BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A female suicide bomber in northern Iraq targeted buoyant soccer fans who had just watched their national team win a big match against China, authorities told CNN. At least 29 people were wounded when the bomber detonated her suicide vest in a marketplace in the Diyala province town of Qara Tappa, a predominantly Shiite Kurdish town with a Shiite Turkmen population. Twenty-five civilians and four police were wounded, with at least 12 of the civilians in critical condition. The match, which Iraq won 2-1, was watched avidly across the country by Iraqis of all stripes -- united by their love of soccer.
As sad and tragic as this news is, I can't help but wonder just how many more American lives have to be wasted in a country that seems hell-bent on imploding under the weight of murderous hatred and ignorance. Are we really to be expected to continue to sacrifice our loved ones for a country in which you can be marked for death simply because you don't possess the fervent religious hatred shared by a few quasi-religious zealots who'd sooner kill than listen to a differing point of view? My God, what is it, exactly, that we're fighting for? And how does the continued sacrifice of young American heroes contribute ANYTHING to stabilizing Iraq? How is it possible to build a functional, plural democracy on the bodies of dead Americans?
The correct answer, of course, is that there is little, if anything, the American military can do to stabilize a nation in which a segment of the population- however miniscule- is willing to turn themselves into human bombs. There is no defense for someone willing to strap on a bomb and wade into the midst of a crowd and detonate themselves, taking untold numbers of innocents into the Afterlife with them. How can the strongest military in the world possibly combat that sort of madness? Of course, you can't; there is no defense against hatred that consumes individuals to the point where they would gladly forfeit their own miserable, pointless lives. Their own life is deemed worthy only to the degree that they're able to rid the Earth of as many "infidels" (and "infidels" are, of course, anyone who happens not to share the narrow, ignorant, and horribly twisted prejudices as those who die to propagate them) as possible.
This is what our sons and daughters are dying for. Is this really worth it? How many more must be sacrificed for no real reason outside of preserving Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader's © legacy before we decide that enough is enough? If you still find yourself resisting the notion that Iraq is this generation's Vietnam, might I suggest that you remove your anterior from your posterior?
Jeebus, wake up and smell the cat litter, willya? Americans continue coming home in flag-draped boxes, and not only do we sit in mute acquiescene, we allow our elected representatives to do the same.
WE DESERVE BETTER...and we just might get it, if we weren't such a pitiful and mute aggregation of (&^%$#@ sheep.
