Leaders hiding true cost of war

The writer of the letter "Israeli mourning honors war dead" (July 22) makes an excellent point in her letter about the differing government responses in Israel and the U.S. to the return of our war dead. But I fear she is mistaken about the reasons our soldiers are brought home with no public ceremony. I think it has nothing to do with any deficiency in our sense of respect, devotion, gratitude or soul. It has to do with the fact that our government wants to repress any awareness of the true cost of this wretched war in Iraq. If we had seen the return of more than 4,000 bodies of our soldiers in their flag-draped caskets over the last five years on our TVs day after day, there would be considerably more vocal and persistent protest over this ill-conceived, ill-managed and unnecessary war. Our government does not want us to... [read full story]