I recently discussed American foreign policy with an attorney over lunch. Over the years, this fellow had generally shown himself to be thoughtful on many issues. He is a meticulous lawyer, charged with parsing out bits of relevant evidence regarding the dozens of cases on which he works every day.

It eventually became clear that he fully supported the U.S. attack on Iraq, though he was agonized over how badly the “war” was going. Why did he support the Iraq invasion? This is where the conversation got strange: Because of what “they” did to us (allegedly the 9/11 attacks). It’s because of what “they” planned to do (impose Muslim culture on all Americans). It’s because of what “they” stand for (“they hate freedom”). Further, we simply need to make them pay. We can’t let “them” get away with what “they” did on 9/11.

It became clear through this conversation that, for my acquaintance, all Muslim countries are the same. None of them can be trusted. All of them are at least somewhat guilty for 9/11. I challenged his over-generalizations, but my acquaintance would not back off. For him, all Muslims are bad. Further, it was clear to him that we couldn’t do nothing about 9/11. Doing something (no matter what it was) is far better than doing nothing.

It has repeatedly occurred to me that without the federal government’s 6-year national license to engage in bigotry and misdirected vengefulness, the invasion of Iraq would have been extremely difficult to sell. Based upon numerous conversations I’ve had with people who supported the Iraq invasion, bigotry and misdirected vengefulness justified their support of the invasion. For many people these things continue to justify any future U.S. military action in the Middle East. “They” have it coming.

In “The Real Lessons of 9/11,” Gary Kamiya does a much-needed psychological analysis on those people who have supported the sustained and misdirected U.S. military violence in the Middle East. Kamiya has really thought things through. Kamiya’s Salon.com article is an extraordinary piece of writing. The bottom line is that the mainstream media has not questioned the shameful emotions and ideology that justified Bush’s crusade in the minds of all too many people. Here are a few excerpts from the article, but I highly recommend clicking on the link and reading the whole thing: