With the enthusiastic support of CNN, Bush has relentlessly used the singed flesh of the people slaughtered on 9-11 to justify the monstrous lies that took us into war, and the lies that keep us there.

Strange how something happens and you're unaware that it "registers" with you. Later, perhaps, something will trigger that buried memory and things begin to fall into place.

Something happened on 9-11.

The day began with CNN's Wolf Blitzer frantically reporting that planes had smashed into Buildings 1 and 2 of the World Trade Center. They stood there, so tall that the smoke billowing from their upper floors could be seen for 20 miles. The scene was shocking, grisly, and the horror was broken only by the further news that a plane had rammed into the Pentagon. Death and destruction everywhere. Happening now -- right before our eyes.

It has become obvious that the opening salvos of the fight we have been waiting for have been fired. Over the last three years a huge on-line community has sprung up in large part as a reaction to the Bush Administrations push to war in Iraq. Although we have had many small victories in our quest to get the truth out to the American people, (the Downing Street Memo and  Jeff Gannon to mention two) I believe now comes the true test of our ability to shape opinion and policy.

As the polls show us, more Americans each day are questioning the validity of the Iraq War and the veracity of the claims made by this administration to justify it. In response to this growing discontent, the administration has launched a counteroffensive of misdirection and misinformation. As usual, their method is to attack the messenger rather than confront the message.  The attack on Rep. Murtha is only the latest example of this tactic.  

The general Republican defense seems to be that even to suggest that the administration might have misled the American people when making the case for war is a bold-faced lie, and making such a false accusation is nothing short treasonous.  We've seen the tactic used many times before, from Joe McCarthy to Richard Nixon, but this time there is something new in the equation: us.