Turmoil

Here's a conversation that started my contemplativeness today:
ME: I went to Wengatz & watched the news
FRIEND: ah
FRIEND: what's going on in the world? i haven't actually wanted a tv in forever
ME: Lots of bad stuff is going on.
FRIEND: uh oh
FRIEND: what?
ME: stuff in Iraq. Soldiers are still dying in random attacks, but, worse, Americans are no longer the 'good guys'- pictures were leaked showing Americans abusing and humiliating prisoners in the prisons in Iraq. Its a huge scandal. And makes me sick.
ME: And earlier this week, an American was captured and beheaded on film by Iraqis. There are atrocities on both sides.
FRIEND: yeah! i remember hearing about that and thinking it was aweful. what exactly do you mean by "sick", just out of curiosity?
FRIEND: (it's an unusal thing to hear from you, so i would like to hear you expound on it)
ME: It disgusts me. I am appalled anyone with the noble charge of being in the military could be so ignoble and mean-hearted, for absolutely no reason at all. And not just one somebody, a whole group of them, and not one with the moral sense to stand up and stopit
ME: I never really knew if I supported the war in Iraq in the first place, and now this...
FRIEND: yeah, i see
ME: and even if the stories about the people in the pictures being ordered to pose by higher-ups are true, how could the higher ups even justify it? They just seem to be doing everything wrong if they really want to, as they say, 'win the hearts and minds' of the Iraqis
FRIEND: *nods*

I promise not to go off here on how we in our Taylor bubble ignore the rest of the world. Promise.
I can truly say, I have never been as appalled and sickened by the horrors of what is going on in the world as I have this week. Maybe I should have been before, but it's just now hitting me. When I hear on the news something like 'Two soldiers were killed today, along with twenty Iraqi insurgents...' I can shrug it off. These things happen every day, right? But when I actually think about it-- that's two soldiers multiplied by two parents, a sister, a wife, a toddler, five high school friends, and a Sunday School teacher affected by these deaths, plus the families and communities affected in Iraq by the killing of each 'insurgent'-the personal stories and true and real hurts caused by this 'liberation' of a country, thinking about the losses of war on this level makes it more real. It makes the 'cost of war' skyrocket, to see how many lives are personally affected at home and abroad--and how many more of those lives affected are civilian and innocent.
It makes my heart sad.