So the latest outrage in Afghanistan is the photo/video of some Marines urinating on the dead bodies of Taliban fighters.  It is outrageous in fact so I suppose on its surface, these acts are fit to be condemned.  I won't argue that in any way, nor will I attempt to paint one side as better or worse than the other.  How can a person who has never been toe to toe with another person who's goal is to kill you and everyone who believes the things you do ever understand what happens to another's psyche when the battle ends and you are still alive?

This doesn't justfy those acts, it is meant only to try and give insight to people who for whatever reason cannot or will not accept that any war is no more than commiting atrocties until the enemy can't stand any more of them.  I am not shocked that there would exist photos of those acts and anyone who believes that the Taliban doesn't have its share of atrocity photos are just fooling themselves.

What I'm getting to here is that atrocity is war at its most basic level and if you want war for any reason then those atrocities are your's as well.  No war is endorsed by a God.  No war is fought because both sides choose it, all wars are attempts to gain power over the masses.  They are grabs for money, territory, or control.  All by the few who will gain the most by spilling the blood of those with the least.

Soldiers have nothing to gain personally.  Working men and women have nothing to gain personally either, no the gain falls squarely in the pockets of those with most of the power already.  The people who fight them suffer for the rest of their lives, the parents who lose their children, the children who lose their fathers and mothers, the friends who lose those friends forever.

We tend to justify war by saying that the enemy is wrong on this level.  We grasp the the thin excuses we are given to account for the loss of lives.  We need those thin straws to make us able to function without becoming outraged at those losses.   In short without the means to fool ourselves into believing tht the deaths are somehow justified or nessecary then the whole exercise has no meaning and the lives lost were no more than the waste of good human beings.

 I've met few who did not think that this concept was worthwhile, have those who want war fight them, let the rest of us grow up, raise our children, eat, drink, and just generally live the life we want to.  Let the rich and powerful play the life and death game with each other instead of us.

I am guilty too.  Anyone who is a part of the nation that trains and deploys these men to risk life and limb bears this same guilt.  The acts of children who face the worst of this world can't be condemned for reacting in a way that has been implied as the proper emotion under those circumstances.  The real outrage is war.