Shooting War Bookslut Column

My latest comics column for Bookslut is now up.The Iraq War, and the context surrounding it -- from the curtailment of civil liberties in the United States and the United Kingdom to the through-the-looking-glass insane discussion of torture by a sitting president, from the continued slaughter of Iraqi citizens to the emotional and physical brutalization (by and) of American troops -- has an element of satire and sad, even bitter, absurdism that can make a writer of fiction freeze up. How in the hell can you treat the situation with the necessary savagery, respect, contempt, and intelligence? How do you avoid lapsing into two-dimensional stereotype? How do you convey the complexity?