What it means when the US goes to war

[Rank amateur]

This is especially evident by your constant harping on the crime of rape of civilians - which has been very rare in Iraq, in stark contrast to what occurred in the Balkans.

True. In any group of 150,000 men, there's going to be at least one or two rapists. Sad but true. It doesn't say anything about the other 149,998.

However, his overall premise is correct- War sucks. It is brutal, ugly, and tragic.

Again true. There probably are moral issues around making "brutal, ugly and tragic" "population centric." If someone brings them up in a calm, logical, non accusative manner, I'm sure we'll be able to have a very interesting conversation about them.