Americans always need a scapegoat to extract revenge on. Did anyone really believe the cowboy in the white house would not attack somebody to make this country think he was actually doing something in response to 9/11? Americans were so filled with blood thirst after that I don't think most people really cared who we invaded.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell