Go read this story that illustrates the depths of savagery and depravity to which human beings can sink (and, ironically enough, it seems, most often in the name of some religion or other).

As the son of a post-WWII German immigrant, I’ve always been sensitive to the tendency to condemn whole national populations on the basis of the evil perpetrated by its worst members. The simple self-evident fact is that most people are good people most of the time, and things like culture, religion, race, gender and so on have little to do with it. It’s more about using one’s mind and taking responsibility for one’s own existence.

Still, it’s difficult for me to read a story such as the above and not wonder why in the hell the US has bothered with the likes of Iraq. Speaking collectively, which I try to keep to an absolute minimum, it’s hard to see those people as deserving of a goddamned thing from us.