Home » Grieving parents in war–Part II: protesting parents, why now?

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Grieving parents in war–Part II: protesting parents, why now? — 22 Comments

  1. Hi, I was out blogging and found your site. It certainly got my attention and interest. I was looking for Aircraft
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  2. To address a tiny comment made, in passing, in this (extremely thoughtful) blog entry —

    Yes, Casey Sheehan *is* a genuine hero. He has been decorated — Bronze Star, if I’m not mistaken — and the action in which he was killed was one for which he had volunteered to go. “Where my chief goes, I go”, he said, and off he went.

    (I commented about this a bit here.)

    Moreover, as James Taranto pointed out, he died in the battle for Sadr City — an area that is now peaceful and quiet. In other words, the military objective, in which Spc. Sheehan died, was successful. Without it, people would be dying daily in Sadr City — but they are not, thanks in part to Spc. Sheehan and his comrades-in-arms.

    People are alive today — perhaps hundreds, or even thousands of people — because of the action in which Casey Sheehan gave his life. What better legacy could you want than that?

    respectfully,
    Daniel in Brookline

  3. Bob I doubt you could relate to anyone’s nightmares, let alone any I’ve had. You have a fail-safe system built in for yourself. Any future attack on the US can be blamed on Bush/conservatives since all the time and money and lives were wasted in Iraq, that could have been used to prevent said attacks from happening. Got your little fingers crossed, Bob? Hmmm?You must have since you and liberals in general proffer no solutions, except to impeach Bush and bring the troops home. You got alot of mouth but no balls as we used to say back when I was creating real nightmares. Your nightmare is coming very soon with the appointment of Roberts and a replacement for Rheinquest, isn’t it? The old Chief is dying fast of thyroid cancer. Bad enough that Bush got in twice, eh Bobby, but now he gets to appoint a couple of SC Justices. Talk about having a political orgasm, Bob! It is almost as glorious as that carrier landing Bush made. You do you remember that, don’t you Bob?

  4. Goesh,

    You’re last post was like genuine war on terror paranoia porn. I’d hate to visit your nightmares.

  5. The fact that the MSM has attached
    themselves to this greiving mom is
    shows they have descended another
    rung on the ladder down to irrelevance.

  6. Cindy Sheenham is a full-fledged media distraction from Able Danger, Jamie “the wall” Gorelick’s questionable position on the 9/11 Commission, Berger’s theft of classified document from National Archives, and Air America’s theft of over $800,000 for GLORIA Boys and Girls Club.

  7. This might be my new favorite blog, not that I am anyone important that you should feel honored. But you approach matters from a more rational standpoing than most Conservatives I know.

  8. Flag desecration in Texas —
    I saw it on the news, as others probably have too. Some guy rigged a truck to knock down a bunch of crosses and American flags erected by the protestors at the Bush ranch. Now I don’t go along with flag desecration but it seems the Lefties want it both ways. On the one hand they support the right of free expression, i.e. flag burning, but then when the same freedom of expression is used contrary to their interests, they become outraged. A great hue and cry went up over this freedom of expression. What a laugh and how typical of them. One fool was saying, ” they drove over the graves”, referring to the crosses the protesters had erected, as if real soliders were actually buried on the roadside and their bodies had been desecrated. Give me a break! Lunacy! Madness! Hysteria! Can you imagine that?

    Sheehan reminds me of a passive cow being led into the barn to be milked. That’s what comes to mind – attribute this to my rural upbringing I suppose, but she is being milked by the Left. When the media grows tired of it and the cameras leave and her so- called supporters leave, she will be left alone at night not understanding , ever, why her son enlisted and why he volunteered for dangerous duty. Did her boy send her letters talking about Iraq and saying he felt it important to be there? I bet he did. How will she reconcile that, alone at night with nothing but her thoughts and no cameras and no attention? Is she capable of contemplating what her son would say about this if he could communicate from ‘the other side’? I seriously doubt it. Cows can only be led to be milked when it is convenient for those who lead them into stalls. She dishonors a combat veteran in the worst possible way and she is despicable in this veteran’s opinion. Is she capable of understanding that some of the jihadis her son killed will not now blow up Iraqi civilians and/or launch attacks against Americans in other parts of the world? Is anyone on the Left capable of realizing this?

    John’s Big Head – you well better be afraid. They want you and your children and your(our) way of life dead, dead, dead. What do you think 9/11 was about? A freakin’ protest? How about a chartered small ship with a nuclear bomb in a cargo container, one in the New York harbor? What would that do to our economy and how many would be killed? I bet you’re one of those guys who thinks we should just send the FBI into the mountains and tribal regions of Pakistan in their nice suits and just arrest bin laden, right? And I bet you’re one of those guys who could give a warm fuzzy to terrorists, nice hugs, and have rational discussions thus ending their need to kill us – right? Hey John, how about a jihadi taking a vial of sarrin gas and dribbling it out on a busy, busy L.A. street as he rapidly walks into the wind? How many infidels like you could he get? Oh John! What if you and your children were in a mall on the Mexican border and across the border comes mahood and a half dozen of his jihadi buddies in a van and out they jump with AK-47s, rush into the mall and open up, and what if your child was shot in the head? Just think, John, you could then be like Sheehan and spend the rest of your life blaming George Bush! You would look good on an al jazeera beheading tape, all trussed up like a Christmas turkey. I mean, you are just another hapless, powerless victim of your own nation, heritage, culture, economy and political sytem. You’re an American victim, John, after all, Bush is President. You may be entitled to some benefits. I apologize for being so verbose, when I simply could have called John a cowardly fool and been done with it.

