War Songs For Bush

"It's time to stop, hey, what's that sound, everybody look what's goin' down." Buffalo Springfield

I opened The Philadelphia Inquirer yesterday and was hit by a wall of faces. Under the headline Killed in the Line of Duty, a numbing three full pages of photos brought the war in Iraq crashing into my home with renewed force.

Here's what the paper said:

The names of 222 U.S. military personnel have been added to the Iraqi war toll since The Inquirer last published the record Dec. 28. While U.S. losses have slowed, this installment includes 31 from a helicopter crash in a Jan. 26 sandstorm. The Inquirer has published victims' names and photos regularly since April 2003. At least 1,546 Americans have died.

The photo display, looking eerily like a school yearbook, was arranged by date of death. In a chilling coincidence, the first date, Dec. 27, is my son's birthday. He's 21 and still in college, thank God. But if we don't get out of this war soon, and the draft is reinstated ... the possibly is too dreadful to contemplate.

Yet the sights and sounds of the war in Iraq seem to have faded from the public mind. Instead we've been pounded by relentless refrains on the deaths of Terri Schaivo and the Pope -- a hopelessly brain damaged woman and a diseased-ridden 84 year old man. One can only imagine how bizarre and trivial that must seem to a family whose son or daughter or father or wife has been killed in Iraq.

But the killing and dying continues as this travesty of political and economic greed rolls along unchecked. And what else is in the news? The songs George Bush is listening to on his iPod.

I'd like to suggest a few tunes for him.

Listen to Beth Nielsen Chapman singing Sand and Water. Especially this:

All alone I heal this heart of sorrow.
All alone I raise this child.
Flesh and bone, he's just bursting toward tomorrow,
and his laughter fills my life and wears your smile.

Listen to Jeff Buckley sing the haunting Hallelujah.

Listen to Elton John's Daniel.

And without fail, listen to Buffalo Springfield sing For What It's Worth. Then listen to it again.

Oh yes, one more thing: get the CD soundtrack of Woodstock and listen to Joan Baez sing, accapella, Amazing Grace.

Try to grok the supreme irony. Sadly, you won't have a clue. And you will never attain that level of grace.

Other song ideas for George W to stick in his ...iPod... welcome.