Eating words....

Having described this as a comical war is of course not taking war seriously. In many respects we can describe the justification and actions of the cavalier cowboy Americans as comical but in no ways can we ever describe war itself as comical. The left wing types who love to denounce the war( which I sometimes would include myself as) must keep their heads when attacking the Iraq war and those involved in it. Yes, it is farcical that some say the war is about freedom for Iraqis. The war is clearly about the pursuit of American goals in their grand strategy of making the 21st century an American Century by solidifying American global hegemony.
The focus of opposition is most often placed on those civilians dying in the war on the Iraq side and the heavy toll occupation takes on the Iraqi people. However American soldiers involved in this war cannot so easily be cast aside as baby-killers and war criminals. Abu Ghraib and other acts of such cruelty and barbarism are deplorable and certainly cannot be justified or rationalised in any way, but even most American soldiers can also be seen as victims. The average soldier did not join for glory or testosterone filled conquest of others but likely out of need. The average soldier is in a horrible situation where the value of life, other than his own and those closest to him, has been discarded. The soldier is in many respects living in what is close to a Hobbesian state of nature. We cannot hold soldiers to the same accounts as civilians and must respect the hardships they endure in spite of whether we agree with the mission.
If you care to glimpse into the soldier's lives in Iraq I suggest you click on over to frontline.org
and watch the recent docs on soldiers in Iraq before making any rash judgements about soldiers involved in Iraq.