Very well put. It's important that we recognize the history that led us to where we are, even if it's not a super beautiful history.

I remember this particular period relatively clearly. There was intense debate everywhere, it was the most polarizing issue for a very, very long time. I was on the dove-side of the debate. I remember having some extremely heated debates with "hawks" (all online - these hawks somehow just disappeared after the invasion when it it got more and more obvious that there actually were no WMDs...).