As the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Jesus Alberto Suarez del Solar, who died on March 27, 2003, during the invasion of Iraq, I consider it my moral duty to share my thoughts with you today.

As you surely know, 929 brave young Americans have died so far in Afghanistan, as well as thousands of innocent Afghan civilians.

In Iraq, 4,367 of our sons and daughters have died together with tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis.

When President Bush sat in the office you now occupy, I wondered how many of our children would have to die before these wars ended. What was the magic number?

And so I ask you the same question: How many more young people must die before you truly work for peace?

When more than 50 percent of the American people oppose the sending of more troops to Afghanistan, you should not ignore the majority, which doesn’t want brave young soldiers to die or kill innocent people for unclear motives.

Why do you mislead the people by claiming that you will withdraw the troops in 2011? As soon as you said that, your top aides insisted that this wasn’t a firm deadline. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said the withdrawal may just be of “a small handful” of troops.

You will send 30,000 more troops and others will pay the price — the soldiers with their lives, the citizens with our taxes.

Millions of us are unemployed, and our youth have seen their access to higher education reduced. Would it not be advisable to invest the billions of war dollars in education? Would that not make us a stronger nation? Would it not be better to invest those billions of dollars spent on wars on universal health care for the American people?

In the coming year, you can expect demonstrations in which veterans from both past and current wars take to the street to shout “Stop the war!” Will you, like Bush, play deaf as more young Marines return in body bags or missing a limb or mentally exhausted?

President Obama, many of us gave you our vote because you promised change. But you are delivering the same old thing.

. Reprinted from the Progressive Media Project (www.progressive.org).