The terrorists and insurgents have made a goddam career out of using humanitarian impulses to get at their targets. Bombs in ambulances. Bombs in the corpses of babies. Bombs on their own corpses. Bombs under roads, rubble, or ammo boxes. Ambushes under white flags. Men pretending to be dead and turning over with a gun. Insurgents who become civilians, and then insurgents again, just by dropping or picking up weapons.

None of this excuses our behaving in a similar manner, but you can appreciate that a certain amount of paranoia might be inevitable.

As I told Mary Anne, if you want to trade American lives for moral virtue, it's a valid choice, and one that to some extent we've already made, otherwise we would have erased both Afghanistan and Iraq from the face of the earth in single night.

It's looking like some Marines have made some more practical choices under fire, and it's their asses on the line. Unlike the multiple war crimes of our enemies, ours at least will be called to account. Or maybe you hadn't noticed that this is being dealt with.

The kid is probably under confinement right now. Still wounded.

Would you feel better if I supported turning him over to the insurgency for beheading, or to have him hung on a bridge?

What the hell do you want, anyway?