's a misquote. According to the Des Moines Register, what Kerry actually said was this:

"The greatest position of strength is by exercising the best judgement in the pursuit of diplomacy, not in some trumped-up, so-called coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought and the extorted, but in a genuine coalition."

The context? Kerry gave this speech about two weeks before the war in Iraq began. Kerry was calling on Bush to get the United Nations behind him. Instead... well, look at the coalition Bush got.

The only Arab country Bush won over was Kuwait. Two of the strongest US allies in the region, Turkey and Israel, are prevented by political and cultural reality from lending any aid.

"Allies... deserve the respect of all Americans, not the scorn of a politician."

I'm sure John Kerry had no scorn in mind. He pointed out correctly that Bush burned our bridges with some of our most trusted allies - like Canada, France, Germany, and Mexico. For all Bush boasts about Britain and Australia being members of his coalition, the fact of the matter is that the War in Iraq is deeply unpopular in those nations.

Just to remind you, Mr. Bush - Britain and Australia are both distinguished democracies. They are in the coalition only until Tony Blair and John Howard are voted out of office, as inevitably happens when politicians defy the will of their constituents.

The United States has 140,000 soldiers serving in Iraq. All the other coalition nations, put together, have 28,600 soldiers. Americans outnumber everyone else five to one. Is that a genuine coalition? It isn't "scorn" to state the facts.

Oh, and one more thing - remember those sixteen words? You said that British intelligence had learned about Saddam's nuclear ambitions. Since the CIA had already warned you that the evidence for this was a proven forgery, you decided to blame this lie on America's closest ally. Your words have shown more scorn than Kerry's could have.

"The terrorists know... that a vibrant, successful democracy at the heart of the Middle East will discredit their radical ideology of hate."

Are you kidding?

You never had any intention of building a democracy in Iraq. Your favorite Iraqi - Ahmed Chalabi - has no support inside the country and never had a prayer of winning any elections. There is still a tiny chance that a democracy may emerge from our disastrous adventure there, but it's almost unthinkable that any government the Iraqis elect will be sympathetic to American interests.

I hate to break this to you, but the terrorists are laughing at you.

Osama Bin Laden called America a greedy empire that hates Islam.

After September 11th, you called the War on Terror a "crusade", a word that offends Muslims.

You called the war against the Taliban "Operation Infinite Justice." But that's also offensive to Muslims, for in their faith, only God can dispense infinite justice. You endangered the safety of our troops by insulting the people they were sent to liberate.

You then called our Pakistani allies "Pakis." Fortunately, President Musharraf wasn't insulted. Apparently, no one in the entire American State Department thought to warn you that term is derogatory. But you're the President of the United States, and you should be aware of these things.

Then you invaded an oil-rich Muslim nation that had not and could not threaten us. But there was a problem: you'd told the soldiers you sent to liberate Iraq that Iraqis were responsible for September 11th. The result? Some of our troops tortured Iraqi civilians - 90% of whom had been arrested by mistake - in ways especially degrading to Muslims.

All you've done is play into Osama Bin Laden's hands. You've proved his case for him. Far from "discrediting their radical ideology of hate," you've given credence to it.

"America has done this kind of work before and there have always been doubters. In 1946, 18 months after the fall of Berlin to allied forces, a journalist wrote in the New York Times, 'Germany is a land in an acute stage of economic, political and moral crisis. [European] capitals are frightened. In every [military] headquarters, one meets alarmed officials doing their utmost to deal with the consequences of the occupation policy that they admit has failed.' End quote. Maybe that same person's still around, writing editorials."

This is yet another distortion. This time, Bush's target is an American journalist who died fifty years ago. But Bush was caught, by columnist Maureen Dowd.

As Dowd wrote in the New York Times:

"She isn't. Anne O'Hare McCormick, who died in 1954, was The Times's pioneering foreign affairs correspondent who covered the real Axis of Evil, interviewing Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and Patton. She was hardly a left-wing radical or defeatist. In 1937, she became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism...
"The 'moral crisis' and failure she described were in the British and French sectors. She reported that the Americans were doing better because of their policy to 'encourage initiative and develop self-government.' She wanted the U.S. to commit more troops and stay the course - not cut and run."

George W. Bush continues:

"Palestinians will hear the message that democracy and reform are within their reach, and so is peace with our good friend Israel."

Yes, so long as they change their elected leadership for someone you like better. [Source: the BBC.]

"I have learned firsthand that ordering Americans into battle is the hardest decision, even when it is right."

Maybe our early victories in Afghanistan went to your head. After all, we helped the Northern Alliance defeat the Taliban and few American troops were involved at first.

But let's look at the evidence. Your chief advisors - Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bolton and Perle - decided to overthrow Saddam with military force back in 1998.

According to Paul O'Neill, a member of your own cabinet, you and your administration were planning a war against Saddam as soon as you came to power in 2001.

When September 11th happened, you decided to use that as an excuse to attack Iraq. Even though Al-Qaeda was working to overthrow Saddam, you told the world that Saddam might give them weapons of mass destruction to use against him - er, us.

For instance, you said "The Iraqi regime has actively and secretly attempted to obtain equipment needed to produce chemical, biological and nuclear weapons." You continued: "One of the greatest dangers we face is that weapons of mass destruction might be passed to terrorists, who would not hesitate to use those weapons." [Source: The White House.]

