Terrorists turned U.S. into bully

America is emerging from her mind-numbing shock and pain of 9/11, with increasing awareness that it may not be enough to blindly support the president's plans as patriotic duty or wave the flag and knee-jerk our way to war. It's our responsibility to question the actions of our leaders.

We go to war when countries have resources we want. North Korea has only poverty. We aren't going there. Iraq sits on resources we desire to control. We'll light matches in this Mideast oil field with no thought to future consequences.

We'll bomb from a distance and never see the faces of the innocent women and children caught up in our carnage. We'll say "how about you and them fight...we'll supply the weapons of mass destruction. This time you can be on our side"

This is not a righteous war against an enemy country. We need a bogeyman to vent our rage against and Osama's gone missing. We need to validate a military strategy that satisfies the testosterone response to beat the hell out of someone when we're mad...and enrich our military industrial complex.

Bombs cannot change the minds and hearts of a different culture when hope has been long destroyed. Grieve for mothers on both sides who will pay a price for the miscalculation of their leaders.

Why must the most powerful country in the world threaten and bully anyone weaker than us?

The terrorists may have won. We have changed and I am not proud of the results.