Here's the part I can't get my head around. As a vet of Vietnam, I couldn't believe for a minute what was coming out of the government's propaganda machine nor could I believe what was coming out about 9/11. Knowing explosives and military proceedural safeguards - nothing added up. Iraq? WMDs? Get real! And, you were an "intelligence?" officer? People on the ground can tell you in a heartbeat, if they're asked. People with a planned agenda won't ask. People brainwashed won't ask. Just the process of trotting out excuses one after another and getting them shotdown should have alerted many that it was bull****. - So, how's that cheap gas working out for you now? Or, cheap heating bill? Price of food? Price of everything? 1/2 million dead Iraq's and a broken military with rising casualties each day after how many years? And, you were ready to believe a drug-addled, military deserter, rich kid as commander-in-chief? You didn't just get it wrong. You were just plain stupid or working for those which wanted others to believe?

Right on, J. Coleman. As a Vietnam Vet and former Army civilian employee, I learned a long time ago not to believe much that our government tells us. Even the top military brass has learned not to ask too many questions or to disagree with the boss. They have been taught to protect their career by buying into the BS from the politicians. And, our media has learned that just reporting the press releases is the easy way and keeps the doors of power open to them. Only when Americans start asking questions and not accepting the first answer they get will things turn around. They will be called unpatriotic and worse for asking, but ask they must. The media didn't do it and look where we are! Two countries destroyed, our military in shambles, our economy failing, and no end in sight.

I would respectfully disagree with a lot that you say in your post about the redemptive hawks. First, I don't think it is any great show of courage to do the mea culpa now, such confessions have been trickling out for years, and it is frankly largely a matter of professional interest as much as any real guilt that some are coming forward at this late stage. Just because Slate decided to package it, doesn't make it any great watershed. Clever magazine packaging, but no great sign of editorial courage.

But be that as it may, what you say about Litchbau is just not correct. He didn't make the decision to hold the NSA wiretapping story, his editors at the New York Times did. He and James Risen were against holding it; fought long and hard to get it out.

Furthermore, there were many, many journalists who held their ground and criticized at the time. All of us at Mother Jones, for example, and some in the MSM as well; some seminal stories were published by Knight Ridder and Washington Post reporters—though often these stories were buried deep in those papers.

But the larger point is while you or anyone else is handing out praise for those who admit their role in getting us into this mess, you might want to consider acknowledging those who really did take a stand. Back then, when it mattered and there were professional consequences for speaking
truth to power.

Clara Jeffery
Editor
Mother Jones

9/11 is the very reason we have the war in Iraq. The most catastrophic event to occur on American soil allowed for this administration to carry out a war under the guise of liberation. 9/11 instilled so much fear into the American people that we believed everything and anything we were told despite our convictions and judgment.

I know this 19 year old kid that was, until recently, on abilify (a drug to treat schizo affective disorder.) His reason for needing the drug was that 9/11 made him afraid and paranoid.

How many other 12 year old kids were that deeply affected by the events on 9/11 that they are now on anti-schizo drugs?

The issue isn't that the journalists got it wrong, but were rallying blindly behind a conniving administration, together, as patriots.

And it's sad that we were duped. On 9/11 our country was hijacked. The administration acted as the looters did after Hurricane Katrina.

But there was no National Guard to stop Bush and the Gang.

After listening to soldiers returning from Iraq, I am suprised more hasn't been written about the putrid water supplied by Halliburton subsidaries, the horrendous food, the cost of $7.00 a load for soldiers to get their laundry done. I talked to several who disillusioned decided to go back to Iraq but as private security making well over $100,000 a year. Who is paying these companies enough that they in turn can pay their employees such a great salary for putting their lives on the line.

The Fifth Estate has done as good a job with being objective as KBR has with delivering clean water. When Colin Powell hustled Yellowcake on us, did anyone in the press remember the swell job he did selling us My Lai back in '68? And that was before "embedded" became all the rage. We had a slogan back during the lean Reagan years in the Army; "The Clipboard is Mightier than the Sword!" We could only imagine the high tech promise of 'Star Wars, let alone the awesomely quick impunity of Slate, or News Max, for that matter.