Well, I often tease the board about "it takes a bullet to liberate an Iraqi", but that does not mean I denegrate the soldiers.

What I think about the ROE:

I have a lot of military men in my family, and its a life style that is really tough to grok, and its a life style I respect. On one hand, and I think most of the military folks would agree, the military is the fist-and-helping-hand of the country- and their duty and self-chosen lot in life is to fulfill that role with their very lives. HOWEVER, part of the covenant between the military and the people, in our country, is that we will not waste their gift, their lives, on worthless objectives. I don't study military social structure, etc, but I think this sums up what the military folks I have known have told me.

Now, here is the rub- what is a worthless waste of their lives? One guy told me that NO military men should be risked to spare civilians. We should fire high-velocity rounds right through the brick-and mortar houses that line the Baghdad streets at the first sign of resistance, and plow our Abrams right through houses that even look suspicious- anything more is a violation of the covenant and a waste of the lives of our fighting men. (obviously, I SERIOUSLY disagree).

Now, some would say nation-building in general is out- well, to NOT nation build seems like a waste of soldiers lives, as nation-building after conflict is the ONLY thing that has produced peace and stability.

I think that if the Iraqi civilians even THINK our boys look at them as enemies, it will encourage them [the civilians] to look at the US forces as occupiers that must be fought- indeed, this is the 'natural' direction things are heading IMHO. Now, if things go to a 'west bank' scenario, we are going to be loosing our soldiers daily and we will have wasted their gift in the first place.

So my general feeling is that we should be bending ourselves in a pretzel shape to avoid incurring civilian casualties... When a civilian approaches, our troops should smile and wave- EVEN IF there is a chanvce that the civilian might really be a fedayeen in disguise, or a civilian suicide bomber. The reason WHY I think that is that, again, the 'West Bank' scenario must be avoided at ALL costs, as it will grind up our boys like dogfood.

So I am upset at the Administration for another misjudgement, IMHO- one of a GREAT many they have made in this conflict. I think they need to raise the bar on ROE back to where it was.

Now, am I angry at the marine(s) who shot up that van? HELL NO. They are doing their best in a really f***** up situation. I would still shake that mans hand in a heartbeat and offer him whatever hospitality I had on hand (beer, scotch, food- whatever) - EVEN WHILE I hate this war and HATE our lame justifications for it- its not his fault.

The unsubstantiated myth about the anti-war crowd is that we think soldiers are criminals. I think the vast majority of us know who to blame and who is just doing their lifes dream/duty/job. I pin this on Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Oddly, none of even the HARDCORE anti-war folks from the 60's I know well ever called a soldier a baby killer or spat on them, none of them even know anyone who did or ever witnessed it. I wonder if this was one of those urban legends, or just spin from the right or ultra left.

In any case, there are discountable idiots on all sides of a conflict. In order to resolve the conflict with wisdom and reason, I think we must always discount the discountables- NOT use them as an excuse to believe what we believe or as justification for our position on the conflict.

Davin L.