More on the troops, Haditha...

Some excellent articles on the Haditha massacre: Robert Parry on Bush's own little My Lai incident; Dahr Jamail, who says there have been many such episodes during the course of this war; and Tony Swindell on a soldier's "Apocalypse Now moment":

Out of grief and rage, with the stench of his buddy's shredded flesh in his nostrils, the soldier stops asking questions and then begins making up his own rules with a rifle. He has touched the heart of darkness and there's no going back ever. Embracing the whore called war destroys morality, and doing all this in a dishonorable cause compounds the damage.

See also an outstanding article by Andrew J. Bacevich on "The Normalization of War," and the obsession our society has with militarization, global power projection, and war as a "spectator sport." This war fetish is encouraged as much by the pro-war rhetoric used by Democrats as it is by the Republicans' warmongering.

Lastly, a couple articles on the high percentages of undetected brain injuries among Iraq war vets here and here.