Its all based on adolescent revenge fantasies, the bullets dipped in pig's blood (that'll lurn 'em, durn 'em!). "Are you feeling lucky today, Punk?" We love our Dirty Harry Heroes. Those civilians allegedly killed weren't real people, they were Ay-rabs, Aye-raquis, and our brave troops were just brutalized by these mindless killers. You've heard the stories, the enemy is always hopped-up on drugs, or they're religious fanatics, or brainwashed Commies, even the little street urchins have hand grenades stashed under their turbans, and they rush out to slaughter us, even while we pass out candy and toothbrushes. And the Trumpers love to hear these stories because it justifies what they want to do to those little brown people.

We're no worse than anyone else in war, no better but no worse. We prefer to kill civilians and non-combatants from the video game computerized moral isolation of the stratosphere, or by shelling them from air-conditioned ships offshore, or by launching Tomahawks from submarines or Hellfires from drones. And we send our farm kids and street toughs, led by frat boys and Junior Achievement ROTCs, out there where they are brutalized and acclimated to violence and aggression. Its not their fault either, but it happens because its war and it always happens in war. Ever since Pharaoh's time.

Remember LT Calley? Did he or his platoon ever actually kill any enemy combatants? Or did they just lavish their vengeance on the innocent because the Victor Charlie they were fighting always melted into the forest when they heard the choppers coming. We march in straight lines and wear red coats, they hide behind rocks and trees and won't stand up to us in a "fair fight". Of course, we're the ones with the helicopters and the napalm, the Willy Peter and the depleted uranium. Did you know the Shrike missile has fiberglass shrapnel that won't show up on X-rays?

No, I'm not a pacifist. Some wars have to be fought, and some have to be won. And you can't win without somebody getting killed and a whole lot more getting hurt. And I have no illusions about innocents dying in combat, either from malicious psychopaths trained to kill unleashed on children or just by plain chaos and accident and bad luck, which is never in short supply in the battle zone. Sometimes it has to be that way, and its always unfortunate, and there is probably very little we can do to stop it except occasionally bringing justice to one of our own when he's caught red-handed.

And back home we make excuses for these accidental killers, not because they are actually innocent (although sometimes they actually are!), but because it makes us feel better, it justifies our side, it assuages our guilt. It doesn't matter whether its tormenting prisoners at Abu Ghraib, or slaughtering nuns in El Salvador, or gang-raping female Viet Cong in the back of a helicopter.

Did you get a load of Chief Gallagher? The rugged Hollywood good looks, the starched whites, the drop-dead gorgeous wife? That's what war looks like, baby. Its all in the eye of the beholder.

That's the Congressional Medal of Honor the President is putting on Conan. They say a room full of generals will jump to attention and salute if a private wearing one wanders in the room.