Posted on 08/19/2005 11:22:55 AM PDT by Millee
I need a spirit-guide. There is an interview I want to conduct, and I just won't be able to get it done without one.
I want to interview Army Spc. Casey Sheehan. It would be interesting, to say the least, to hear his views on his mother, Cindy, on what she has been doing for two weeks down at the president's ranch in Texas and, more importantly, on what he makes of the increasing attacks on her for doing what she is doing.
Ah, if such a thing were possible.
My hunch, given my experience the last two years with soldiers on the ground in the nastiness that is Iraq, is the first thing he would say is that he loves his mother very much. Soldiers often will tell you that before they even give you their first name.
Were he still alive over there, and if his mother was still standing in the Texas heat and dust and calling for George Bush to account for the war, there is little doubt he would be personally embarrassed by the attention his mom's actions would bring to him.
And when reporters like me found him and asked him about it, I have no doubt that Casey Sheehan would have looked around, thought a little, spat and replied:
"What the hell do you think I'm over here fighting for, if not at least for that?"
I believe deeply that this is how it all would have played out. And it would have been the most intelligent words uttered in the entire Cindy Sheehan saga.
That what she is doing has become a saga, that the influential and powerful in this country feel free to attack and belittle a woman who lost a son in the war and now refuses to remain silent in her grief, pretty much tells you everything you need to know of 2005 America.
She was a woman and a story that was supposed to just go away - maybe get a couple of days' headlines. But she hasn't, and the story hasn't.
Tell me again, Mr. President, the reason why my son had to die? This is mostly what she has been asking from the roadside.
It is a question the polls say at least 60 percent of us want answered. Have the reasons once again changed? Many fairly want to know.
In 2005 America, though, to pose such a question, particularly with the cameras and reporters' open notebooks arrayed before you, is clear license for some to attack and vilify.
I am still wondering how I know now that Cindy Sheehan is getting a divorce.
Spc. Sheehan and other now-dead soldiers like him, we've been told over and over, died in our country's noble quest to export freedom and democracy to an oppressed and brutalized Middle Eastern nation.
You cannot export elsewhere what you do not currently possess.
And doesn't whatever form of freedom and democracy that exists in 2005 America still give Cindy Sheehan the right to stand on the Crawford, Texas, roadside to confront our leadership?
Perhaps not, it seems.
I have been unfortunate enough to know women like Cindy Sheehan. I have seen them fall to absolute pieces when an Army general presents to them the American flag that seconds earlier had draped the coffin of their dead sons.
These women, dear reader, somehow keep on living. Many do so in silence. Cindy Sheehan, clearly, is not one of them.
I corresponded the other day with Vicki Bosley, the mother of a Manzanola soldier who'd befriended me in Iraq and was killed two months ago.
I asked her of Cindy Sheehan.
"I don't think what she is doing is very -'smart,' " Bosley said. "This is not the time to be causing friction in this country. We have enough of that already.
"Yes, I was (angry) at Bush after Justin was killed.
"But you know, today I take the attitude of my son: 'He is the boss, and we have to do what the boss tells us to do. That is our job.'"
No, Vicki Bosley said, she would never do what Cindy Sheehan is doing. It will not, she said, bring her son back home to her.
"I just want to concentrate on keeping Justin's memory alive, and that is altogether time-consuming, without even thinking of causing 'a scene.'
"I feel the day my son died was his chosen day, one decreed by God, no matter where he was or what he tried to prevent, that there is nothing we can do about it.
"All we can do is pray to God to give Bush guidance to do the right thing. Maybe he did mess up. Who knows?"
Of Cindy Sheehan, she says:
"If it makes her feel better, then go for it, girl. But I think she is wasting a lot of precious time, time that could be devoted to her family on coping with their loss.
"I just don't think this woman is worth getting all worked up over."
Had thousands of people across the nation on Wednesday taken to the streets to embrace Vicki Bosley's message, as they did to Cindy Sheehan's, would anyone have gone on national television or radio to disparage it?
Of course not.
Cindy Sheehan, like Vicki Bosley, ought to be afforded the same exportable freedom to express her views and beliefs as loudly or, perhaps, whacked-out, as she feels comfortable.
Yet in 2005 America, to our alarming detriment, way too many people disagree.
Are they friendly spirits?
This rubbish has finally hit our screens. I was thoroughly nauseated - she is the face of the whingeing, self-serving left, the liars who call their agenda "speaking truth to power". All I detect from her demeanour is that she is an ideologue that is trying to throw mud at President Bush - it is particularly despicable that she is wrapping herself in her son's burial shroud to do it. The young man deserved better.
Madam, if you're reading this - get the hell out of Texas. And don't come to Britain either.
Regards, Ivan
Did I miss the sarcasm tag?
Ugly on the outside and the inside. No wonder hubby filed for divorce.
