ReutersTuesday 29 May 2007
Cindy Sheehan withdraws
as public face of war opposition
"Our brave young men and women in Iraq have been abandoned there indefinitely by their cowardly leaders who move them around like pawns on a chessboard of destruction" -- Cindy Sheehan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Activist Cindy Sheehan announced she was ending her public campaign against the Iraq war with an angry blast at Democrats, Republicans and "cowardly leaders" who have abandoned U.S. troops indefinitely in Iraq.
"This is my resignation letter as the 'face' of the American anti-war movement," Sheehan said in a Memorial Day posting Monday on the Web site Daily Kos.
Sheehan became a leading voice against the Iraq conflict after her son, Casey, was killed in combat in 2004.
She was a frequent protester in President George W. Bush's adopted hometown of Crawford, Texas. She began visiting Crawford in the summer of 2005 when she wanted to meet with Bush while he was vacationing at his ranch. Bush had met with her after her son died but did not see her again, although he sent two top aides to talk to her.
The White House had no comment on Sheehan's announcement.
Sheehan said she had reached the conclusion over the Memorial Day holiday that her son "did indeed die for nothing" and was "killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think."
"Our brave young men and women in Iraq have been abandoned there indefinitely by their cowardly leaders who move them around like pawns on a chessboard of destruction," she wrote.
Sheehan criticized Democrats, saying they had turned against her when she tried to hold them to the same standards she held Republicans. And she expressed frustration with an anti-war movement that she said "often puts personal egos above peace and human life."
"I am going to take whatever I have left and go home," she wrote. "I am going to go home and be a mother to my surviving children and try to regain some of what I have lost."
"Good-bye America ... you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can't make you be that country unless you want it," she said. "It's up to you now."
Democrats have been under increasing pressure from liberal groups to turn the tide against the Iraq war since they took control of Congress this year.
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© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.
4 comments:
First, I'm sorry for Cindy's loss. But I'm glad she's throwing in the towel. She has a right to voice her opinion but by doing what she's done I feel she has hurt our troops. I was not surprised about her comment of rather living in Venezuela. I think she should. She needs to find out what a true dictator is like. If she had done the same thing in Venezuela she did here she would have been shot. So, I say, go to Venezuela Cindy, and see how well you like it there.
Wow! Thanks for the Nostalgia Hit!
During the Vietnam War, if you protested against the Vietnam War, guys (almost always guys) would say: If you don't like it here, go to Russia.
She hasn't hurt our troops. It's a Sticks And Stones thing. No soldier or marine ever died or was wounded because of anything Cindy Sheehan ever said or did.
Compare that to the orders and "leadership" of the Commander-in-Chief and Rumsfeld.
If every patriotic American stopped protesting this psycho, foot-shooting, pre-lost war in Iraq, it would still be a psycho, foot-shooting, scoundrels' and liars', pre-lost war. But there'd be no way to see that this was America, with its First Amendment right to protest government actions .
Do you hate it when the free press criticizes the war, too? You can't pull that shit in Cuba, there is no free press.
But you can pull that shit in America. We pulled it during Vietnam, we're pulling it again during this whack war.
And that's why Cubans get in leaky little boats and risk their lives to come to America. That's why the world -- even during the Bush administration -- admires America. Because Cindy Sheehan can decide what to do about the loss of her soldier son, and millions of Americans can cheer her on.
Rosie's gone, but you can still catch Elisabeth Hasselbeck on "The View." She's an All-American patriotic grrlie.
I support our troops. I used to be one of our troops. (Happy Memorial Day to you, too, have you served?) I love Cindy Sheehan and I loved Jane Fonda. They remind Americans why it's absolutely spectacular to live in America.
You're telling political activists you don't like to leave and go to Russia (or Venezuela).
P.S. You're an Anonymous Driveby Commenter. You got no link, you got no addie. That's against The Only Rule of Vleeptron. Cindy Sheehan uses her real name, why don't you?
I spent some time talking with a UMASS friend in the International Socialist Organization last night about Sheehan's statement, our mutual frustrations with the personal bullshit that goes on between anti-war groups, and the runners-up in the Miss Universe competition.
Our conclusions:
1) If you don't feel bad about Sheehan ending the Crawford protest (even though her reasons-- hypocritical behavior by supposedly liberal politicians, dysfunctional people in the anti-war movement, and general public apathy-- are valid causes for her frustration), you're probably an asshole. It's unimaginably painful enough to have a family member killed violently; it's exponentially more so to believe they died for nothing.
2) The anti-war movement needs to stop sniping at itself. A member of the UMASS Radical Student Union is accusing members of the ISO of physically assaulting RSU members in a "their word v. our word" scenario, apparently because they like controversy because there's nothing else that definitely comes of that sort of thing. I'm a member of neither, but it just makes everyone involved look like an asshole to say things like that, and the more the anti-war movement looks like assholes, the fewer people will want to join.
3) Miss Tanzania should definitely keep her hair short. Very aerodynamic. I approve as a cyclist.
Imagine if all 3500+ mothers banded together to protests this Scoundrel's War with the fervor and vigor that Cindy Sheehan mustered?
Sure, she might not have been the best spokesperson, she really did come across as a loon sometimes.
But she has 100% unimpeachable street cred. Her son was killed in this lie.
It is a testament to the spin machine that the criminals in office have managed to put together that even mothers of dead soldiers still say things like "my son died protecting his country." I am very, very sorry that these parents have had to bury their children, but what utter bullshit. They did not die protecting their country, they died for a lie, they died protecting President Bush's teeny dick complex, they died to protect President Bush's 'legacy'. (And by that, I mean the oil profits). They will all leave Washington very very wealthy men.
Cindy Sheehan is right. This is not the America we used to know and love. I don't know what it is anymore. There should be massive strikes and protests. The people opposed to this war should rise up and shut down the government, shut down the universities, shut down the national economy until the criminal Bush capitulates to the will of the American people and brings our troops home, now.
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