I understand your reasoning, but the fact that this image is five years old and still provoking a reaction would suggest that this isn't always true (in terms of people becoming conditioned/ used to it).

More importantly the WBC use the same line of justification - it doesn't matter that you (or the dead person, who can't argue) might be insulted or disagree, or that the occasion means it's inappropriate; you're basically making the decision on their behalf that your opinion is more important when, to me, it's no different from what the WBC do - the actual content of your beliefs is irrelevant in situations like this, because you've already lost the moral high ground by forcing the focus onto your own agenda.

This is true here because the post wasn't published with a title of 'this is what our foreign policy has resulted in' or similar (even though that would be making the same mistake) - it was a tribute to the devotion of the SO and comrade - the grieving widow will indeed provoke anger and questions about foreign policy (as it should), and I'd never suggest that it shouldn't be discussed at all....just not here. What's galling is that so many are quite happy to do this anyway 'because they're right', all the while not seeing how they're behaving in exactly the same way as the WBC and polarizing any comments in a comic-book Jack Ryan style - 'you must be a war monger' etc. for not automatically agreeing with them (so thanks for not doing this!).

I'm not sure an invasion of Iran would be the best course of action, for instance, but again you could blame the USA and call them warmongers, etc. - or you can question why Iran would need to refine their Uranium beyond energy-production levels and look at how reasonable their decisions have been up to this point; I would suggest the possibility of their gaining nuclear-level weapons combined with a fierce religion-based law (only the bits they like, though) would be more of an incentive for most people to discuss invasion or other courses of action as opposed to these things happening simply because 'people are used to them'. Folks said similar things about the Vietnam war, for instance, but it wasn't as if Gulf War 1 happened simply because Americans were used to it; looked at from that point of view, after Vietman it's amazing that it happened at all.

And while tragic images such as this are seen by the anti-brigade as a perfect example for why this sort of thing should never be allowed to happen, the pro-brigade will generally wonder why it's assumed that they're treated as if they hadn't considered this being the ultimate cost at all. I never get that far myself - to my mind, anyone that's a parent has a responsibility to their child first, country second and as such shouldn't be allowed to serve in a high-risk position on the production of their first child; it's not as if there's a shortage of recruits...and there, you could argue that I'm doing the same thing - I shouldn't really be saying 'what was he doing in the army when he had a kid on the way' at his funeral.