J. Bacevich is a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran with 23 years of service in the U.S. Army. Today he is a professor of international relations at Boston University. Bachevich saw from the beginning that the Iraq War is a sham and an atrocity, and he has spoken out against it in books and newspaper articles. I’ve quoted him from time to time.

Andrew J. Bacevich’s son was killed in Iraq.

There must be nothing sadder than a parent who must drag himself through the long years of the rest of his life after the death of a child. As of this morning we have lost 3,401 of our children. Fifty U.S. troops have died this month. This is an ocean of sorrow.

Jules Crittendon writes,

A beloved son who followed in his father’s footsteps and gave his life for his country, as his father had put himself in harm’s way in another war four decades before. So Andy Bacevich begins the terrible journey of a father who has to bury a son, and decide for himself what it means.

And Steve Clemons writes,

Now we must add to the count of this tragic conflict another American son — and of course, more Iraqi sons and daughters and American daughters.

I had the pleasure of meeting Andy Bacevich at the home of former Congressman Dave McCurdy this last holiday season. We spoke for a bit about the Iraq war as well as the absence of American strategy and dearth of strategists in government today. I had no idea his son was serving until now.

But this young man did serve his nation — but his death is so incredibly tragic, like the others — but his even more because his well-respected father has been working hard to end this horrible, self-damaging crusade. It’s incredibly sad.

To answer my own question above. Andrew Bacevich’s son’s life was precious — and his life and his untimely death matter greatly for just waking up and realizing we are achieving nothing in Iraq today and that responsibility must be borne by the perpetrators of this mess.

My sincere condolences to the Bacevich family.

Whereupon the rightie blogger — I started to call him the “worthless scumbag rightie blogger,” but I’ll try to contain myself — of Riehl World View blasted Steve C. for using the death of 1st Lt Bacevich for “anti-war propaganda.” Referring to “Andrew Bacevich’s son’s life was precious” the rightie wrote, “So precious, apparently, Clemmons simply couldn’t wait to dash that off, I guess. What a disgrace.”

Disgrace, yes, but the disgrace is not Clemmons’s. Riehl is one of the Bush Bitter Enders who maintains the fiction that to criticize the war is denouncing the troops. But it is no disgrace to be honest, and to say frankly that when our children die in Iraq their lives were wasted. The disgrace would be to hold our tongues and acquiesce to the obscene fiction that killed them. The disgrace is to be one of the brain-dead lackeys who supports Bush’s war.

Josh Marshall speaks to this —

There’s a shameless game of moral chicken that war supporters play in which they dare opponents to say the war is a mistake because, they claim, saying so would then dishonor all the men and women who’ve already died in its cause. So to spare the dead that ignominy, kill many more of our children. All to avoid swallowing that bitter pill. But I think there’s a converse to Bates’ argument that I agree with, though I disagree with his claim about the moral reckoning. And that is that the service and the sacrifice wash the death clean of the folly of the leaders who ordered them into the battle.

Josh refers to the scene in Henry V that takes place the night before the Battle of Agincourt, when Harry meets some common soldiers and tells them that he is only “a gentleman of a company.” Ol’ Bill Shakespeare wrote this bit of dialog:

BATES

Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know enough, if we know we are the kings subjects: if his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes the crime of it out of us.

WILLIAMS

But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all ‘We died at such a place;’ some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.

George W. Bush and all who support his war have betrayed our country and the troops. And when a beloved son dies, they expect us to accept his murder and keep silent about the crime. They think it is a “disgrace” when we give voice to our outrage and shake our fists at the criminals.

If I believed in hell, I’d want a special place set aside there for all good Bushies.