Sheehan has spent her sympathy

POSTED BY: Skywalken
UPDATED: Friday, October 14, 2005 02:19
VIEWED: 2926
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SKYWALKEN

Friday, September 30, 2005 12:28 AM

Ed Koch, a democrat, has written a very well-thought out article at the Jewish World Review.

Quote:
Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in action in Iraq on April 4, 2004, has become the face of the anti-war movement in the United States. While her grief is understandable, her rhetoric is outrageous.

As the mother of a son killed in battle in Iraq, she originally struck a sympathetic chord, whether you supported the war in Iraq or opposed it. One cannot help but empathize with the agony of a bereaved mother. But that has changed over the months, and I believe that many Americans who viewed her with sympathy no longer do so.

Many Americans, myself included, now see her as a person who has come to enjoy the celebratory status accorded to her by the radicals on the extreme left who see America as the outlaw of the world. These radicals are not content to be constructive critics. They are bent on destroying this country.

Some of them want to turn America into a radical socialist state. Others hope to create a utopia. But regardless of their agendas, how can Cindy Sheehan's supporters defend her shameful statement, "This country is not worth dying for."

While we recognize the U.S. is far from perfect, we are still head and shoulders above most other countries in the world in every respect. We remain the place where almost all others, given the chance, want to come to live. We continue to be the land of opportunity. We are the world's leading economy.

Yes, there is far too great a difference between the incomes of the rich and the poor. Yes, we haven't provided universal medical care as a matter of right for all of our citizens. Yes, minorities still suffer from discrimination socially, in housing, jobs and education. But we have a political system that for more than 200 years has allowed the electorate to work its will through regularly held elections. The government follows the will of the people, or it will no longer stay in power..

Those who rail against the United States have simply failed to sell their message to the public at large. They keep losing elections, local as well as national. Rather than broadening their appeal, they have narrowed it.

I supported and still support the war in Iraq, because our Congress and President had every right to rely on the advice of the CIA that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. On Sunday, September 25, 2005, Tim Russert of Meet The Press, summed up the situation prevailing before the war, saying, "…post September 11th, there was a fear of terrorism, an inability to know whether there were weapons of mass destruction by the public or by the media. George W. Bush said there were. Bill and Hillary Clinton said there were. The Russians, French and Germans, who opposed the war, said there were. Hans Blix of the UN said there were."

Iraq had fought an eight-year war against Iran resulting in a million casualties, using poison gas against the Kurds, who were citizens of Iraq, and against the Iranian army. Yes, since the 2003 invasion, we have not found any present supplies of WMD. Nevertheless, based on advice from CIA counterparts advising every member nation of the United Nations Security Council, the Security Council, including Syria, adopted Resolution 1441 unanimously, finding Iraq had weapons of mass destruction for which it had not accounted and advising Iraq that failure to account was cause for war. Iraq refused to account for them to the U.N. We and our allies were right to invade, notwithstanding that other countries, terrified by the prospect of terrorism against them and tempted by corruption at the UN masterminded by Saddam Hussein through the Oil-For-Food program and lucrative vendor contracts with Hussein's regime, did not join us.

As I have often stated, we have accomplished our original goal to prevent Iraq from threatening us or its regional neighbors. We should declare victory and get out. Yes, there probably will be a civil war among the Kurds, Sunni and Shia. If the UN — which is still under a cloud because of the "Oil for

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AURAPTOR

Saturday, October 1, 2005 12:55 PM

This lady had my sympathy run out for her after the 1st 5 minutes. I fully acknowledge the loss of her son and empathized her need to vent. But it became clear very early on that this lady wasn't all there to begin with, and now she's just using her son's coffin as a soap box for the radical / hate America 1st agenda she's always harbored.

She is a cartoon character who deserves pity, and not much more.

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

INEVITABLEBETRAYAL

Friday, October 7, 2005 3:01 PM

Oh, how I detest that woman. I sympathize with her loss, and I recognize her 1st Amendment rights, but the only thing that she's doing is making a divisive, emotionally charged situation worse. I shudder when I consider what her son would think of her behavior.

