I was on the golf course this morning.  I sneaked out early so I could play nine holes and be back before the family was up.  In that sense it was a successful morning.  My golf game is terrible, as it always is. 
One of the things I enjoy about playing nine holes is being paired up with strangers.  I view it as an opportunity to engage in conversation, and if possible, evangelism.  I focus my conversation on values, family and other such matters, hoping for the chance to share the basis and foundation for the values I have.
This morning the conversation turned to the question of materialism.  I made the point that the current generation does not understand the concept of sacrifice for a higher goal.  Previous generations, such as the generation that fought World War 2, understood the need to live for a higher call, and that at times a price must be paid.  The current generation seems to have lost this value.  If things get difficult, we quit.
I made the mistake of applying this concept to the situation in Iraq.  I said regardless of your viewpoint on going in to Iraq in the firstplace, it disturbed me that so many were so willing to quit on the effort.  Relative to previous wars, the cost of Iraq has been small, yet we seem unwilling to bear it.
One of the men I was playing with began a diatribe about how we never should have gone in to Iraq, and proceeded to tell me how terrible it was that America was always trying to tell other countries to be like us, as if we think we are better.  Another man chimed in that it was all about oil anyway.
As we talked it became clear that neither man had a fully formed understanding of the world in which we live.  As children of relativism, they could not see the superiority of democracy, of individual freedom, or of a Christian faith.  The one man repeatedly stated that as the most powerful nation we had no business being involved in other nation's affairs.  When I asked him if as the most powerful nation it would be appropriate to stand by and watch genocide in Darfur or other African nations because that is "how they live, it is their culture" he had no response.
His belief that all cultures, nations, and beliefs are equal blinds him to the truth that they are not and could not be.  Anything that challenges that mindset is rejected out of hand.  The concept that there could be any just cause in bringing freedom to a  Muslim nation , that the people might actually want freedom, and that as the greatest force of freedom  the planet has ever seen we have an obligation to  procure freedom for others, is anathema to him.
The war  in Iraq  forces  these feelings to the surface.  The hatred on his part, and on the part of liberals, is not against the war per se.  It is instead a rejection of  any belief in  definable morality or justice.  To support the war is to support the idea that our culture is actually better, that not all cultures are equal.
To accept that is to accept the idea of transcendent values.  This is something he simply will not do.  I believe that once someone acknowledges transcendent values they then become obligated to live by these values.  Or humanistic, materialistic society rejects this premise.