No, because you are being a bit of a jerk in this thread. Because you seem to think women should shut up and be good little housewives, regardless of the strength of their views on a given subject. Because (now that I’ve a bit of a look around the right-wing blogs where you apparently have obtained what you claim to be your independent thinking about Mrs. Sheehan) you seem have rather misstated the strength and nature of the objections to her protest by certain members of her family. Because you are employing the old Soviet tactic of characterizing someone expressing dissent as being insane.
Personally, I don’t necessarily agree with Mrs. Sheehan’s chosen form of protest (who am I in lockstep with, then, Clothahump?), but, as a peaceful and by all appearances heartfelt expression of dissent, I’ve got no particular problem with it. Your repeated assertions, however, that this somehow makes her insane, or that she is purely some sort of liberal shill, without supplying any factual basis for making them, are deserving of little but scorn and derision.
Yep. You have proven you know how to shovel it out.
Really? Her husband is divorcing her. Her family has made a public statement denouncing her actions.:
Short of them showing up out there and hitting her in the face with a pie, I don’t think they could have made it any plainer. I didn’t misstate in the slightest.
You also said:
If you have noticed, I’ve changed my viewpoint. I started out thinking that she had just gone around the bend from grief and was being manipulated. I don’t think that any more. I think she is exploiting her son’s death for publicity and future profit.
I agree with your idea of what would be a quasi-“win” at this point (which is, by the way, still a far cry from the domino theory of freedom for the greater MENA region that the neo-con hand book predicted). I don’t agree that it is acheivable. We’ve screwed the pooch, and the best we can hope for is an Islamic republic that doesn’t burn the US Flag each year on 9/11.
Which, by the way, is arguably much worse than the situation that existed before we went in. For 350 Billion Dollars, 1000 plus American dead, 14,000 American wounded, uncounted Iraqi civilians dead, the creation of the ultimate terrorist training ground, with 20/20 hindsight, would you admit that this whole fucked up imperial campaign was a mistake?
If we can devise a way to get out now, without allowing Iraq to devolve into an IslamIST republic, that allies with Iran and puts women into bhurkas, I think we should do it. If we can’t devise a way, then we need to stay in, and contain as much as possible.
I still think that a marked INCREASE in troop presence is (and was from the beginning) the way to go. Lock down the trouble spots. But at this point, with the way this conflict has affected our armed forces, with Russia and China holding joint war games, with Iran and North Korea developing nukes and thumbing their noses at us, I doubt we could do so. And I’m furious, and scared, about that. Hell, if you’re going in, WMD, world opinion and the rest be damned, at least listen to the guys that have been there! Colin Powell, Gen. Shinseki, everyone that knew anything about invading a country called for 100,000 more troops than were brought. That’s a lot of ammo dumps that can be secured, a lot of patrols that can be on watch, a lot of area denied the enemy. Sorry for the hijack, but the way this developed is ludicrous. FUBAR in the worst way, by people who should fucking know better.
Bear with me here, I’m trying to unravel Ms. Sheehan’s motives:
Ms. Sheehan seems to represent the growing number of ordinary folks that feel that the powers that be (on both sides of the aisle) in the federal government haven’t the slightest shred of genuine concern for their opinions, whether it be the war in Iraq or domestic issues. Given this seemingly hostile environment, it’s understandable that she might feel that the only way to force some serious discussion of her minority opinion is to short-circuit the normal process (i.e. via her representatives), and engage in some dramatic public ear-yammering.
The death of her child has prompted her to make public her political agenda. AFAIK, she wasn’t publically vocal about the war before her son’s death (someone correct me if that’s wrong). Is a mother wanting other mothers to avoid experiencing the grief of losing a child a “bad” political agenda? Can one say that a grieving mother doesn’t have the right to be very upset about losing their child? Does her public expression of this grief really equate to her “using” the death for some less-than-noble purpose? I can see her rationalizing that if her demands are met, then perhaps she can carry on believing that her son did not die in vain, and that her “using” his passing served a greater good. I am very skeptical that she’s in this for any kind or personal or monetary gain.