_______________________________________________
I wish I had a magical wish-granting plank.

HKCAVALIER

Friday, October 7, 2005 5:00 PM

This is what happens when you let grief and rage run your life. This country's foreign policy changes after 9/11 were fueled with the same demon.

I haven't exactly been following Ms. Sheehan's story, but when she says "This country is not worth dying for" she loses a lot of my sympathy. Good gravy, maybe she should go back to England and pretend this big, bad country never happened; certainly never would have if everyone felt the way she does.

And you're right, IB, has she no love or respect for her son? Does anyone know if she was against the war before her son died, or is this all purely the result of grief?

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

SKYWALKEN

Friday, October 7, 2005 6:36 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Does anyone know if she was against the war before her son died, or is this all purely the result of grief?

She was apparently opposed to the war in Iraq as well as the liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban right from the beginning.

INEVITABLEBETRAYAL

Saturday, October 8, 2005 3:17 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
And you're right, IB, has she no love or respect for her son?

When you sign on that dotted line on your military contract, that's a pretty unequivocal statement that the country is worth dying for. I have a hard time believing her son would approve of some of the things she's said.

_______________________________________________
I wish I had a magical wish-granting plank.

HOWARD

Sunday, October 9, 2005 2:22 AM

If you people think JEWISH WORLD REVIEW and Ed Koch are a credible source this just proves you have learnt nothing since 9/11 !!

I am British and Jewish and would not believe anything they say...the USA is so poisoned with Zionism if you don't get past this you'll be waging war for another hundred years.

For credible articles check out

http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm

http://www.counterpunch.org/

http://www.coldtype.net/

Howard Simon Marks
Manchester UK
hsm_melody@hotmail.com

HKCAVALIER

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 3:58 AM

As I said before, I'm not terribly interested in what Cindy Sheehan is doing, but Howard's post made me think that maybe this was a typical quote out context canard. Well, it was, after a fashion. She did say this country wasn't worth fighting for, but she qualified her remarks pretty specifically:

Quote:
This country is not worth dying for. If we’re attacked, we would all go out. We’d all take whatever we had. I’d take my rolling pin and I’d beat the attackers over the head with it. But we were not attacked by Iraq. {applause} 9/11 was their Pearl Harbor to get their neo-con agenda through and, if I would have known that before my son was killed, I would have taken him to Canada. I would never have let him go and try and defend this morally repugnant system we have. The people are good, the system is morally repugnant. {applause}

So, in the most important sense, she clearly believes this country (our land) is worth fighting for. She seems to have a problem with merely dying at this country's (our government's) behest, and under the present circumstances, I can't quite blame her.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

HOWARD

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 5:25 AM

There is a difference between dying for your
country and killing and dying for the guys who
run it and own it in another land where you are
not welcome.

October 3, 2005

An Interview with Cindy Sheehan
The "Ist" Du Jour
By JOSHUA FRANK

Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Austin Sheehan, KIA 04/04/04. She is co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace.

Joshua Frank: Cindy, why did you decide to hook up with the "antiwar" movement? Do you think that it would have been more powerful to continue building a family-in-mourning movement of mothers, fathers, wives and husbands of the maimed and the slain in Iraq?

Cindy Sheehan: I think those go together, actually. I founded an organization called Gold Star Families for Peace; people can visit us at www.gsfp.org. We are an antiwar group allied with Military Families Speak Out, Veterans for Peace, and Iraq Veteran Against the War. We are antiwar and for the immediate withdrawal of all troops from Iraq. Any group that supports our position is welcome to join with us.

JF: Many war supporters have furiously denied any link between our foreign policy and the risk soldiers are at in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tony Blair has denied any link between foreign policy and the summer bombings over in London. What do you see?

