More Dead in Ohio

By the time you read this commentary the bodies of more Ohio residents will be on their way back home from the Bush regime's disastrous war in Iraq. The pain of losing those young soldiers will be felt by many of your neighbors. It's the same pain that was felt by so many of their parents who lost sons, daughters or friends in the Vietnam War. It's a pain compounded by the questions and uncertainties that are always associated with wars waged in far away places, wars that seem to have no relevance to life here at home, wars that so many people in this nation believe should never have been waged. Wars built on lies and deception.

The loss of those young people, many of them having joined the service simply to get a leg up on life, to get a good education or career, should never have taken place. Their blood is on the hands of powerful politicians who never saw war themselves, whose own sons and daughters will never serve in the military. Their blood was spilled for geo-political gain, for corporate profits, and no one in the White House and few in Congress really care all that much. These deaths don't effect their lives at all. Young soldiers are merely pawns on the chessboard of political power. What a sin.

I'm sending my condolences here to all those grieving families. Their loss was unnecessary and thus, all the more tragic. Perhaps ,given time, the pain can be transformed into a determination to stop this madness, this waste of lives, and save other families from similar loss.