There are some unbelievably heart wrenching photographs on the internet showing the grief of people at the loss of a loved one during the Iraq war. It makes me cry even though I do not have anybody even remotely related to me who has been killed in this war.

This picture of a girl lying on her loved ones grave is particularly sad. I can really feel for the young girl and her loss.

What gets to me is the senselessness of the whole operation. I can kind of understand if young men and women in the armed forces are killed while protecting their fatherland. I get it that that’s what the army of a country is for. And I’m sure the men and women who have signed up to serve understand the deal.

What makes me ache is the fact that the war in Iraq is not waged to save the USA and the UK from immediate attack. The citizens of the USA and the UK are not at risk and their lives are not at stake. There is absolutely no threat from this country in the Middle East. There never was. There certainly isn’t now.

Yet a total of 4 300 US men and women have had to die for this senseless mission. Officially the number of wounded is at 31 285, but estimates place this figure closer to 100 000. Many of these wounded people are now severely disabled and will not be able to live their lives as they did before being sent away on a totally senseless mission.

What is even more incomprehensible is that the American people and to a lesser extent the British people are not rioting about this. Where are the protests, where is the pressure on Obama to stop this senseless war. And It’s not as if he didn’t make an election promise to do something about did.

I didn’t see his election promise say that he would withdraw troops from Iraq to send to Afghanistan? I though he said he would be out of Iraq and bring his men and women back home. There is another senseless war playing out in Afghanistan. What are they doing there?

Let’s not forget the civilian deaths that these senseless wars are causing. That lovely ‘coleteral damage’ story.  Iraqi deaths due to US Invasion is estimated to be 1.3 million in May 2009.

Does this super religious christian country called the USA have no conscience about this? Killing over a million people for what? If this carries on it’s going to be another holocaust. Yet there isn’t sufficient noise being made to stop this bloodbath. Has the holocaust not taught us anything. What about the genocide in Rwanda.

Just because Iraq is not about Jews or it’s not about people killing their neighbour it isn’t important? Iraq is about super power nations getting together and unauthorised and against the United Nations vote, invading a foreign country for no reason.

There was NO REASON to invade Iraq. And of course some people are going to point out that at the time President Bush and PM Blair believed that there weapons of mass destructions in Iraq. But within a few months it was understood that there were none to be found.

So what are the armed forces still doing in Iraq? Six years after they discovered there were no weapons of mass destruction. Why is there no major uprising by the people of the world to stop this senseless war? Why is the USA allowed to continue with the terrible killings?

Sure we are now told that  they are being kept in Iraq as peace keeping forces.  Some peace. Suicide bombers killed 60 people near a holy Shiite shrine in Baghdad and a further seven dead in Diyala in one day in April 2009.  In fact that month 355 Iraqis were killed.  Can you imagine the outcry if 355 American civilians were killed in the USA or in the UK.

But Iraq? Who cares? And we wonder why the Middle East is the breading ground for terrorists against the West. Is nobody in politics making the connection here? Obviously not, otherwise the troops would have been pulled out by now.