Welcome to Combat, Dick Cheney:
Oh, Dick Cheney, you finally, at long last got to feel at least a modicum of what war is actually like. What was it like for you? When you heard the explosions outside the main gate of Bagram Air Base, where you allowed so many Afghanis and others to be tortured, did you feel fear? Is that possible? Even though we're told you were "far away" from the Taliban suicide bomber, did you smell the acrid burn of gasoline, sweet roast of human flesh, did it waft to your area of the base? Did you feel that agony in the pit of your stomach when the sirens went off, wondering, at least for a moment, how intense the attack was going to be, wondering if this was an everyday explosion or an invasion to get you, hoping that the area around you was fortified enough to fend off whatever might be coming?

Did you see the body parts rain down, pieces of perhaps 23 others who did die? Did you think about the arc of torn limbs in the wake of the blast? The rending of organs with shrapnel? The pouring down of gore, American and Iraqi, mixed like the leftover cuts of steak in butcher shop ground meat? Did you think about blood, Dick Cheney? Perhaps even your own?

When your delayed plane took off, did you notice the panic in your chest that your pacemaker had to regulate? Not knowing if the Taliban had your plane in the sites of their RPG launchers? Did you think about calling Lynne, telling her that it might be the last time you speak? Did you feel doom all around you, not knowing where it might come from, not knowing how to defend against it?

Multiply those feelings by every day for four years, Dick Cheney. Multiply them by thousands and thousands of soldiers. And you'll get the idea.

After standing on the sidelines for so long, after five draft deferments, after cheerleading destruction in war after war, after making money off Middle East conflict, is it possible that this one closer-than-comfortable moment might have some impact?

Nah. Chances are, for you, Dick Cheney, it all just gave you a massive erection and you wondered if Hamid Karzai could spare a boy or two for the afternoon.