Granted, what she’s asking for, the complete pull-out of troops from Iraq, is nonsensical at this stage. But from the perspective of a grieving mother, it seems like a completely reasonable thing for her to demand.
Also, if it helps her accomplish her goal, is it not rational for her to accept help from others when offered? Why does that diminsh her message or her sincerity?
Clothahump, I keep asking you for a cite for your statement about the books, movies, TV deals that Mrs. Sheehan is going to make money from… your post #64 in this thread. I see that you have yet to give me a cite for your information, or to withdraw it as talking out your ass. Which is it? Waiting patiently for more than a day now, and you’ve posted several times…
And if that’s her’s and other’s motivation, I completely understand it. But it still doesn’t give any one citizen the right to make unrealistic demands upon the POTUS.
Or perhaps I would better say that anyone has the right to ask, but no one reasonably has a right to a direct, face-to-face answer for the policies and executive decisions of the POTUS.
Of course, the voters also have the right to vote for someone in a different party come Election Day, too; a fact that I’m sure the Pres. is aware of, if not for himself, then at least for his party. But scoring cheap-shot points really isn’t going to win the opposition any of the “undecided” votes they need to take control and change to course of American domestic and foreign policy, either.
Let’s pop this pimple once-and-for-all, right here and now. :mad:
Cindy Sheehan did NOT lose a “child.” She lost a son. A son who was a grown man, who not only voluntarily enlisted in the military as an adult, but who also reenlisted in the middle of a war when he could have called it quits and safely went home. No one marched “her little boy” off to war against his will.
She wants to know why Casey Sheehan died? This is why he died.
Additionally, I never brought up the money angle, so I’m curious why you’re addressing that comment to my post?
No, it isn’t reasonable. If we run from Iraq, we simply prove to the hate-filled Islamofacists that we are weak cowards, who don’t have the courage of our convictions to follow through with what we started out to do; right or wrong, we’re asshole deep in the shit, and running will only drag it along with us back to our own shores again. We would be inviting every crack-pot mullah to arm and equip hundreds of suicide bombers to walk down Mainstreet, AnyTown, USA, knowing that any action we take to try to stamp out their medieval, repressive theocracy and supplant it with an open, democratic republic will be undermined by the Michael Moores and Cindy Sheehans of the United States.
She wants to know the real reason we’re in Iraq? IMHO, it’s because Saddam already had a fairly secular state (for an Islamic country), and W (erroneously) thought that the Iraqis would be overjoyed to see Saddam go (they were) and would be reasonably moderate in setting up and continuing in their secular government (they weren’t), giving the Middle East a modern, secular, democratic state to emulate, and therefore supplant the murderous, autocratic theocracies running the Muslim world with belief system left over from the time of the Crusades (which the Muslim world, at least the part that hates us with a raging hard-on, still hasn’t gotten over yet!).
Fuck WMD, fuck terrorist links, fuck Saddam Hussein, and fuck liberating the Iraqis from him. I’m not excusing Bush for this royal mess, but I’m also not condemning his motives.
If we leave now, then not only Casey Sheehan, but every single Coalition soldier, every single journalist, aid worker, contractor, and Iraqi who has died so far, their deaths would have been for nothing. Nothing.
We may as well have lined them all up alongside the road in front of Pres. Bush’s ranch and machinegunned them into the ditch, and start over at square one, pretending that tomorrow is September 12, 2001.
Again, I never addressed this issue, so I’m curious as to why you’re asking me for an answer. Do you just want my opinion?
He died just in case this individuals theory is correct? Is that the “Better to fight them there than here” theory? The threat of terrorism is very real and dealing with it presents no easy answers. The “It could be worse” justification for war is pretty lame. BTW , the author is totally inapproproate in his use of the **Abe Lincoln quote. **
Does the term Civil War ring a bell?
