Such a plethora of topics. I wanted to address the new icon I added to my sidebar - my pro-gay marriage graphic. Actually, at some point I wanted to address my feelings on homosexuality in general. Today, though, events bring me to a topic that I hadn't considered lately.

I've linked to Riverbend's blog before, so you can probably guess that I have a great deal of compassion for Iraqis who are just folks like most of us. I also have a great deal of sympathy for the soldiers and their families, some of whom are paying a tremendous price for this war in Iraq. I also feel a lot of pain for the workers from the U.N. and Red Cross. They are there to try and help - no more - and are getting blown up for their efforts.

So what do we do? I was anti-war before we went in. Now that we are there, what do we do? We went in, without any sort of international help (at least nothing substantive outside the U.K.), without any agreement from the international community. We blew the holy Hell out of their country from the air. Then we rolled across the desert in our tanks, APCs and Humvees, looking like some sort of latter-day cavalry charge. Of course, when we reached the beleaguered settlers (read: Baghdad and its citizenry) what did we do? Did we immediately set out to restore all the infrastructure we built? Did we work to secure the priceless historical artifacts from the "Cradle of Civilization"? No, but we showed our true intentions immediately. We secured the Ministry of Oil complex and set up security enough there to hold against an attack from some sort of mass army we expected to see, but which never materialized. So now we have a country which, despite having lost a vicious dictator and his even more evil sons, is perhaps even more dysfunctional than before. We went in and ruined their functional country. Regardless of who their leader was or what he did, is the current situation better? Is it going to become better anytime soon (I mean within the next five years)? We wrecked the joint, so it should be incumbent upon us to fix it, at least partially.

But what's the cost of that? Blood first of all. More blood every day. Soldiers from our volunteer army, not guys like President Bush the Younger or his ilk. Not guys like me who have jobs in cubicles. The guys for whom the military was a way to make something of themselves when no other opportunities were available. These guys made a personal commitment to themselves and to the country, and we should be very proud of them. But their blood keeps spilling onto the sand, and I do not see how to stop it, short of getting them out of there. But to get them out, we either have to complete the task (at a cost of billions of dollars and much more blood), somehow get the U.N. to come in and take over or just abandon Iraq. None of these is a good option. How about the stresses that the combat troops are under? Looking at Atrios today, I see that our returning soldiers have the same sorts of memories as the kids in Vietnam did. Small wonder - I'm sure the great majority of Iraqis are good people who do not, in general, wish harm upon our soldiers. Still, if you are over there, how do you deal with the fact that every man, woman and child may be an innocent or may be about to kill you? How do you make snap life or death decisions like that? What happens if you guess wrong and an innocent dies? If you have your own family at home that you are responsible for, can you afford to have anything less than a hair trigger? What happens when your best efforts to save yourself and your family kill another and tear someone else's family apart? I feel for anyone who has to make such a decision - I do not know how I could and keep my sanity intact.

Our best option would seem to be to get out and let the U.N. take over. Given the events of today why would the U.N. or anyone else want this job? I know there is a lot of anger and hate toward Americans in Iraq, but, for the love of God, why is it being taken out on people working for the U.N. or the Red Cross? They are not there to plunder or kill, they want to help!

All I feel is sadness and frustration. Innocent people such as aid workers, American soldiers and Iraqi civilians are all dying for this war. More innocent are going to die, because the United States will not leave Iraq until the oil wells and the production facilities are pumping dollars into the pockets of the war profiteers.

There's really no truth here, just unanswered and maybe unanswerable questions. That and death.