You cataloged the weapons you wanted us to believe that Saddam's regime possessed. In the same speech, you said: "Firsthand witnesses have informed us that Iraq has at least seven mobile factories for the production of biological agents, equipment mounted on trucks and rails to evade discovery... Iraq has developed spray devices that could be used on unmanned aerial vehicles with ranges far beyond what is permitted by the Security Council." According to Worse Than Watergate, this intelligence was already highly suspect.

Then you got absurd. "Senior members of Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda have met at least eight times since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training. We also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network, headed by a senior al Qaeda terrorist planner."

But none of this stuff was true, according to the September 11th Commission and the Duelfer Report. Your "firsthand witnesses" were likely working for Ahmed Chalabi. [Source: The Nation.]

As the Levin Report indicated, "in the case of Iraq's relationship with al Qaeda, intelligence was exaggerated to support Administration policy aims primarily by the Feith policy office, which was determined to find a strong connection between Iraq and al Qaeda... Intelligence relating to the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship was manipulated by high ranking officials in the DOD to support the Administration's decision to invade Iraq when the intelligence assessments of the professional analysts... did not provide the desired compelling case." So, Mr. Bush: if the facts weren't there, you and your advisors invented them.

Paul Wolfowitz' opinion? "For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue - weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."

Mr. Bush, there's every indication that you had already made the decision to attack Iraq long before you even asked Congress for authority to disarm Saddam. I don't think capturing Saddam was worth the sacrifice of 1,100 American lives, even if he did try to kill your father. The truth is that you carefully misled the people of our nation into the belief that Saddam was responsible for September 11th. You had to do this because no one in their right mind would have supported this war of yours if they knew it was going to help Al-Qaeda.

There are people in the world who understand the Middle East and tried to warn you. But you didn't listen.

"And in those military families, I have seen the character of a great nation: decent, and idealistic, and strong."

Indeed they are. I have not served in the military myself, but my father did, my father-in-law did, my uncle did, my best friend from childhood did, and one of my best friends in my adult life still does.

Our military deserves a better Commander in Chief than you.

"By promoting liberty abroad, we will build a safer world."

Closing Iraqi newspapers promotes liberty abroad? Don't be absurd. You had no intention of holding elections in Iraq until circumstances forced you to.

"By encouraging liberty at home, we will build a more hopeful America."

How have you defended our Constitutional rights, sir?

I studied your actions versus our highest law in my essay regarding the Bill of Rights.

You have not encouraged liberty at home. You have besieged it.

Conclusion

Fight terror. Vote Kerry.

I'm not the only one who has debunked the outrageous claims and smears we heard at the GOP convention.

UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff points out that many of the attacks on Kerry were drawn from Kerry's attempts to limit Congressional pork-barrelling. Some of these attempts were supported by the military, and praised by Republicans at the time.

Slate Magazine's William Saletan presents a good case that this election is about the public's right to hold the President accountable.

Slate's Fred Kaplan puts GOP criticism Kerry's record in perspective in an article aptly named "Lies, Damned Lies, and Convention Speeches."

Every speaker at the convention endorsed George W. Bush's cult of personality to the American public. They all praised his judgment, including his decision to fund the Taliban before 9/11. They lauded Bush for unconstitutionally giving our tax dollars to his favorite churches.

They all applauded the President whose so-called PATRIOT Act enables him to spy on American citizens without cause. They urged us to vote for the man who claims he can declare anyone at any place or any time an "enemy combatant," and lock them up indefinitely, without proof, charge, counsel, trial, judge, or jury. They all commended the man who sent the FBI to investigate antiwar protesters instead of terrorists.

Many speakers praised the War in Iraq. They acclaimed the President who lied about weapons of mass destruction. They said he was right to fabricate impossible Iraqi ties to Al-Qaeda in order to justify the war - thus creating the very crisis it was supposed to prevent. Not one speaker mentioned how Bush authorized the torture of suspected terrorists, then sent one of the enforcers of this policy to supervise Abu Ghraib.

No speaker said the President had gone too far when he made it illegal to sue Halliburton. But every speaker extolled the man whose lawyers (including Alberto Gonzales) say he is above the law now that we're fighting the War on Terror. They eulogized the man who has scorned the Constitutional requirements of separation of powers.

As I've argued, John Kerry is the most conservative Democrat to win the Presidential nomination in a generation.

Personally, I would have preferred an outspoken critic of the war - such as Governor Dean or Congressman Kucinich - to have won the nomination. Even though I disagree with Senator Kerry on the war, he does have a reasonable opinion on it: now that we're engaged, we must clean up the mess we made before we leave. [Source: Kerry's Speech at New York University.] I have seen nothing to indicate that George W. Bush does not plan on staying forever.

Dear Reader, I understand if you'd prefer a more anti-establishment candidate, such as Ralph Nader. Nevertheless I ask you, and ask all Americans, to vote for Senator Kerry. If the opposition vote is divided, then Bush will win.

Senator Kerry may not go far enough to stop the war, but every journey begins with a first step. He, at least, recognizes that war must always be our last resort.

As Americans, we do not all agree. Republican values are sometimes at odds with Democratic values. Progressives and moderates don't see eye to eye. Conservatives and liberals sometimes think the other side is crazy.

But if all Americans do not unite to stop George W. Bush, all of our values will lose.

My name is Chris Colvin, and I wrote this essay.