Um, did anyone really believe the false information we were fed by the Bush administration? Anyone who thought about it for more than 2 seconds or bothered to listen to Hans Blix, the UN weapons inspector in Iraq, would have realized that what Bush was pushing was a complete fabrication. But it certainly is a convenient, if cowardly, excuse being used today by politicians and pundits.

Mindless conformists? Nah! I saw our national reaction to the attacks as a combination of pain & ourtrage, resulting in a need to strike back at someone, only able to hear the words of those leaders who promised retaliation and identified targets we could rally against.

I felt like I was the only the only sane person in an entire country caught up in mob violence.

Were most of these people "mindless conformists"?

No. But, neither were they innocent victims of "bad information".

The rush to war was an emotional response, not a rational decision.

Ask anyone who was stupid enough to say out loud, "I don't think this (war) is a good idea".

We few were rather alone, weren't we? Well, at least that's how I felt, too. I'm sure there were plenty of others, but I found myself in arguments almost hourly with coworkers who called me a traitor for questioning our motivations in Iraq. If we wanted a war, I questioned, if we wanted to retaliate and rally against something or someone, why not pursue OBL wherever he was, hill, dale or cave. Why go into Iraq? Even if there had been WMDs, what means of transport was there? How were WMDs a threat to us here in the West, or to anyone outside of the region that they were being produced (supposedly) in? That simple line of questioning made us traitors according to the good Americans who are now strangely silent. What's worse, they aren't stepping up to apologize or even express regret about the tens or hundreds of thousands of deaths that have ensued? Do they feel the least bit sheepish? Not as far as I can tell. What a shame.

Actually, I took no issue with Afghanistan because A-we knew Bin Laden was there, B-we gave their government a chance to surrender him and they refused, and C-the target was Al Queida, and it is not in dispute that they were the perps of 911. Note that CANADA remains an allie in Afghanistan-and there are few countries more thoughtful and careful in the use of their military.

Iraq was another thing entirely. We had not seen a reason to have troops there in over 12 years and we had them under UN inspections and UN restrictions on trade and of course we had plenty of US planes giving us intel and providing the occassional reminder to the Iraqis they were not free to be bad anymore. Simply put, Iraq was under a magnifying glass for over 12 years before we got our "bad" information. Furthermore, anyone who remembers the first Gulf War knows that we put quite the hurt on Saddams forces at that time and that he didnt have the money or the enthusiastic sources to resupply his military during the same 12 years.

For the Bush administration to claim we had intel saying he could have WMD at our doorstep in less than a few weeks was not only debatable, it was dubious. And there is little doubt that two things gave Bush his war--his claim that Saddam had WMDs (not programs people-REAL WMD) which were usable in short order and his use of Powell to deliver a powerpoint show in support of the war (whereas Kennedy had supplied real photos back in the 60's, our MODERN war justification had gone to illustrations).