Making Iraq Safe for Gasoline

Today, a soldier was shot and killed while protecting a gas station in Mosul. A gas station.

The irony and tragedy of this is almost beyond words. The naked futility and servility in which the U.S. military finds itself, surrounded by hatred and finding itself dying managing gas lines, create a schism in the infantryman's mind. The disparity between the reality they experience and the news stories their loved ones are seeing is past the smirk stage with these guys and is now starting to feel like denial of Why They Are Dying. The honor is gone, and the ignominious deaths of their comrades can't be reconciled with the empty rhetoric of Bush and his minions. They long ago realized they are expendable slaves to Halliburton and, I promise you, are deeply, deeply resentful of the people and reasons they were sent to Iraq.