Okay, just for the hell of it, let's try it again.

"States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world."

Okay, Teribus, let's examine what leads up to the sentence in which Bush uses the expression "axis of evil."

In the paragraphs leading to it, he spoke of North Korea as a regime that is arming itself with weapons of mass destruction while starving its citizens. Then he says that Iran, another repressive regime, is also arming itself with WMDs. In the third paragraph, he claims that Iraq is flaunting its hostility toward America and supporting terror, while also arming itself with WMDs, and, at the same time, murdering its own citizens.

Then—in the crucial sentence, he adds "and their terrorist allies" to the aforementioned list. Remember? North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. And he calls them—all—inclusively—an "axis of evil."

By "States like these," who else could he be referring to but North Korea, Iran, and Iraq? Plus any other state that might care to ally itself with North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. Nowhere does he exclude North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. And nowhere does he mention Germany, Russia, Wales, Monaco, or the State of Alabama.

What is so difficult for you to understand?

Don Firth

P. S. As to whether or not I've been taking money under false pretenses (by the way, what other kind are there?), you'd have to take that matter up with a number of satified magazine editors, news directors, radio advertisers, whose work I have edited, and the Bonneville Power Administration, for whom I did technical writing and editing.