Last night, I watched the latest PBS Frontline episode, entitled “A Company of Men,” which documented the activities of one company of Army soldiers during one month of their duties inside Baghdad. You may have heard that PBS gave its local stations the option of airing two different versions -- one that included strong language on the part of the soldiers in the documentary and one that had such language edited out, in case stations were afraid the inclusion of the strong language would result in indecency fines from the FCC.

At any rate, as with all Frontline episodes, this documentary was very well done and very fair in its reporting. It neither glamorized nor condemned what this particular company of soldiers was doing. It succeeded in illustrating the day-to-day realities that many soldiers face in Iraq. At the end of the episode, the narrator summed it up nicely when he said (I’m mostly paraphrasing), “We couldn’t help but admire the courage and bravery of the soldiers in Dog Company. At the same time, we also saw the blunt nature of the U.S. as an occupying force and the tensions that their presence produced.”

My personal reaction? I was a little surprised myself -- I couldn’t help but think that considering the almost constant guerilla attacks that were being waged against American soldiers and Iraqis suspected of helping the U.S. that unless the U.S. stays there until peace and security is restored, then this whole operation would be even more of a colassal failure than anyone could have imagined. In other words, I believe that given that the U.S. iinvaded and is there, they should be allowed to finish the job. If not, if the U.S. leaves without restoring order, Iraq is likely to descend into utter chaos and most likely, a bloody civil war in which all Iraqis will suffer even more as a result.

I still think that the U.S. was morally and legally wrong and unjustified in invading Iraq in the first place. But like I said, now that we’re in there, it makes sense to me that we should make sure we leave things in better shape than when we found it.