Modern mass communications enabled politicians and ideologues to whip up war sentiment and castigate those who criticized the move to war as traitors.

So says historian John W. Dover, who was quoted by Bush recently in a speech justifying the unjustifiable war in Iraq. See we brought Democracy to Japan so we can bring it to Iraq. One wishes that Bush had read Professor Dover's article A WARNING FROM HISTORY:
Don’t expect democracy in Iraq, first published in the Feb/March 2003 issue of Boston Review, from which the above quote was taken. By the way, he was describing developments in Japan leading up to the launch of their disastrous war of aggression.