  9. I think it’s sad that the US is in Iraq right now (right or wrong). I think it’s sad that many people are dying both Iraqi and American. The one thing I think is saddest of all is that this is exactly what guys like Bin Laden knew would happen if they pushed the US hard enough.

    Unfortunately, a path has been choosen. One that has to be seen to a postive end or the US risks being the target of every two bit thug that wants his moment in the sun.

    I feel for all that have lost family and friends. Bush was very open about his plans to go to war prior to the election. Interesting how now people are beginning to protest now as opposed to not electing him back into office (ever wonder why so many of his people quit after the election)

  10. One reads things like the following in today’s London Times and can only ask what in hell is wrong with the anti-Iraq war zealots who can’t wait to let Iraq fail:

    “This was the first time that Iraq, created as a state 84 years ago, was allowing its people to write a constitution. The first one, establishing monarchy in 1921, was written by the British. The second, in 1958, was the work of colonels who copied the Soviet model. Subsequent constitutions were written by the so-called Revolutionary Command Council of the Baath party with no popular input.”

    and

    “For months the shaping of a new constitution has been the theme of popular political debates throughout Iraq. More than 300 conferences were held on the subject throughout the country, allowing an estimated 50,000 people to express the views of countless cultural associations, trade unions, guilds, tribal groups and religious fraternities. Iraq’s newly created free media, including more than 150 newspapers and six television stations, almost all privately owned, have brought the debate to every home in the country.”

    and

    “Soon after the liberation of Iraq in 2003, Yussuf al-Ayyeri, a chief theoretician of al-Qaeda, published a book entitled The Future of Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula after the Fall of Baghdad. In it, he designated Iraq as ‘the greatest battlefield of Islam against the infidel and its native allies’. Al-Ayyeri wrote: ‘It is not the American war machine that should be of the utmost concern to Muslims. What threatens the future of Islam, its very survival, is American democracy. To allow Iraq to build would represent Islam’s biggest defeat since the loss of Andalusia.’”

  11. R.D. Laing also came up with the theory that schizophrenia is basically the fault of a family (or, usually a mother) that can’t “communicate” well – a theory that made families, especially mothers, feel guilty about a condition that we now know is probably a chemical imbalance.

    Laing also influence Michael Foucault, who later went on to praise Khomeini’s Islamist takeover of Iran. Foucault also died of AIDS because of his irrational hatred of doctors.

    What on earth was going on during the sixties? It couldn’t have just been the drugs.

    When my son was a toddler, he hated it when the wind blew in his face. Everytime a breeze blew through his hair, he would yell at his father, because he assumed that his all-powerful Dad was responsible for everything. Cindy Sheehan and most of the “peace” crowd seem to be following the same logic.

    Fortunately my son grew out of that phase when he was three.

  12. For an interesting portrayal of someone whose parents were low-life hippies..and who reacts by going in the other direction–read Tom Wolfe’s “A Man in Full”

  13. David Duke is now her ally, isn’t he? I read somewhere he had written some kind of statement to the affect of supporting her bizarre and quasi insane statements about Israel.

  14. In the 1960’s it became fashionable to attribute ‘truth’ to madnesss, a la R.D. Laing. Thus, psychotic individuals were in touch with deeper, more authentic aspects of life than the rest of us robotic, soulless cogs in the capitalist wheel. Cindy Sheehan is quite clearly nuts. Hooray. The ’60’s survivors can hold a reunion. It’s nostalgia time for the Janis Joplin loving, DeadHeads–and Cindy Sheehan is, like, groovy, man. She’s on to those ‘deeper truths’. Like it’s the JEWS. Pass the toke baby, everybody must get stoned.

  15. Yeah, it’s Archie Bunker turned upside down. My youngest son & myself is a case in point. He’s conservative & I have my liberal leanings. As long as we stay on the war we are in agreement. When we venture into other subjects our discussions can heat up. Take Social Security: He’s all for privatization & I’m not. He affectionately calls me “commie” & my appellation for him is “capitalist dog.”

  16. Anyone ever noticed how many of the most vocal peace activists have children in the military?

    I don’t think this is a coincidence. Now, to be fair, it is partly a coincidence. Something like 400,000 people have had a tour in Iraq, and when the pool of soliders is that large it isn’t surprising that a few have lunatic peacenik parents.

    But even accounting for that, the numbers still seem disproportionately high.

