But wasn’t it rude to invade Iraq in the first place?

Quite an outrage has developed over the so-called testy e-mail exchange between the employee of an online retailer based in West Allis and an American soldier stationed in Iraq. Owen Robinson raises the stereotypical specter of the Vietnam-era soldier who was spit upon and forced to endure taunts of “baby killer.” Jessica McBride has the lowdown on why she is free to criticize the employee who should nevertheless not have felt free to be critical of the soldier even though he, the employee not the soldier, is free to do so because that freedom, after all, is what the soldier is protecting in Iraq.

I was handling all of this reasonably well until I came across Patrick McIlheran’s post, where he bemoaned the unfortunate “rudeness” of it all and lectures on the inherent differences in exercising free speech and just being a jerk. That seemed to be a bit much, coming from a guy who appears to be paid for his ability to combine the two.

The alleged offending e-mail, which has been reprinted everywhere, describes the employee as telling the solider that the company does not ship to military addresses before adding:

“...even if we did, we would NEVER ship to Iraq. If you were sensible, you and your troops would pull out of Iraq.”

Now, I don’t know how many rude e-mails get sent on a daily basis, but as a recipient of the odd discourteous electronic communication, this doesn’t really rate that high in my book. There’s no profanity, no threats, no name dropping of senior management. Nothing, really, that should initiate any kind of sustained outrage. At least not through the lunch hour.

And, in fact, at a basic level, the employee communicated what a majority of Americans believe and what a majority of members of Congress believe.

Are we not supposed to let the soldiers know that the country is no longer supportive of a continued American military presence in Iraq?

And anyway whose feelings should we be protecting? Earlier this month the UN reported hat more than 34,000 Iraqi civilians died in 2006—an average of 94 every single day.

Many of those who died were blown up while they were out shopping or trying to find a job or going to the mosque or just waiting for a bus. Many were children. When was the last time Owen or Patrick or Jessica tried to say anything that was sensitive to the feelings of ordinary Iraqis? How about some feeling for their plight?

After all, as measured by human lives, their sacrifice far outweighs the sacrifice of Americans, and by far.

Or isn’t pointing that out good for ratings or hit counts?

The landscape for the country’s policy in Iraq is changing and changing fast. Newly-elected Virginia Senator Jim Webb, who gave the Democratic response to President Bush’s state of the Union speech on Tuesday noted in his remarks that:

“The majority of the nation no longer supports the way this war is being fought; nor does the majority of our military. We need a new direction. Not one step back from the war against international terrorism. Not a precipitous withdrawal that ignores the possibility of further chaos. But an immediate shift toward strong regionally-based diplomacy, a policy that takes our soldiers off the streets of Iraq's cities, and a formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq.”

Isn’t that just another way of telling the soldiers we want them home?

I would prefer if the soldier in this case just put down his weapon, went to his commanding officer, and said that he would no longer fight a war that we shouldn’t have been fighting in the first place. In my view, that would be an honest, courageous, and patriotic thing to do.

Barring that happening, I’m supporting policies that extricates this country from the nightmare the Bush administration has created over there as soon as possible because it doesn’t now and never did make any sense for us to be there.

And I guess I don’t particularly care whose feelings are hurt by my conviction about this because, deep down, I think the parents and spouses and children of the soldiers currently in Iraq want the same thing.