Ongoing Tragedy in Iraq

I don't know if it's just me, but the kidnapping and brutal murders of the two kidnapped soldiers brings the horror and brutality of war home far more graphically than hearing the numbers of casualties every few days. Certainly I understand the gravity of the death and injury in Iraq we hear about regularly, but the idea of kidnapping and torture affects me more viscerally.

Will others have a similar reaction? Will this tragedy make us realize the enormous futility of the war effort and the emptiness of the vacuum where our leadership should be? Certainly the tone deaf response of Tony Snow can't help matters--complaining to his former network that the media was focusing on the missing soldiers rather than the "good news" of Zarqawi's death. (And this was on top of his dismissal of overtaking the 2,500 barrier of soldiers killed in Iraq with, "It's a number, and every time there's one of these 500 benchmarks people want something.") And how many will notice today's "sense of the Senate" motion to oppose the Iraqi government's intention to pardon some insurgents who attacked U.S. soldiers that received nineteen Republican votes against it? What could they have been thinking--and what was Mr. Straight Talk John McCain doing among them? (The linked article offers the argument that the resolution "undermined the sovereignty of the new Iraqi government"--no, we wouldn't want the protection of American soldiers' lives stand in the way of that.)

I feel like my prose is flailing at the at the situation from frustration. For an extremely moving (if still angry) response to these two murders and the overall neglect the U.S. military in Iraq faces from its own leadership, check out Christy's post this morning at firedoglake. (But if you don't want to do that, at least read this infuriating article from Sunday's Washington Post magazine she links to that details some of the unconscionable neglect soldiers must face.)