"There are U.S.troops who are incredibly crass and cruel in their treatment of citizens and journalists as well."
VOA: standard.2010.04.06
The key may lie in the phrase "unslakeable thirsting in the backyard" in the last verse. (Yes, "unslakeable, " as in "insatiable, " one example of Veirs' idiosyncratic use of language.) She's not crass enough to spell it out so explicitly, but she's equating emotional longing with heat-wave dehydration, in a wonderfully subtle way.
In Britain, the Stop the War Coalition criticized the 28-year-old's comments as "crass" and questioned how he knew those he'd killed were actually members of the Taliban.