By all accounts, the people who attacked the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, were religious extremist. Al-Qaeda, a splinter Sunni Islamic movement, founded by Osama bin Laden, claimed credit for these attacks following the tragedy. These fanatics believed that they had a mandate from God to "slaughter the Infidels". It was a force apart from any one country, and it was an aberration of Islam. Whatever religious banner the perpetrators of this horrific act gave it, they were not representative of the other approximate 1.5 billion Muslims in the world.

In the national grief that followed that terrible day in September, it was predictable that we would want to strike out at whoever had wounded our country so horribly

Little did most of us know, our administration already had someone in their sight who could act as a conduit for our national need for retribution. That the intended target was not the perpetrator of the attack, was, for the Bush Administration, a minor problem that could be rectified with a campaign of fear, skillful public relations, distortion of facts, and disregard for the Constitution. If you dared to question the Republican administration's drumbeat to war with Iraq, then you were "with the terrorist."

Though the facts have proved differently, recent polls have shown that at least 33 percent of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks. This is insanity! 

How can we be so gullible and yet here we go again.

Doesn't the truth stand for anything?  Words are supposed to have meaning...that is how civilized cultures have progressed.  Without a consensus in the meaning of words, we have chaos.

And perhaps that was the intent of the Bush Administration all along.  As a nation, I believe we are more polarized than at any time since the Civil War.  Many reasonable people have allowed themselves to be manipulated into a "them or us" mentality. Just listen to one of Dwight Eisenhower's speeches and you will remember how inclusive the Republican Party used to be.  

I know that the majority of Republicans would not imagine that we could become a nation of religious fanatics any more than we see ourselves as a nation of skinheads, but the elements are in place and historically we have seen what mass hysteria can accomplish.  

We now have a candidate for vice president who has stated that the "war in Iraq is God's plan" and "a task from God" Though she may indeed speak for a splinter group of extremist, she does not represent me or the majority of Americans.  Because she could in fact become the Commander in Chief, who under the Constitution has the power to initiate war; we must weigh our actions very carefully on November 4^th.

When the Bush family took the opportunity to settle their vendetta with Saddam Hussein and the Baathe Party, the resulting chaos allowed al-Qaeda to flood Iraq.  In spite of all the human anguish, what have we accomplished?  Anbar has been cleared of al-Qaeda and returned to Iraq, a circuitous return to status quo, it would seem.

 All these years later, we are finally strengthening our forces in Afghanistan where the core of al-Qaeda was reportedly concentrated after the September 11th attack.  In the seven intervening years, that nucleus of extremist has splintered like cancer throughout the world.  Are we to spend the rest of our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren attempting to bomb Bush's "Axis of Evil" into oblivion?  This cannot be the answer in a rational world. If we become like our enemies: a closed society of fear, fundamentalism and continued aggression, then they have indeed won.

We mourn the 3,000 people lost this day seven years ago. We mourn the loss of 4,155 confirmed military casualties since the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. We mourn the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's, (many, many of them civilians who have paid with their lives for something they had nothing to do with.)

If ever there was a time for national reflection on a return to reason, that day is today. The coming election will determine the direction, not only of the United States, but the rest of the world and our place in it.  It will determine if we continue to escalate the death and destruction that has dominated the first part of this century or evolve once more as a nation that remains militarily strong but uses the tools of diplomacy, dialogue, intelligence, and wisdom to form an alliance with the rest of the world in our common battle against extremist.