CHRISTIANS PERSECUTED...

...but you'll never hear a word about from this guy, or from the folks who usually complain about the persecution of Christians, because, well, it's happening in the epicenter of goodness and freedom -- Iraq:

Thousands of fearful Christians fleeing Iraq

...Fearing lawlessness and rising Islamic fundamentalism in their own country, large numbers of Iraqi Christians are fleeing to neighboring Jordan and Syria. No one knows for certain how many of Iraq's 750,000 Christians have left the country since the removal of Saddam Hussein, but estimates are in the tens of thousands.

...One Christian ..., Samir, requested that his full name not be used because of fear of reprisals against his family. A businessman from Baghdad, he recounted how militants linked to renegade Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al Sadr recently kidnapped and tortured him until his family paid ransom money.

..."They repeatedly hit me and poured boiling water all over my body. I was held hostage until my family paid them $50,000 to finally get me released."

...The synchronized bombings of five churches in recent weeks and another car bombing at a Baghdad church on Sept. 10 have sent further shock waves into the Christian community. The blasts killed 11 people and wounded more than 50 in Baghdad and in the northern city of Mosul....

The priest of the Latin Catholic church in Amman's Hashimi district, the Rev. Raymond Musili, has put the figure of recent arrivals from Iraq at about 7,000 at his church alone.

In Syria, the U.N. refugee agency operating in Damascus reports that some 4,000 Iraqi Christians have sought refuge in the country....

President Gore never would have responded to 9/11 by trying to overthrow a guy who had nothing to do with it, but imagine if he had -- and if this were happening now. For a significant percentage of Americans, it would be incontrovertible proof that Beelzebub is a Democrat.