Iraq

Had nothing to do with the attack on New York and Washington. Nothing whatever. But there were people in Washington who had been waiting for an excuse to go into Iraq. By 2001 there had already been eight years of sanctions. Sanctions which had killed at least half a million children, according to the three successive heads of relief at the UN who resigned in protest. Sanctions which had reduced a prosperous, healthy and educated population to a desperate struggle to survive. Those sanctions continued another two years before the invasion. Which has not ended.

Yes, 3000 people died in New York, and it was horrible. But what has been done using that atrocity as an excuse is far, far more horrible. If less theatrical.