Eric,
 I'm sorry you missed the point of my message. War is so often packaged as the Patriotic thing to do, the right thing, the good thing. Many people blindly follow and simply wave the flag and send good men to die. Yes atrocities have been committed, are being committed all over the world. If we could wave a magic wand and stop them all that would be great but the world doesn't work that way. Do you really think we are over there to "save" the world? We went to war because we felt threatened by those mysterious weapons of mass destruction. Now that the "war" is over we are not welcomed with open arms. Some
of the people we "saved" from tyranny think we are the tyrants. Omar's arm simply should make us all think of the reality of war. It's not black and white, right and wrong. It's not a reality show that we watch on the evening news, it's blood and gore and death. It's fear. It's losing an arm, a friend, a life. All I'm saying is we need to be aware of the human consequences of a war and maybe the reality will help us avoid more wars in the future.