I think it is important to realize that not all soldiers are like that. That is not to say that I support the war in Afghanistan – I never did, any more than I support/ed the war in Iraq. What I do support, with the exception of insane fucking rogues, are the troops we stuck over there. Short of some evidence that he was such a soldier, I will sympathize with his family and accept it was a useless waste – just as I think of the people he may have killed and the waste of their losses.

In all honesty, and I know there are people who would totally disagree with me on this, I do not have the least sympathy for the loss of the folks who are engaging in the sort of slaughter depicted in the video I assume you are talking about. I think that rather than there hypothetical deaths being a waste, I think they themselves are a waste of resources.

But I know people who have spent a great deal of time in Iraq and/or Afghanistan. A couple of people I know are there now. I have a cousin who spent the better part of two and a half years over there, who is now an instructor at a sniper school. I have seen him a couple of times since he went over – he looks like my cousin, with a few more years on him. But that is where any resemblance to the man I knew before he went to war. He is not the only person in my family or among my friends who was taken from us by war while still breathing.

None of these people are bad people. Some are rather misguided, while a couple – including my cousin, were just shooting for a college education and had the misfortune of doing so when war broke out. Like my cousin, a couple of them have taken human lives. I think this is horrifying – and so do they. But they did what they did, because that was their job – a commitment they made.

I guess what I am saying, is that I have a great deal of sympathy for the Afghans and our troops.