A few weeks ago 7 soldiers, mostly sergeants, serving in Iraq wrote a scathing Op-Ed for the NYTimes voicing their frustrations with the mission, the failure of leadership and the desperate condition of our military in Iraq. Their voices mostly disappeared into the ether, with little or no mention in the major media, no followup, no commentary and no interviews.

Contrast that with the two civilians, Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack - war supporters inaccurately put forth as critics, who spent a couple of days on a Pentagon scripted junket to Iraq and wrote their own Op-Ed in the NYTimes gushing about how swimmingly the war was going and that “we might just win”. Notwithstanding that such a sentiment is hardly what could be considered overwhelmingly positive it was touted endlessly in virtually all media outlets as “proof” that even “war critics” like O’Hanlon and Pollack were now convinced the surge was working and Iraq was a glorious Bush victory-in-waiting (we just might win!).

The soldiers saw it differently.

VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day.

And now the ultimate insult to these brave soldiers, who were ridiculed by rightwingnuts everywhere as disgruntled malcontents or simply ignored (nothing to see here, let’s move on). Of the seven soldiers who contributed to that Op-Ed piece one was gravely wounded before it was even published (he survived with a serious head wound) and now comes word that two other sergeants, Staff Sergeant Yance Gray and Sergeant Omar Mora, died a couple of days ago along with 5 other soldiers in vehicle accident in Iraq.

It has been popular to dismiss comments about how so many of the wingnuts cheerleading this war are “chickenhawks” by saying they have the freedom to choose but to have brave soldiers like these sergeants who are brave not only in battle but in bucking the wingnut military propaganda mentality unfortunately so prevalent in today’s military with the courage to state their opinions clearly and forcefully, have to lose their lives in this war is the ultimate insult by all war supporters.

Support the troops? Bush and his ilk don’t know what that means. Honor our soldiers? They haven’t a clue.

I mourn for these fine men and for all the fine men and women whose lives have been sacrificed in this unnecessary war which seems designed only to feed Bush and Cheney’s sick, twisted egos.

The level of disgust I feel now not only towards Bush and Cheney but to our politicians, Democratic or Republican, who sit by and do nothing and to the pathetic Fox News addicts cheerleading this disaster.

The American I grew up in may never exist again. These people are destroying our country.