Was I too smart or too stupid?

I consider myself lucky to be among the rare few that opposed the very idea of invading Iraq from day one.

I don’t know if I’m too stupid or just wasn’t paying attention, but I had NO CLUE that some people actually believed Saddam was involved with 9/11 (apparently, I wasn’t alone - one of my favorite links from 2002), and that is why they supported the invasion of Iraq. In fact, it wasn’t until after “Mission Accomplished” that I first heard anyone suggest any connection to 9/11.

Was I too smart or too stupid?

In the five months before the invasion (Nov 2002 to Mar 2003), I took a job as a substitute teacher for the local school district. One of my proudest moments was in February when I got a High School history class discussing the possibility of invading Iraq: “Why Iraq?”, I asked again and again. Those 17 & 18 year old kids figured out on their own what 69% of the nation hadn’t: “Because we can” was the ultimate conclusion. “Iraq has no nuclear weapons. Iran may or may not already have them, and we know for sure North Korea does. Iraq was the “Marty McFly” to our “Biff Henderson” (my anology, not theirs). Notice “connected to 9/11″ isn’t in there. And inspectors were IN Iraq bulldozing four al-Samoud missiles a day, so Saddam was being disarmed.

I’d like to think I saved some lives that day if just one of them thought twice about enlisting after graduation.

On my last day as a teacher, I taught a 7th grade class. The bonus spelling word I gave them was “A word you’re probably hearing a lot in the news lately: inspections” (several complained the word was too easy), hoping to get the message across to them that WAR should ALWAYS be an “avenue of last resort”. It troubled me deeply (and still does to this day) that this Administration was so eager to unnecessarilly invade another country - preemptively no less - without regard for the consequences. And as we’ve since learned, they never even thought about AFTER.

So I ask you dear reader, “what did I miss?” At what point did everyone suddenly come to the consensus that Iraq was involved with 9/11? I must have been sick that day. Yes the Bush Administration constantly tried to equate the two in their speeches, but since I never actually heard anyone actually say, “Saddam was involved with the attacks of September 11“, I never put the two together.

Am I a dullard or something?

This entry was posted on September 18, 2006 at 12:04 am and is filed under Political News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.