They carried freedom on their bayonets and sincerely believed they were peacekeepers. Ordinary American guys in camouflage and their commanders, and commanders of their commanders, and even the very top one—the one sitting in the White House—were genuinely baffled: why do the unconscious residents of totalitarian countries fight so desperately against their democrats? After all, they are bombed and doused with napalm only for their own good, so they can gain the benefits of Western civilization. But Afghans and Iranians, Turks and Russians stubbornly wanted to live their own way and had their own opinion about what is good and what is bad. And they defended their view of the world with Kalashnikovs in hand and MANPADS on their shoulders. And even the strength of the only superpower on Earth was not enough for everything. And now, it flared up—in what seemed to be a long-settled Iraq…