Son of a...

I've been visiting a blog that quickly and briefly summarizes the events in Iraq of the last twenty-four hours. They update every twenty-four hours with a brief summary of every article and news story about new happenings in that country. I mostly use if for keeping track of how many brothers I have lost each day.
Today I made the mistake of reading the commentary being posted in the comments areas.
I say mistake because it was all from fanatically anti-Bush, anti-Occupation, anti-War people. Even though there was some excellent citing of facts, issues, historical parallels, theories, outside thought, and other good things, the general attitude was as close-minded, reactionary, and half-informed as any collection of Republican support posts one could care to name. Neither was willing to entertain the idea that they might be wrong and that the other side might be right.
Even worse, emotionally, was the discovery that most of the arguments being blithely bandied about were financial. The pro-conspiracy, the anti-occupation, and some of the parallels. I was drawn into an interesting, if short-lived, debate over the role of the American military of the future (summary: should it be more police / security or more kill the enemy?) but this entertaining and enlightening discussion was mentally trumped by the horrified realization that the people posting cared far more for their precious dollars than they did for the lives and blood of fellow human beings.
I suppose that in their small-minded way they are unable to see the combatants, living and dead from both sides, as humans JUST LIKE THEM. Probably because they have never fired a shot in anger, heard a shot fired in anger, or been ready to fire such a shot and cannot quite comprehend that one can do all of these things and still be a fully functional and acceptably rational human being.
I'm a partial sociopath. I've killed people and I still feel no regret or distress over their deaths. That part bothers me, the lack of response, but I deal with it. The reason I mention this is that despite my capacity for monstrousness I fully realize, with every bit of my mind body and soul, that those people I killed were people just like me. They had families, girlfriends, hopes, dreams, and plans. They were fighting for their nations, just like me, and religions, not like me, and were willing to die for those causes, though they mostly didn't want to. These "humanitarian" and "open-minded" individuals seemed to pride themselves on their high value for human life and their moral superiority to all the warhawks and chickenhawks in the media and the federal government, yet they were unable to do something that this partial sociopath could easily do. It makes me wonder who is more messed up, me or them. My money is going onto them. At least I'm sane enough to know and admit that I am dangerous. It seems that they are so certain in their superior morality that they can't seem to see that those who fight and die are people too. Ironically enough, a charge they throw eagerly and repeatedly at the administration they despise.
I still intend to go there for my war news, and I'll probably stick my nose into the boards one or two more times. But now I understand why I've been staying with my webcomics instead of looking for information or updates about the conflict and the current theories about it.