This is the dirty ugly reality behind the exuberance which is said to have motivated this act of sexual assault – we were cheering for the loss of untold human lives and the devastation of communities. This image was used to humanize and soften the crude brutality of warfare and we as Americans hung our hats on it. It is incumbent upon us to really consider what we’ve been saying about ourselves all this time; to take responsibility for facilitating and glorifying mass murder under the guise of heroism. Literally romanticizing its horror through an image of rape. It is a scandal of existential proportions.