Another classic. I understand the feeling. It is an appalling thought, which is exactly why so many people are angry to the point of a passionate hatred at this President and his administration. People believe based on the evidence, that this president and those with him, lied to the American public to start a war. They already feel the anguish and betrayal that you speak of and refuse to consider. Your proposed answer? Send in more troops to die and keep doing it until we find some justification for this mess. How well I remember these same words being used to stretch the Vietnam tradegy on for year after year. It appears we won’t wait that long and for this war. It appears there are Americans who aren’t willing to sacrifice 58,000+ {Names on the wall} killed in combat an untold wounded, waiting in vain for a justification or anything we might claim as victory. What do you see as the end result of that very same attitude in the Vietnam era?
When you throw these words out with such moral indignation you might want to remember that for a lot of Americans it’s “been there, and done that”
That same mentality caused tens of thousands of American deaths in Vietnam, and yes, they were still for nothing. The responsibility for that lies with those who held the view you have just repeated.
That war couldn’t be won, and neither can this one, and for essentially the same reasons too. Any more deaths there will be wastes, but you want them to happen anyway.
Gotta think with your head, not your balls, dude. Those who cannot remember the past etc. are still not as bad as those of you who can but refuse to heed it.
Because people on both sides of this argument were speculating about what outside support Cindy Sheehan was getting. All I did was find some sources that answered that question.
Again, if you have an issue with those facts as reported, I suggest taking it up with the source, not the messenger.
Mrs. Sheehan’s financial situation was speculated upon by Clothahump, light strand, eponymous, Push You Down, Snowboarder Bo and minty green before I posted about it.
The difference, of course, is that I didn’t speculate. I had cites.
I don’t know why Clothahump brought it up in the first place. Why don’t you ask him?
I don’t think the Mrs. Sheehan recieving some support from liberal groups diminishes her message in any way. Those who blatently present it as such such as Rush and other White House shills are just scumbag media whores doing what they are paid to do.
However, if it was discovered that Cindy was being paid some inflated fee by Liberal groups it would lower my respect for all involved. The message is there and very real. Let’s not phony it up and sully the importance of it.
OTOH it really cracks me up that people will critisize this woman as being less than sincere by quoting the oh so obvious shills who make huge money by catering to a certain mentallity and supporting this admin with any BS they can. Even worse is the comparison with the dishonesty of this President and his admin. The best example of the spec in someones eye and the log in your own I’ve ever seen hands down.
Absolutely false. I never speculated on Mrs. Sheehan’s financial situation. I was asking Clothahump for cites to back up his declarative statements regarding her financial situation.
In fact, I never did anything other than ask Clothahump for cites, until you made the claim that Mrs. Sheehan was being paid, and cited articles that showed nothing of the sort. I, and others, then called you out as either distorting the words written in USA Today, or simply failing to have any real reading comprehension.
But I never speculated on her financial situation, not once. To say that I did is a lie.
Also, Clothahump, still waiting on that cite re: Mrs. Sheehan’s alleged book, TV, movie deals.
Then do so. Retract your statement in post #153 and acknowledge that you mischaracterized my postings in this thread. Don’t weasel around it with an explanation of why you lied.
Listen, all I did was answer the question of financial support to Mrs. Sheehan’s cause with some facts. And those facts are pretty clear. Cindy Sheehan is being supported in her cause by a number of organizations, and they are providing monetary and material support.
Again, I don’t find this particularly controversial, and have stated so. So I wonder about the motivations of people who’ve reacted to this news with such distress.
Well, the main reason I jumped into this thread is because Clothahump was insinuating that Ms. Sheehan was somehow doing what’s she’s doing for financial gain. In other words, the reason for her protest is because outside groups/organizations are the real force behind her protest and have given her some sort of incentive to “cash in” on her son’s death.
Which is why I called bullshit on his/her agrument. If I’ve misconstrued Clothahump’s argument, then I apologize. But maybe he/she would like to clarify exactly the point he/she was getting at.
