El Greko:

Eventually crap dries, in some markets, the guano market, you can actually sell prehistoric crap...

Back to my point, which is a valuable one, as I'm the only one so far making it - I'm listening to a radio show where a New York Times photographer is being lauded over his telling photos of the war. One of the incidents he photographed was of the inside of a car with three dead family members, who according to the caption, drove through a US checkpoint and were riddled with bullets. A member of the family found his brother in the car, and towed it home. The NYT photographer took shots inside the car, followed the car as it was towed home, and photographed the female members of the family as they made the tragic discovery of their husband, brother, and son. The photographer sounds like a nice guy. He took well-framed shots. But are we learning a pivotal message of this war? Doesn't this happen in every war? It doesn't explain if the cause was poor language skills on the part of one or both parties, lack of clarity at the soldier's post (though I've yet to see a military checkpoint where it isn't clear there are armed men in uniforms and you're supposed to stop for inspection - even within the United States - and you can get shot going through them - even within the United States).

The show is a call in. Moments ago a young US soldier, home from Iraq, made the point that the news is concentrating on the insurgency, not the great amount of Iraq that is experiencing relative peace and greatly improved infrastructure. The reporter, and indeed the program host, told the soldier, "we understand your point, but let's say we're driving on the way to your water project, and on the way we see a plume of smoke go up, we're going to turn away from your water project and go to the smoke."

I'm making a point with relevance to this thread. These days you hear about the nasty stuff pretty much as soon as it happens, unfiltered by censors, but also by sense . Many people are so against the war, so outraged, that they are leaping at every plume of smoke.

I think there are reasonable arguments against starting this war in the way we did. I think there were both dishonorable and honorable motivations that impelled US actions. I personally think the President's father handled the situation better than W and his 'crew' have handled our current placement. If the US administration is considering documents displaying self-criticism, that's a good thing. That's how problems get recognized and solved.

Again, we have some real problems in the war and how it is being conducted. But we have a world that needs fixing, badly, and too many folk have their heads in the sand. We should be encouraged that we can establish forums and exchange opinions our own selves.