A few thoughts today:

-Several months ago, when the United States was getting ready to invade Iraq, somebody I know asked what I thought about the possibility of war. I answered that I was not sure; that I knew the world would be a better place without Saddam and Co., but that it didn’t seem like there was a lot of evidence that Iraq had done or was going to do anything to threaten us.

&uot;What about 9/11?&uot; she asked. We had to go out and get the people who did that to us, she said.

This has been documented by polls: Many Americans believe Saddam’s Iraq was in some way behind the Sept. 11 terror attacks. I think this belief is also expressed in at least one sappy country song to which I was accidentally exposed.

I don’t know where these poll respondents and crooners are getting their information, but I’ve never seen any substantial evidence that linked Saddam to the attacks. That’s because there isn’t any, at least not that’s been made public.

Rather than getting information from a Top 40 Nasvhille hit, maybe we should look at the official Sept. 11 report, which apparently indicates that if any country was involved, it was more likely Saudi Arabia than Iraq. We don’t know for sure what the report says, because the administration is keeping most of the Saudi Arabia parts closed to the public. But we know that most of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudis; that evidence links them to some people in the Saudi government; and that our intelligence officials have been frustrated by a lack of cooperation from Saudi Arabia in the pursuit of terror suspects.

But I guess you can’t sell a war against Saudi Arabia. They’re officially our allies, and we need allies in the Middle East. And they don’t have a conveniently demonic dictator like Iraq did.

It’s certainly possible that there was no organized, government-sponsored backing for the hijackers from Saudi Arabia. This is not an &uot;attack the Saudis&uot; rant. And I’m also not saying toppling Saddam will necessarily prove to be a bad thing. But there’s at least as much evidence of the Saudis’ involvement in Sept. 11 as there is of Iraq’s. It just strikes me as weird that we’re attacking one of them while we’re buddying up with the other. That’s diplomacy for you, I guess.

-There was another flare-up about People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) last week, when the group set up an exhibit in Minnesota that put pictures of confined animals alongside images from the Nazi death camps of the Holocaust. Typical PETA tactics: Do something outrageous and wait for the controversy, and the publicity, to explode.

The strange thing is that people keep obliging. Jewish groups spoke out about the exhibit &045; either on their own or at the behest of the media, I don’t know which &045; and then it became a story.

Many farm animals could be treated better for sure, but to compare their situation to the genocide of human beings goes too far. Most people know that. But PETA was again rewarded for these radical tactics, getting the publicity it craves. If everybody just ignored them, they would not get their message out so easily.

-I don’t usually get too riled up when somebody registers a complaint about something I’ve done, but I do have one pet peeve: the phrase &uot;shame on you.&uot; Every once in a while, somebody whips out those three words, usually as a parting shot in a complaint, and it gets my goat.

Why do these people think they have the right to apply shame to others? Who appointed them the official distributors of dishonor? Why do they get to sit at home and pass out shame to whomever they please? Can I shame them back for being annoying?

No, I wouldn’t do that, because it’s such a self-important thing to say. It makes you sound like you’re scolding a six-year-old. It really bugs me.

So, if you want to pin your lousy shame on me, just forget about it. You’re not going to get anywhere with me when you use phrases like that.

Dylan Belden is the Tribune’s managing editor. His column appears Sundays. Contact him at dylan.belden@albertleatribune.com or 379-3433.