without an end

I seem to be viewing many documentaries lately, but the one I presently feel compelled to write about is "Taxi to the Dark Side" -a deeply disturbing film about an innocent Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar who was (like me, only 22 years old) beaten to death at Bagram Air Base --after being designated a PUC (person under control). He was found dead five days after his arrival, and yet it was due to "natural causes."
According to those who abused him, the men interrogating Dilawar believed that he was indeed an innocent man; however, they continued with the torture because they thought that was basically standard procedure, and ultimately acceptable given the circumstances. One man said that he and fellow soldiers were simply told, "Soldiers are dying; Get the information." This no-holds-barred attitude (combined with the fact that these soldiers had a mere five or six hours of actual interrogation education beforehand) led to Dilawar's legs being so badly beaten that the coroner said it looked like a truck had run over them.
These men had no clue about the Geneva Conventions. They only knew what they were told to do, and they THOUGHT they knew how much torture a prisoner could handle. As one soldier mentioned, when everyone is putting in 16 hour workdays, no one has time to read any manual of any kind, and learning about humane treatment is the furthest thing from their minds..
And so I wonder: why are U.S. soldiers still fighting in two other countries? After such a tragedy, why do we not take a step back and question EVERYthing? Why are Americans continuously risking their lives and taking the lives of others in the name of a government that practices such torture and inhumanity?
I remember Sept. 11 2001 very clearly. I remember in English class we were glued to the small tv screen, wondering what it meant, wondering how many were hurt, wondering what was going to happen next. I remember the look on my mother's face when I came home from school that day. I remember suddenly seeing flags everywhere I went, and non-stop talk of patriotism and unity. I remember a cold rainy night in the center of town, listening to my friend sing a song at a candlelit vigil, to honor the memory of her aunt who was killed on one of those planes.
And yet-
I cannot remember what has brought us here.
To enter high school, graduate high school, enter college, and graduate college, all during a period of war.... It seems surreal and strange and sick and disorienting to me.
If this is what a woman turning twenty three years old in the United States is feeling during wartime, I cannot imagine what Iraqi and Afghan citizens of my age are thinking/feeling/wishing/dreaming/seeing/yearning for overseas.