There have been countless moments of grief and gasping for air when thinking about the many losses of human life in the Iraq War. And they say that people are more moved when hearing of a single death than the kiling of dozens or hundreds. If so, one lone tragedy from over there has caused me to write these words.

Professor Andrew J. Bacevich of Boston University (my alma mater) is a graduate of West Point and retired Army lieutenant colonel. He is also a devout Catholic and a critic of the pre-emptive ideology of the neo-conservatives and their misguided belief that America must invade, and is allowed to invent a fictional pre-text for violence, before we are attacked.

He is the author of “The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War,” published in 2005. Professor Bacevish wrote: “Our reckless flirtation with preventive war qualifies as not only wrong, but also stupid. Indeed, the Bush Doctrine poses a greater danger to the United States than do the perils it supposedly guards against.”

He was stating what the whole world has seen all along: Mr. Bush, is a semi-literate liar and con-man, unfit for the Oval Office or even to run a used-car lot. He is destroying freedom at home as he pursues war abroad. A compliant and ignorant Republican Congress rubber stamped his war, and the weak and cowardly Democrats failed to take principled stands against the bankrupting and murdering madness. As a result, we have now fought in Iraq longer than we fought Hitler or Japan, and we are paying for it in trillions of dollars and in seas of blood.

On Mother’s Day, Mr. and Mrs. Bacevich heard the news that their 27 year-old son, Andrew, was killed by an I.E.D. in Iraq.

One can only offer sympathy to the family and hope that their sorrow will find some justification in the universe.