[LibLieSlayer]

I think al qaeda changed Nation Building from a "feel good" liberal daydream, into a necessity for our survival. We are in a war unlike any we have faced in our past. Afghanistan and Iraq are a turning point in our victory over Islamofacism, much as Midway was a turning point in the war in the Pacific during WWII.

LLS

[Alberta's Child]

The notion that 9/11 necessitated a change in this country's approach to Iraq is so patently ridiculous that I'm surprised it is still incessantly presented as a legitimate argument here on FreeRepublic.

The "neoconservatives" who were the strongest cheerleaders for the U.S. military campaign in Iraq had been appointed to the Bush administration long before 9/11, and their sole focus in that administration had always been to topple Saddam Hussein and "build a nation" in Iraq. If you do some research on folks in the U.S. Defense Department like Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, etc. you'll find that the only background they had at all was their endless calls for "regime change" in Iraq for the entire decade leading up to 2001. These people weren't experts on the Cold War, China, or even al-Qaeda -- they were simply big-government globalists who always saw U.S. involvement in Iraq as a key element in their "New World Order."

An internet search on the terms "al-Qaeda" and "Richard Perle," for example, would reveal a shocking lack of any documented understanding of al-Qaeda for a guy who would become a key architect in this so-called "war on terror."