Who Dishonors Our Vets - Sheehan or Bush?

I read a piece slamming Cindy Sheehan for what she is doing. I am always glad to hear from those who agree or disagree with me, provided there is some degree of sense of logic to what they write. In this case, I wasn’t sure that I could understand the logic, and could not see much sense in what was written.

The essence of the piece seemed to be that women (mothers especially) should be rooting for those women who live in parts of the world where their sons are brainwashed into doing horrible things like suicide bombings, and the women had to stand by powerlessly as this happened. The piece, (of course) attacked this woman by stating that he husband (and others in her family) did not agree with her.

Unless I am mistaken, this is exactly what Ms. Sheehan is doing. And by stating that her husband doesn’t agree with her, the author is displaying exactly the sort of misogynistic arrogance that makes Ms. Sheehan’s stance so noteworthy.

This woman raised a fine young man. An Eagle Scout as I understand, with many other honors to his name. She is proud of her son, as well as her family’s long history of distinguished service to this country. Her son was apparently proud to sign up, and who knows – she may have been proud to see him carry on a family tradition. At any rate, he believed that he was honorably serving the society and culture that raised him.

Now that he is dead, she simply wants to know if he was. The web of lies that took us to war is what dishonors the men and women who are dying there, not those who question those lies. She has the courage to question those lies, and President Bush obviously doesn’t have the courage to answer her question.

Our enemies today use lies and coercion to enroll impressionable young men into their ranks, and they strap suicide bombs on these young men and tell them of the great honor that it will be to die for their country. And the mothers have to sit by and watch – powerless to say anything – powerless to do anything. We are right to criticize this effort. We are right to see the disgrace and evil in this.

And in our country, when we have leaders who lie to us and deceive us to take us to war, are not their lies as disgraceful as those of our enemies? The only difference is that in our country, the mothers of those young men still have the right to stand up and question these leaders. We may not have the right to go to a “town hall” meeting that we pay for as taxpayers unless we are Republican supporters of the President, we may be losing our civil rights at an alarming rate, but for now, a mother still has the right to question leaders who she thinks may have lied to her.

If these leaders were men of courage and honor, they would sit with her and answer her questions – and the questions of the country. If they are cowards and scoundrels, they will attack this woman, and try to paint her as unpatriotic, and say that her opinion doesn’t really count, since her husband doesn’t agree with her.

Thanks G-d for those millions of true American patriots who have given their life and blood to assure this woman’s right to question openly. Thank G-d for the hundreds of thousands who serve today to protect that right. Shame on this President and this administration for dishonoring their sacrifice with their lies and deceit, their cowardly attacking of the woman who raised a soldier who died for their cause, their shameful profiteering from the lives of Americans.