Let Liam Madden talk

Liam Madden is the former U.S. Marine who is criticizing President Bush and his war policy. I guess the Marine Corp. is investigating Madden for breaking some kind of rule about wearing his Marine uniform.

I don't know what Madden was or wasn't wearing. I read somewhere that he took off his name patch and a few other insignias. The military has always been a mystery to me about all its traditions and rules, most of which seem pretty idiotic to me.

But I say let him talk, and I'll admit part of my reasoning is I agree with him, that Bush's war policy has placed soldiers in a situation that turns them into war criminals. I don't want to hear about war is hell, that the soldiers knew what they were getting into when they signed up, it's a soldier's role, blah, blah, blah.

They don't know who the enemy is, there is no clear goal, it's just turning soldiers into cannon fodder, and they're going to go a little crazy. And the responsibility--and the guilt--for that falls squarely on Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, and Ashcroft. Maybe these elected officials aren't pulling the trigger (well, except for Cheney when he goes duck hunting; sorry, couldn't resist.) But they are responsible for the deaths of all of those tens of thousands of Iraqis, and if they weren't American, every international court in the world would be going after their heads. If the leaders of another country did what the American government is doing in Iraq, they would be tried as war criminals.