    I suspect that many of the liberal philosophy of these parents was expressed in every aspect of their lives. It wasn’t limited to their foreign policy. These liberal parents didn’t set many limits for thier kids. They didn’t provide positive, traditional role models — on the contary, they ridiculed traditional role models and institutions, such as the Boy Scouts, that give structre to many childrens’ lives.

    Also, the parents probabaly weren’t that that happy or well-adjusted. The kids, understandably, looked at their parents and said “I’m going to do the opposite.” Some of probably even hate thier parents for being weak, morally adrift, and self-centered.

    These kids felt a void in their lives. They were drawn to the traditional institutions, such as the military, that their parents dispised.

    I tend to think that Gen X and later are much, much more conservative than the Baby Boomers. In fact, they are shockingly more conservative. It is hard to see this now becuase the Baby Boomers still control the media and popular culture. But once they die out we will see many radical changes.

  17. The Blame Game, assessing and assigning guilt. Who supported the muhadjeen in the over throw of the Soviet backed regime in Afghanistan, who provided weapons to Saddam in his war against the Iranians (and vice versa) and the gases Saddam used against the Kurds? Michael Moore made a great film, Farenheight 911 which exposes the links between the Bushes and Bin Ladens. The old boy oil network of Saudis and Texans. When the unimaginable and unthinkable happens look to see who gains to find who’s to blame. Yes, each person is personally responsible for their actions, like the sons and daughters who join the military. But I don’t blame them, nor their parents. And they shouldn’t blame themselves. We are all caught up in something in which we have little or no power to control or stop. (even the UN couldn’t stop Bush going to war in Iraq) People are right to protest, people need to protest, or our next president is going to be a fellow by the name of Jeb Bush and the reign of fear that moulds our collective social psyche will continue.

  18. Outstanding Post! Helped me to understand a difficult subject.

    I suspect Cindy Sheehan’s 15 minutes of fame will end the way most of these moments so often do: Sooner or later, something else will inevitably come along to knock her off the evening news, just the way 9/11 pushed the media frenzy over the missing Chandra Levey out of the national consciousness.

    This time, let’s hope it’s good news like the killing or capture of bin Laden or Zarqawi.

  19. Here’s a viewpoint that no one’s going to like, but I suggest you listen. I grew up in a house where my father, a very good man, died young, and left my mother with my sister and brother and me, aged from 8-12. It was hard for her and she was overwhelmed by grief.

    She was, understandably and correctly, given a lot of slack by everyone. My siblings and I became completely acquiescent to her desires (nobody cut us any slack, something we didn’t grasp for many years). Somehow, in a matter of a few years, conscious sympathy transformed into unthinking deference, while my formerly loving, though headstrong and emotional mother, became a tyrannical emotional blackmailer. Deviance from her will became equated with treachery to our dead father and cruelty to her grief. At first, as I said, in a conscious and deliberate way, but then as a Pavlovian response. My brother especially suffered (as the oldest child and only male, he turned into her emotional punching bag), but all of us did.

    Any normal person feels sympathy and sadness for Ms. Sheehan’s loss, but the situation has become ridiculous. She has been granted an unspoken “Most suffering person in America” designation and allowed to make the most vicious and slanderous accusations against anyone who disagrees with her as well as to make a mockery of the sacrifices and convictions of our military.

    Worst of all, the fear and shame of aggravating her misery by holding her responsible for her actions has become a carte blanche for her to inflict enormous pain upon the others who have lost their loved ones in Iraq. Sheehan dismisses these people’s own beliefs about the war, mocks the loss of their loved ones as a pointless waste, and demeans the memory of brave soldiers into that of dimwitted victims. Sheehan’s suffering is so great, we are given to understand, that the combined suffering of all these untold thousands is as a teardrop compared to her ocean of grief.

    Emptiness and sadness over Casey’s death will become a permanent part of the life of his parents and siblings, but if now the level of moral authority is to be granted based on the suffering one has to endure, it should be known that there are millions of people in our country who would be grateful to trade places with Mrs. Sheehan: those whose children will know nothing but suffering throughout their lives because of mental and/or physical handicaps; those whose children died after suffering a nightmare of torture and rape; those whose children have vanished, perhaps murdered long ago or perhaps suffering who knows what and who knows where; those whose children began normally and then suffered an injury or illness that has left them permanently disabled, either or mentally or physically; and, this I am depressed to say, is just a start.

    Wait! I reconsider. Let’s embrace the Sheehan dynamic. We’ll start by sending the parents of those whose children were murdered at the hands of released criminals to camp out at the houses of ACLU officers who resist any policy other than that of jailing criminals for life; the families of 9/11 victims can take up residence outside of Jamie Gorelick’s house for creating the “wall” that prevented the “Able Danger” group from informing the FBI about Mohammed Atta; women who had abortions, but have now come to believe that they murdered their own children, can head over to Planned Parenthood; and so forth. I’m sure there are other ideas. I’ll be sure to keep my eye on the news to watch them put into practice.

    Somehow, in our society, it has become accepted that certain people who have suffered injustice are given a pass to inflict it on others. No, no, no, and again, no. Suffering evil is not the process whereby one is given a license to inflict it.

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