Perhaps the wounds are still a bit too deep for me to bring this up - rest assured, I am not saying this as a political exploitation, using a tragedy to highlight a point; I am simply saying this to draw a comparison.

What happened at Virginia Tech is a heartbreaking tragedy, I will never, ever deny that. The time to grieve is now, and the nation will continue to grieve.

Consider this, however: at the time of this being written, 3311 Americans have died in Iraq, in addition to hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Unlike the war in Vietnam, Americans seem to be removed from this war. They seem to be going on with normalcy as Americans are losing their lives every day.

The truth is that the loss of lives at Virginia Tech isn't any more or less tragic than the lost of lives in Iraq. Those who have died in Iraq also had hopes and dreams, parents and loved ones, lovers and friends. It breaks my heart that we mourn the deaths of 32 Americans, but we turn a blind-eye to the thousands of other Americans, simply because we're so far removed from them.

It is my hope that, through the tragedy, we can realize that the loss of any human life to a needless cause should be a travesty, and should be mourned. Only then, I hope, can public perception of the war in Iraq be more negative. If an angry mob of right-doers could take Don Imus off the air, I hope such a mob can also end the war in Iraq.

The only thing, though, is that it seems almost classless for us to be speaking about this now -- at a time when there is still so much hurt going on and so much grieving still to be done.

But either we make the wounds deeper and make the American people see, or they'll become stoic again after the wounds have healed. Thoughts?