... yet 51 or more Afghans are killed just about every time the US drops one of its megabombs in a "surgical" strike, or blasts a "single suspect" from 7000 miles away via a radio-controlled remote killing airplane.

Americans (justifiably, I must add) feel horror and grief at the death of one of our own. Yet there's rarely any matching concern for the "collateral damage" - innocent Afghans, Iraqis, Vietnamese, or whoever - that our military forces inflict on other humans.

This US soldier got all the best that 21st century medical technology could provide. Cost was no object. Our innocent victims - that "collateral damage" again - are lucky to receive anything but medieval-era first aid. Ironically, these are the folks we are saying that we're "protecting", and not the opposing forces we say we are fighting. These are the innocent bystanders, the wedding parties, the processions of elders going to national and regional assemblies of their governments.

Why is there so little concern when US forces blast apart the people we're allegedly fighting for? Why doesn't it register that this may decrease these peoples' gratitude and support for their occupation?

What's wrong with us, as a society?

Our Senators don't seem to be listening to Wendell Potter. Why not? What kind of PR campaign is the health insurance lobby waging against him?

Inquiring readers need to know, so we can pass your reporting along to said congress beings!

No kidding - thanks for any efforts you can make in looking into and publishing this.

Several writers have expressed righteous rage that Mr. Potter spent even one day helping the medical insurance industry. Why didn't he speak out decades ago?

Maybe he was paying the mortgage. Maybe he was supporting children. Maybe he was concerned that if he started talking, not only would he be fired, he would also be blacklisted and unable to get employment ANYWHERE.

It's much easier to be righteous and good when you have only yourself to look after. That's why religious men --ahem, MEN -- go off and become hermits or pilgrims. No possessions, no responsibilities, free to figure out what "good" and "God" mean, and with nothing and nobody to get in their way.

Welcome to the real world. Everybody else has conflicting needs, conflicting responsibilities. Do you Help Mankind, or your family, first? What do you do if these are opposite goals?

Thanks, timothy3. I was under the impression that Mr. Potter has admitted, many times, that he was on the side of evil for 20 years. That he regrets this. That now, he's trying to do what little he can to turn things around.

I personally am not big on belaboring apologies. The one demanding the apology is so often the bully, who will never be satisfied, who just enjoys using supposed "victim" status to make the other grovel repeatedly - witness the Clinton impeachment, or any other situations where Democrats interact with Republicans these days.

I'm willing to give Mr. Potter the benefit of the doubt, particularly since he isn't raking in the big bucks, like former members of the lately-departed Bush administration who got theirs and now are getting even more by telling all.

Of course, your mileage will vary! No reason why we need to share the same opinions.

Hi, Mike!

"You don't get a free pass for doing unethical things just because you have a family and a mortgage. People who have families and mortgages get put in jail on a daily basis for doing illegal things. Potter may not have done anything illegal, but his work certainly caused the death of others. So, I don't think I'll be cutting him any slack."

Well, I didn't mean to imply that Mr. Potter should get a "free pass." Moreover, it looks as if he did nothing illegal - more's the pity. It's incredible how much human suffering and even death you're allowed to cause, so long as you do it with a checkbook or a spreadsheet, instead of a gun or a knife.

I can't agree with your assertion that "However, what Potter did goes way beyond the normal failings of everyday people." He was part of a huge network of businesses, each made up of everyday people, who were cooperating in doing exactly the same thing as he was doing - and who among them have come forward? He worked within an industry where many ordinary people told dying policyholders to their faces that their years of insurance premiums didn't mean ANYTHING, because now they were sick and thus ineligible for coverage. I'd call that pretty brutal.

Sure, Potter did bad. But he could have done worse, and now he's trying to set things right. I give him credit for that.

Being as from your from New Mexico, too, I liked this part:

"Ethics seems to be something that everyone thinks that we should pay attention to only when convenient. "

If even then! Thanks, Mike!