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"We are at war. Most of us do not realize it, but we are. Because of the sacrifices of our troops, we get to go shopping, go to parties, live our lives as we always have."

You mean like, if we hadn't invaded Iraq, the Iraqis would now be attacking our shopping malls, breaking up our parties, perhaps hijacking our planes, etc.?

Yeah. Maybe not as flippant as that.

If you view what happened on 9/11 as an isolated event unconnected to events in the Middle East, and to Iraq in particular, that is, in my opinion dangerously and foolishly one dimensional.

It is no coincidence that people like Abu Nidal and Abu Abbas were living in Iraq. They didn't go there for the mild climate. They were there because it was a welcoming place for people like them.

And it wasn't people in tin-foil hats who brought to light that the Iraqi regime was paying money to people engaged in terrorist acts (suicide bombers).

The world changed on 9/11. The limits on what we realistically thought terrorists might do were obliterated. The terrorists hoped to kill 20,000 people, and we were lucky it didn't happen because the Twin Towers weren't full at the time of the attack.

Do you really think they wouldn't have detonated a nuclear device if they could have got their hands on one? Who in the Mideast "might" have had or be developing nuclear weapons? If the terrorists could have got a suitcase full of Anthrax, do you think for one second they would not have used it? Who in the Middle East had or was developing substances like that?

I don't mean to sound strident here, but when you say "You mean like, if we hadn't invaded Iraq..." I mean, like, yeah. That is exactly what I mean. And I didn't think I was being imprecise. This is nothing personal against you, because I have no idea who you are or what you are like, but the administration did not do this because they thought it would help them politically. They did it because they were on watch, and lived through 9/11 with all the possibilities and implications it carried. I would hope you or I would take it as seriously, if we had walked in their shoes.