We are at War

There's been a decent amount of hand-wringing over this. I'm guessing that had this happened prior to the election, we'd have far more outrage:

The blacked out portion of the videotape, provided later to Associated Press Television News and other members of the network pool, showed the bullet striking the man in the upper body, possibly the head. His blood splatters on the wall behind him and his body goes limp.

Mr. Sites reported that a marine in the same unit had been killed just a day earlier when he tended to the booby-trapped dead body of an insurgent.

Interesting that the last line in the excerpt above [bold] was buried near the end of the article. Is it any wonder that the troops are uneasy and distrustful of the enemy? I don't defend murder or indiscriminate killings, but I also give the benefit of the doubt to our soldiers who are put in volatile situations with their lives on the lines at the hands of an enemy who has demonstrated that 'life' isn't their highest priority.

Perhaps it's telling how politics plays into war strategy. Had President Bush been assured that conducting the war would have been 'hands-off' in the campaign, we could have cleaned out Fallujah months ago and been in a much better situation in Iraq today.

UPDATE: From Althouse, here's more on the importance of Fallujah - from an Iraqi soldier's perspective - as well as more praise of what our soldiers are accomplishing.