“Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger." Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

Ok, I realize this may seem a bit out there. I too am hesitant to make comparisons between our current administration and the Third Reich (perhaps a comparison to Stalin and his cronies is more accurate). But anyway, please take a minute to think about the message that this administration has sent to the American people and to the world. By going to war with over 62% of the country opposing military action at the time, George Bush and all of our elected officials--Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians--have failed to take the national consensus and conscience into consideration. In other words: WE HAVE NO VOICE!!!! Granted almost 70% of the country now agrees with this war, but remember the Nazis and Hitler enjoyed an astonishingly high approval rating closer to 80% from day one of the 1933 Beer Hall Putsch. Are we to automatically assume that because we are at war, we must quiet any dissent? What if Bush had taken the same action against a country of white Christians? If we are to assume that all protests and disagreements must stop once we are at war, because to dissent is to be ‘unpatriotic’, un-American, and not in support of our Armed Forces, then we must assume that we would also quiet down and happily endorse any military action that this administration might take. This is a mirror image of what happened in Hitler's day. The German people, frustrated by an economy crippled by the Weimar Republic, still brooding over their defeat in WWI, and still injured by the invasiveness of the Allied attack that the First World War brought, willingly rallied behind a charismatic leader whose spin doctors launched one of the most incredible propaganda campaigns of all time. His Messiah complex and his hatred of the Jews was brilliantly masked by pro-German sentiments. Maybe it is time to stop and ask ourselves: Would we be so willing to support this war if the victims on the other end were white or Christian? And if we had been attacked on September 11th by a rogue band of Irish citizens would we know be bombing England and mobilizing troops around all of Great Britain? In all of this, we need to remember and REMIND people that absolutely no one - from Donald Rumsfield to George Bush to Colin Powell to Richard Perle - has been able to establish any form of direct, identifiable link between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 terrorists. That argument is as circuitous and flawed as Hitler's argument that the Jews were responsible for the downfall of the German economy and state. But the Germans bought the argument. Why shouldn't we?