As long as it makes the troops look bad!

Michael Mathias at Pundit Nation linked to this picture from Iraq:

Caption: Iraqis reacted as American soldiers detained a member of their family in response to the rocket attack on the United States forces.

Photo: Maya Alleruzzo/Associated Press

Mathias writes:

Ask David Blaska what the “totality of Iraq” is for this family.

Isn’t funny how war isn’t a problem for some people—as long as it’s not their kids who are involved?

He's referring to a previous post, in which he says he doesn’t care that a recruitment office was vandalized. He compares that event to the death of an Iraqi girl, shot accidentally in March by U.S. troops.

The latter far outweighs the former, and nobody said otherwise, but it also doesn't tell the whole story. Not even close. That's why Blaska wrote:

"That's the totality of Iraq for our friends on the Left."

And Mathias totally misses the point, and by so doing, proves Blaska's point.

Mathias focuses all his attention on that tragedy of the little girl. Then he does it again, focusing on that single photo.

He wants to know what the “totality of Iraq” is for that family. That’s a stupid question: the totality of Iraq isn’t something you can see from street level, or from a single person's vantage point.

Except as far as Mathias is concerned, that is the totality of Iraq. A tragic death. A photo that makes our troops look like brutal thugs. Never mind that our troops willingly put themselves in greater danger to prevent civilian casualties. Never mind that, had it been Saddam’s police raiding that house instead of U.S. soldiers, that family’s fate would have been much, much worse.

It makes U.S. troops look bad, so that’s the totality of Iraq. That’s where Mathias is coming from.