However, I'm pretty sure that does not destroy your capacity for thinking and rationality. This woman is like those crazy parents whose child dies in a freak drowning-in-a-bucket accident and then go on a lifelong crusade to ban buckets.
You know, it kinda does. A real world analogy to your bucket story: there was an incident in Australia where an inattentive couple lost a daughter in their pool because they either left a gate open or had a crappy gate, I forget which. They immediately started a crusade to demand the government begin mandatory pool gate monitoring by a government agency. The fact that it was their own lapse in whatever (responsibility, attention, take your pick) that caused their own personal tragedy was apparently lost on them. Their initial grief caused them to act in a way that would, externally, appear irrational, and also, quite frankly, in a way that would imply an attempt to remove the guilt resulting from the fact that they were responsible. I have no idea what they're like now; this was a couple of years ago I think.
These people have lost a child. And yes, it's a different kind of loss because of the fact that it was to a war, and a child that might have volunteered for it. But regardless of circumstance, it would stil have to be a heartbreaking experience. Unfortunately, as you say, it doesn't grant them any greater influence or control of the right to develop this game. The problem is though, again, exactly as you say even if you don't appreciate it, for now at least they have lost the capacity to think rationally, and just like the person stuck in the middle of a cyclone who thinks this could be the end of the world when a couple dozen miles in any direction someone is admiring the bright sunny day, it's a personal experience and one which greatly and undeniably affects the mindset of the one in the middle of it.
It just makes it hard because while it can be understood that they are obviously struggling, at the same time we can't simply pander to their demands simply because they are in an emotional state. Although I would presume that it would be difficultly to politely get the point across. If that's you're style, at least. To be honest I'm personally of the mind to put forward the arguments raised right at the beginning of the posting; that it's not just Americans that are dying. How many heartbroken parents in Germany have been upset at the long list of Medal of Honor games up until this point that have been purely about slaughtering the sons of German mothers and fathers. I can't remember when their voices were ever heard. Not on the other side of the pond from them, at least.
Problem is, these people can't be ignored, because there are plenty of people like Fox News who will be willing to listen and paint the soft devs or publishers as the bad guys who aren't taking the considerations of the suffering into account. But they can't be conceeded to because, well ...we're talking video games here, and we need to look at this realistically. You mourn the dead, you fight for the rights of the living. Unless we're talking about rights that would endanger said living people, but again, we're talking video games. But Fox will paint the picture using their skewed brush, and sadly enough the completely valid point that EA make about someone having to be the bad guy etc will fall of deaf ears of the "video games are evil" brigade. And at the end of the day, how was that ever not going to be the case. As always, we're on a hiding to nothing.