Lila, 

As former military I know you know that half the bullshit that is being said about our troops is, just that - bullshit.  There are always bad actors and it is a terrible and sad situation because of war. There will always be those that step outside of what is right.  Because we are in war and there is no draft, today our soldiers have 4 and 5 deployments under their belt before they are 24 years old.  They see their buddies blown up, their heads blown off, or find them in a ditch decapitated and it sits hard with them, but ratio wise considering the number of engagements, almost 10 times out of 10 they do what they are trained to do.  Last year when Eric was in northern Iraq with a Stryker Unit he said the locals were turning AQI in left and right.  All the army did was turn them over to the authorities, or the Iraqi Army.  If the local civilians got a hold of AQI, they wouldn’t always tell the US Army and - well, too bad for AQI.  The AQI would prefer to be in the hands of the Americans rather than the Iraqis or the civilian authorities.  That is what so many people don’t understand.  

No matter what everything looks like or what the media wants to say, the boots on the ground have had the hardest job, have paid the greatest price for it, and have worked harder with the Iraqis and the Afghanis than any member of congress, the right, the left, MoveOn, George Soros, or any conservative group.  They can all sit around and yell and scream and decide what should be done, but many of their actions cause unintended consequences resulting in civilians and soldiers dying.  

I cannot tell you how opposed to torture I am, but all of this brouhaha and releasing more photos may cause more problems in the mid East and ignite it once again.  How many of our children and relatives will be killed?  How many civilians?  What are the unintended consequences to the troops on the ground?  No one seems to want to look at those questions, we have become a talk show nation where someone’s words become more important than soldiers and civilians lives.

I do believe our country has to lead the way on this, hopefully it can change some of the mindset of the world.  I don’t know because they always operate out of their own interests.