CS: I think that US foreign policy is totally responsible for 9/11, as well as the recent bombings in London. Our policies of killing innocent Iraqis; Afghanis; supporting the occupation of Palestine; our permanent bases in Saudi Arabia; our presence in Lebanon; our support of the Shah; supporting Saddam and giving him the WMDs used on his own people. I think this sort of behavior drives hatred toward the US. This is just all my opinion, of course. I am not a politician or a military strategist. I am just a citizen voicing my opinions.

JF: What fuels the war in Iraq today is central to our geopolitical interests: oil. How do you think this affects our chances as a movement to end the current war, compared to what it took to end the Vietnam War?

CS: I think even more than oil, it has to do with the industrial military complex that Eisenhower warned us about. They have to keep us afraid of something or someone. During the 1950s and 60s it was the Communists. We lost that focus in the 1970s – so the evil Rumsfeld, Cheney and Perle, along with the rest of the neocons, kept that alive. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, we needed a new enemy; so now it is terrorists … they are the "ist" du jour. It really is impossible to fight "ists" and "isms." You just can’t do it. All we get in the end is prolonged, evil, and unnecessary war and death.

JF: The 2006 mid-term elections are right around the corner, and there are a few pro-war Democrats up for reelection. The most popular among them, Hillary Clinton in New York and Nancy Pelosi out in California. There is a bit of speculation rumbling in activist circles that you may be planning to take on one or the other in the Democratic primaries coming up. Is this true?

CS: I think Nancy Pelosi is changing her tune, but not nearly fast enough. I have met with her a couple of times lately. I am not thinking of running against Hillary, or Nancy, or Dianne Feinstein, for that matter. If it were anyone, though, it would be Feinstein because I am a Californian and I believe she is a despicable warmonger. People have been begging me to run, but I think I can do more good on the outside of Washington than the inside.

JF: If the Democrats continue to take the stance they have on the Iraq war, mainly supporting the invasion and subsequent occupation -- will you support a Democrat in 2008 for President? Or will you stick to your cause and support a candidate along the lines of Ralph Nader or an anti-war Libertarian or Green Party candidate?

CS: No, I will not support a pro-war Democrat. I will support any anti-war candidate, even if [laughter] it is a Republican. There are some, Josh, really, it could happen! I regret supporting John Kerry in 2004. The movement gained nothing from h

JASONZZZ

Wednesday, October 12, 2005 10:08 PM

Cindy somehow thinks that if we (these US policy makers are the "them"... ya know, since there are *never* any Ugly Americans) didn't do anything of these things to *piss* off the rest of the world, then the rest of the world won't hate us (and I'm not going to play the angle that the world will Love us either)... It's pretty well irrevelant. These people will hate us even if we on the thinnest eggshells and try our damnest. *Some* of these people just hate us because "I really don't know why!". I think they hate us because they need somebody to hate, because we seem to have things that they want but will never be albe to get, because they don't have the ability to get here, because their religion tells them they can't enjoy themselves or do whatever they want to and to kill people that get to do that (not implying that Islam or whatever else tells them - just whatever interpretation of things they have I'm sure).

Part of the entire assumption seems to be that we should have absolutely nothing to do what is going on with the rest of the world and that we should live in our own little continent completely insulated from everyone... The world just cannot be that isolated from each other anymore. Being the most powerful economy in the world comes with responsibilities - as well as natural enemies. It means that the US does have interest in the well-being for the rest of the world beyond our own border. That not only can we help other folks , but in return we get help from them in other ways. They can learn from us and we from them.

Will the world all of a sudden magically become a happy place and people outside of the US just stop hating us? Doubt it, the richest kid on the block living in the biggest house will always draw ire from some people. You just won't be able to *make* or have everyone like you.

I am not advocating that we should keep being crappy, or start being crappy, or intentionally be crappy to the rest of the world... People just have to realize that someone will always be pissed at you for reasons completely without explanation - ain't nothing you can do to prevent it. How do you handle it when that happens though? Do you just keep stepping around them? Might be ok if that's how you deal with your one neighbor - might be your policy in life... But you can't steer a nation by steering around every nut that comes driving an airplane into your house.

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