Cigarettes and War

I want to point people to a recent post on M-pyre showing the insanity of Americans protesting the fact that the photograph of the soldier in Falluja shown around the nation had him smoking a cigarette. Yes, that's right. We're fighting our most deadly war in 30 years and people are worried about the guy smoking a goddamn cigarette. You know, regardless of where you stand on the war, if you see a guy whose just been fighting in a battle, where he may well have killed people or seen a comrade killed, who gives a flying fuck if he smokes a cigarette. If you say that it sends the wrong message to our children, you are just a complete idiot.

What this really shows to me is how unconnected to the war the vast majority of Americans still are, even as nearly 1300 Americans have died and many thousands more still injured. I strongly believe that until Americans really understand what war is about, we won't stop this new militarism. There is one place in America that does know about war. That's New York City and you can see how they voted.