I feel very sorry for Mrs. Sheehan. She is overwhelmed by her loss and her grief. She has lost her perspective, lost her grip on reality, and, I fear, lost her mind, as well. Put politics aside and look at her behavior and read her words. She is raging mindlessly against what most of us believe and believe in. She viciously attacks our government, our military and our president -- and her attacks are the frantic screamings of a frustrated child who doesn't yet understand that she is not the center of the universe and that almost all causes are bigger than hers. But, while she, herself, is terribly lost, those around her - those funding her vigil, supporting her bizarre claims, prompting her onward with vicious attack after vicious attack - those people are no humanitarians, no patriots, no honorable citizens. They know she is lost in in need of serious mental help (that may be why some otherwise silly liberals have backed off here), but her sponsors put their hatreds above her welfare. They will push her onward and onward like a tired pack mule - onward until she drops. Then, with little or no regret, they will find another to push their hateful burden forward, and the media, as usual, will form another bandwagon and all the usual 'useful idiots' will be back on our tv screens again.
How do we know that Judge John Roberts came from an 'all white' neighborhood and had an 'easy childhood'?
Oh, for Pete's sake. What a dumb$**. How hard is it to confuse "denying her the right to open her big fat yaptrap" with just plain "strongly disagreeing with her"?
I took it a bit differently. I took it as the boorish, sophomoric author seizing any opportunity to drop in a reference to paganism because it's just so utterly cool these days, and such a kewl way to dis the repressive white male christian president and the repressive white male military industrial complex he represents that "feeds off the blood of our children."
but, hey, maybe I'm being boorish and sophomoric.
bttt
It has nothing whatsoever to do with not being afraid to die at all.
You lefty lemmings just can't resist a good cliff, can ya, zotsnack?
Cindy Sheehan has been afforded the same freedom to express her whacked out views. Her son died for those freedoms and America is proud of him for his sacrifice.
Yet in 2005 America, to our alarming detriment, way too many people disagree.
We also have the same rights as Cindy to disagree. I finally heard Bill O'Rilly say something I agree with. "Cindy Sheehan has the right to say almost anything she wants but we have the right to disagree with what she says and many of us do!!."
You mean, she is just acting? She isn't smart enough to act that well, lol.
Ouch!
Ah, bot, botting, as in, "troll."
So obvious, isn't it? Ha...glad someone else is noticing...time to zot.
I think the whole point of Cindy Sheehan -- with Micheal Moore's and a pro-Palestinian "Peace" group's "help", among others -- is to DEMAND that which is ludicrous to begin with, to, in effect, draw out people.
It's like saying, "WHY can't I have your child? You DENY ME a child, everyone deserves a child, and yet you have two, so you denying me one of your children is UNFAIR, it's against CIVILIZED STANDARDS, because (tears, facial distortions, *small sotto voice*) NO ONE who is DECENT would DENY a woman A CHILD! You are a fascist! You are a cruel, arrogant fascist! Our country deserves better!..."
And on and on.
What is intended is to incite others, that sort of solicitation for an argument about an impossible, implausible and/or politically sensitive issue that can't ever be resolved (in this case, "war" and "peace") by any one meeting between two persons or otherwise, because of the mammoth dimensions involved with both issues and all perspectives possible, etc.
The PURPOSE of Cindy Sheehan, by Moveon.org, Michael Moore and all the rest who have made Cindy Sheehan possible to the media extent that she has been, is to solicit and incite. They WANT adverse arguement, they WANT disorder and even chaos, and worse, because even responding to Cindy Sheehan in issue or specifically immediately (to their view) makes a person an "attacker."
Cindy Sheehan, with the Arianna Huffington blog's help has so far written that EVERYONE who questions her, makes much of any mention of or about her unless they're among her group of ardent supporters, she has labelled EVERYONE as "attacking" her.
She'll continue on as long as she gets people to even point a camera her way, provide her webspace, whatever. While some feel sorry and such for Cindy Sheehan, I don't. NO one with grief at the loss of a child would use that child's memory and life complete for such self service, is my point. Sheehan is a user of the worst proportions and her demands to "meet/speak with President Bush" as everyone is easy to discern is not sincere, but continued usery, if not continued threat BY Cindy Sheehan.
Bush did meet with her at Bush's decision a while ago and the second meeting is mysteriously undefined as to need or purpose. I think had Bush met with her to any degree so far, Cindy Sheehan would still be out there doing what she's been doing because it's not the actual MEETING that is the objective, but the inciting of disorder that is.
Otherwise, to be clear here, why would Michael Moore even be involved? Why would Arianna Huffington? Why would MoveOn.org? Why would a proPalestine "peace" group be housing her? (NO, Cindy Sheehan is not habitating in a tent.) Why the media?
It's a ruse. ANY response is labelled inaccurately an "attack," and will continue to be so...by Sheehan and her creators. It's all usery, and it's disgusting.
Thanks fo sharing your insight.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.