I agree with PvK on the Patriot Act thing (shudder), but regarding newbie's post about the reaction of the President to 9/11, I think people place too much on one person. Presidents have a whole host of advisors and analysts to simply tell them what the best course of action would be, so regardless of who is in office, I think the response would have been appropriate (although in varying levels of intensity, to be sure).
As for the invasions (especially of Iraq), the current (Bush) administration has said that these plans were discussed back in the previous Clinton administration, and the Clinton folks said they inherited it from the first Bush administration as a contingency after the first Gulf war. I'd probably worry more about Congress, which has many members who have been there for decades and decades, and who also have the tenure and authority to pass what they want through...one of the reasons so much seems to be happening also is that both executive and legislative branches are heavily aligned, facilitating things for everyone.
And for anyone reading into that, no, I'm not praising or denouncing either of the precious parties.
I -try- not to delve into politics... it's such a departure from my ideal of 'representation' nowadays it's not even funny.
In WWII news and movies, I don't know how historically accurate it was (I'm not the war mavens that you guys are), but I really liked Enemy at the Gates. Band of Brothers is on my list of things to see, so it'll be cool as I read someone here had mentioned it was dead-on historically accurate.
Probably my more shocking discoveries of WWII was what happened to Berlin -after- the Red Army hit it:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1939174.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,38...102275,00.html
zen