Apparantly, the whole nation of Italy is in mourning for security agent Nicola Calipari who died by using his body as a human shield to protect the freed hostage Giuliana Sgrena as the vehicle they were travelling in came under fire from American troops.

Tom Watson asks (and attempts to answer) the question: Why doesn’t America mourn? Specifically, why don’t we mourn the loss of life happening to our own troops, or to those who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Yeah, we mourned the passing of Ronald Reagan, but that man was president for eight years. Here, you have an entire nation pausing to reflect upon the loss of a security agent; an average joe, married, a father of two. He was doing his job, and died because of it.

I need not remind you that we recently passed 1,500 American casualties in that “war” over in Iraq. Yet, reading the names of the dead aloud on Nightline was considered “controversial”, possibly even damaging to our troops’ morale.

Basically, it comes down to the fact that our leaders are afraid that if people see the bodies returning home — a constant reminder war ultimately leads to death — then support for the war will plummet. The truth is that had this been a just war, waged to for the sole purpose to protect America, then people would understand and tolerate the inevitable losses. But it was and is still not a just war, and thus the support for the war rests on keeping the American people in perpetual fear and numbness, sheltering their eyes from the hideous reality of bodybags.

The amount of social disconnect in this country is frightening.

On a somewhat related note: it is interesting to me how Our Beloved Administration! trusts the American people enough to want give them more ownership in the form of private accounts in lieu of Social Security, but doesn’t trust the public when it comes to witnessing the dead. Which is it? Are we responsible? Or children?