Jim, I don't see that you, or any other American needs to apologise to anyone for this stuff.
"War is Hell" - All humans are animals, particularly in the brutal situation of war.
Mankind is doomed I say...doomed!
We are kidding ourselves that we have become more civilised (and I'm not talking about American's, Iraqi's, Aussie's or any race or country - the whole darn lot of us).
Watch the cow dung that goes on between kids at school, neighbours, office workers, politicians, in fact anyplace you get more than one or two people together.
People can't get on on a small scale, let alone on a global scale, and the more of us there are, the more competition (for resources, men, women, toys, software, food, water, oil, cars - just about anything) there is. People are increasingly under stress.
The media keeps us posted about the increasing amount of bad stuff in the world.
Some people are lucky to have been born in a comfortable country, some are not. The ones who are not want to go to the "better place", the ones who are in the "better place" don't want them there, because the "better place" will no longer be a better place once they get there.
Those who are the haves, feel a certain amount of subconscious guilt about how good life is.
Those who are have nots feel angry about the injustice of being a "have not".
Humans have some deep down self-destructive abnormality. It makes us:
- believe we are the most important animal on this planet
- destroy our only home (don't gimme any nuts about colonies on the moon and mars etc. - if we ever DO get there, we'll just trash them as well), with toxic by-products, detruction of forests and animal habitats
- hate people and things we know nothing about
- keep breeding when it's probably a good idea to slow down a bit
We will still be fighting each other as the toxic atmosphere makes living on the surface of the planet impossible. Then we'll fight each other in the large sewer pipes that will have become our home.
Mankind will never stop fighting, it's in our nature. We are beasts. We are doomed I say...doomed!