His meaning was quite clear and eloquent in the message he left.

I'm not an advocate of his path, and had I the opportunity, I would have done all I could to talk him out of it.

Yet taking on suffering and self-sacrifice oneself to offer redemption to others is not completely alien to us, from John Brown to the core of Christianity itself, with Jesus on the Cross.

I'm a believer in 'people power," the tool of grassroots social and solidarity organization, to bring change. I decided long ago that one can't be a Leninist by yourself.

But this man, wrestling with his inner demons as well as his desire to make sacrifices to end the war, choose his own cross and path.

Let us see him as one of our own, and use his suffering as a spur to redouble our on efforts to end this miserable war and all that has caused it, so his sacrifice has a wider significance than what it means to those who would simply dismiss it.