I ' m just saying that hindsight is 2020 . If you look at the information we were getting at the time , the choice was obvious . I understand why it happened , just as I understand why Trump was elected . But hindsight has little to do with what happens in the present . I was in my early 20 ' s post 911 . Yes , the populace was scared , mournful , and looking for blood . But there were a lot of people especially my age old enough to fight that were vehemently opposed to it . We were called every name in the book Terrorist sympathizers . unpatriotic . unamerican . hippies . the list goes on . The fact that we were none of those things only reassured me that we were right . I vividly remember the night Bush announced we were going to bomb Iraq . I was at a party with friends , and the TV screen cut to Bush standing at the podium . I immediately asked my friends to shut up and sit down to watch his announcement . Even though a lot of people in the room weren ' t interested in politics , they sat in rapt silence as he detailed the bombing that would commence immediately afterwards . When he finished talking , everyone was uncomfortable . Everyone knew it didn ' t feel right , and we talked about how we didn ' t want it to happen . You can try to contextualize it , but it doesn ' t give a fair shake to a lot of people who immediately opposed it . Our politicians , our president , and our intelligence agencies are to blame . not the American people .