<The poor kid probably had his arms removed in one of Uday Hussain's torture machines.

It's not necessary to muddy the waters any more than you have to. Odds are that this kid is indeed suffering from wounds from collateral damage directly relating to the war.

That doesn't change the basic questions:

At what point does this kind of suffering become worth a nation's freedom? Is living in slavery better than risking death for freedom? Assuming that the knock will always come on the next door and not yours, and that the people hauled to camps will belong to some other group?

Obviously nobody asked for this kid's opinion. "Hey, kid. You mind losing a few limbs so that other kids can live free?" A lot of Iraqis think the suffering will be worth it, although I would be more inclined to listen to such opinions from those who were actually suffering. The truth of this will come out in the next weeks, when the Iraqis will be able to tell us themselves. I wouldn't mind following up on this kid

Americans are dying too, and conscripted Iraqi soldiers who would probably rather be almost anywhere else than facing our tanks. These people also have families, and civilians aren't the only ones who count.

I've got no pat answers. I have my own preferences and philosophies. I didn't invent the term "Live Free or Die," and the concept is much older than American history, and I suspect older than written history. I personally feel this way, and I think most people do, although you don't really know how sincere someone is about it until the choice actually has to be made.

Slavery is a known evil, and many people have accommodated themselves to it. As long as someone else is in the death camps or torture chambers, who cares? The Aryan Germans seemed to have a pretty good future ahead of them in Nazi Germany. On the old plantations, a "house slave" had it pretty good. And God knows that for years the socialists have been touting the virtues of places like Cuba based on the free education and medical care. Freedom? Who needs it? Free goodies!

Heck, remember how the Hebrews bitched about the "good life" they left behind in Egypt as they wandered in the wilderness?

The Left has really got nothing left in its quiver other than the civilian casualty issue. Almost every other rationale against this war is collapsing in their faces with increasing evidence of WMD and support of international terrorism. Look for more pictures like this, and nonstop coverage.