Dear Senator Bayh:

As I write to you today, Cindy Sheehan, mother of an Army specialist killed last year in Iraq, is camped outside President Bush?s ranch while he vacations in Crawford, Texas. She's demanding to meet with the commander-in-chief and ask him why he sent her son off to die.

We ask you to join her cause. Demand an explanation for why Casey Sheehan's life had to end at age 24, why, so far, 2,033 coalition troops, including 1,841 Americans, have had to give up their lives. The nine pages that follow list the U.S. fatalities just since our last letter to you at the end of July.

Ask President Bush why he couldn't he let the U.N. inspectors do their work, as so many of us pleaded for him to do. As we all know now, they hadn?t turned up any weapons of mass destruction because none existed.

Ask President Bush why he and his subordinates continue to mention 9/11 and Iraq in the same breath when no evidence exists to link the two.

Ask President Bush why he touted the Iraq invasion as a way to "take the fight to the terrorists" when al-Qaeda had no presence in Iraq under Saddam. A more accurate statement would have been, "We're sending our troops over there so the terrorists of the Middle East will have some Americans close at hand to kill and won't be tempted to come over here and kill us."

Ask him why he chose to respond to the crimes of mass murder committed on 9/11 by declaring war on a stateless enemy, a criminal gang, instead of cooperating with law enforcement to bring to justice the surviving gang members and conspirators.

We've asked this before, we ask it again: Demand explanations. Demand accountability.

An apology to Cindy Sheehan, to us, to the whole world is also in order.

With great concern,
writing on behalf of Michiana Peace & Justice Coalition, I am,

Ed Cohen