12 August 2005

THE CINDY SHEEHAN POST

Every blogger in the world has already said something about Cindy Sheehan; every news source in the world has already said something about Cindy Sheehan; despite that, I shall now say something about Cindy Sheehan.

Yesterday, Ms. Sheehan posted an essay on The Huffington Post. Read it - I don't wish to stand between her words and anyone. But I will pluck this one line:
[Bush has] said that my son -- and the other children we’ve lost -- died for a noble cause. I want to find out what that noble cause is.

That is, of course, the central issue for most of us who oppose the war: it is not at all clear why we are fighting in Iraq. We have been lied to consistently and pervasively by those who have power over us and our country. These lies have killed nearly 2000 Americans, and an unknowable number of Iraqis.

What is lost is the reality that there are also 2000 grieving parents.

This the strength of American democracy and American media at their best: that one woman out of those 2000 can stand up to the lies and demand to know why her son is dead. And her one voice has become the most important fact in American politics right now.

The attacks on Ms. Sheehan from the right - that her son would be ashamed of her, and that we need to stay the course in order to validate the deaths of those soldiers - are odious. She has suffered the most painful loss a person can feel - the loss of their child - and she is has found the strength to rise above her grief, and demand on behalf of a nation that has been fed lies upon lies for three years, "why are you doing this?"

Cindy Sheehan will never read these words, I know, but I would still like to express my deepest gratitude and sympathy to her.
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1 comment:

  1. Tim8/12/05, 11:44 AM

    Nothing I've read so far is quite as magical as Michelle Malkin's insistence that Casey Sheehan would be ashamed and resentful of his mother's actions. Of course, Malkin couldn't get much deeper into hell without popping out the other side.

    ReplyDelete

Just a few rules so that everybody can have fun: ad hominem attacks on the blogger are fair; ad hominem attacks on other commenters will be deleted. And I will absolutely not stand for anything that is, in my judgment, demeaning, insulting or hateful to any gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion. And though I won't insist on keeping politics out, let's think long and hard before we say anything particularly inflammatory.

Also, sorry about the whole "must be a registered user" thing, but I do deeply hate to get spam, and I refuse to take on the totalitarian mantle of moderating comments, and I am much too lazy to try to migrate over to a better comments system than the one that comes pre-loaded with Blogger.