With the possible exception of Afghanistan, none of the military adventures the U.S. has initiated since WWII have been directly in defense of the U.S. or its territories. Yet the people of this country, and their representatives, continue to act as if all military adventures are saving our society from external threats akin to those posed by Japan and Germany during WWII, and as if our military adventurers are good guys, if not heroes. Sean’s comment seemed to me to fall into the last part of this assumption. There is never a time for our leading thinkers to accept and promote unexamined assumptions, but I believe our society is currently in a perilous enough state that it is imperative that these leaders refrain from promulgating these assumptions.

If those of you who faithfully followed G’Kar’s blogging would like to fill the gap he left with another blog, I suggest http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com. Riverbend posts infrequently, and is now a refugee in Syria rather than a citizen in Iraq, but she does provide another internal perspective on the Iraqi adventure. All her posts since August 2003 are available. The following is from her Tuesday, July 11, 2006 post:

Rape. The latest of American atrocities. Though it’s not really the latest- it’s just the one that’s being publicized the most. The poor girl Abeer was neither the first to be raped by American troops, nor will she be the last. The only reason this rape was brought to light and publicized is that her whole immediate family were killed along with her. Rape is a taboo subject in Iraq. Families don’t report rapes here, they avenge them. We’ve been hearing whisperings about rapes in American-controlled prisons and during sieges of towns like Haditha and Samarra for the last three years. The naiveté of Americans who can’t believe their ‘heroes’ are committing such atrocities is ridiculous. Who ever heard of an occupying army committing rape??? You raped the country, why not the people?

In the news they’re estimating her age to be around 24, but Iraqis from the area say she was only 14. Fourteen. Imagine your 14-year-old sister or your 14-year-old daughter. Imagine her being gang-raped by a group of psychopaths and then the girl was killed and her body burned to cover up the rape. Finally, her parents and her five-year-old sister were also killed. Hail the American heroes… Raise your heads high supporters of the ‘liberation’ – your troops have made you proud today. I don’t believe the troops should be tried in American courts. I believe they should be handed over to the people in the area and only then will justice be properly served. And our ass of a PM, Nouri Al-Maliki, is requesting an ‘independent investigation’, ensconced safely in his American guarded compound because it wasn’t his daughter or sister who was raped, probably tortured and killed. His family is abroad safe from the hands of furious Iraqis and psychotic American troops.

It fills me with rage to hear about it and read about it. The pity I once had for foreign troops in Iraq is gone. It’s been eradicated by the atrocities in Abu Ghraib, the deaths in Haditha and the latest news of rapes and killings. I look at them in their armored vehicles and to be honest- I can’t bring myself to care whether they are 19 or 39. I can’t bring myself to care if they make it back home alive. I can’t bring myself to care anymore about the wife or parents or children they left behind. I can’t bring myself to care because it’s difficult to see beyond the horrors. I look at them and wonder just how many innocents they killed and how many more they’ll kill before they go home. How many more young Iraqi girls will they rape?

Why don’t the Americans just go home? They’ve done enough damage and we hear talk of how things will fall apart in Iraq if they ‘cut and run’, but the fact is that they aren’t doing anything right now. How much worse can it get? People are being killed in the streets and in their own homes- what’s being done about it? Nothing. It’s convenient for them- Iraqis can kill each other and they can sit by and watch the bloodshed- unless they want to join in with murder and rape.”

Riverbend’s posts are not required to be approved by the U.S. military, as all blogging by U.S. military personnel are supposed to be.

Two more items. I was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army after fulfilling a six year commitment. And–any man’s death diminishes me.

However little it is, I am grateful for having had this prod to read about him. I in turn was reminded of Moseley since his work was closer to my own quondam field of study.

I’ve never read OW, but I’m saddened by this reminder of the senselessness of war.

It is at times like this, that I wish I could honestly believe that “he’s gone to a better place”. Odd, really, since that thought wasn’t with me at my mother’s dead. Perhaps it is the helplessness. I gain no comfort from the idea, myself, but having experienced loss, I don’t wish it on anyone and I do wish I could offer some comfort to his family.

I’m rambling …

Anyway, I just think it’s not too surprising that someone responded to Sean’s opinion.

For the record, the criminals who got us into this disgust me; the soldiers who fight the wars we send them into do not, on the whole.

I thought that i had see to much death, While working in Dover A.F.B. To feel this much pain from someone i had never met before, Thank you Andy for letting me feel again, god bless you.

For non-native English speakers, AFB = Air Force Base.

e.