Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Cindy Sheehan Resigns

As many of you probably already know, Cindy Sheehan has “resigned” from the protest over the Iraq war. The event as described in a MSNBC article has several snippets that I would like to comment on.

In what she described as a “resignation letter,” Sheehan wrote in her online diary on the “Daily Kos” blog: “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.

I’m sorry that America is not the country you want it to be. I’m not exactly happy about all of the things that happen here, but I am not naïve enough to believe that if I parade around the world protesting that everyone is going to follow my lead and do the same.

“I have endured a lot of smear and hatred since Casey was killed and especially since I became the so-called “Face” of the American anti-war movement.”

And that’s exactly what will happen if you go out and protest. There will be repercussions of some nature from the opposition, especially from parents in a similar situation. Whether you will be strong enough to weather the criticism is something that is not for the faint-hearted.

When she had first taken on Bush, Sheehan was a darling of the liberal left. “However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the 'left' started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used.”

“…would rather live under Hugo Chavez than George W. Bush.” (Hardball, July 5, 2006, with guest host Norah O'Donnell)

Sheehan said she had sacrificed a 29-year marriage and endured threats to put all her energy into stopping the war. What she found, she wrote, was a movement “that often puts personal egos above peace and human life.”

Congratulations, Cindy, you just found out you was used by the liberals to further their agenda. Once you outlived your usefulness, you were discarded like yesterday’s garbage. Making statements of wanting to live in a Socialist country with an anti-America dictator running it did nothing but make you appear like a wacko and make you a liability. Politics (and politicians) do not respect personal sacrifice, nor do they care about anything but the advancement of their personal agendas.

“Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives.”

I can do nothing but agree with her statement (surprise!!). We are a fickle nation with misplaced priorities and limited attention spans.

Kristinn Taylor, spokesman for FreeRepublic.com, which has held pro-troop rallies and counter-protests of anti-war demonstrations, said dwindling crowds at Sheehan's Crawford protests since her initial vigil may have led to her decision. But he also said he hopes she will now be able to heal.

"Her politics have hurt a lot of people, including the troops and their families, but most of us who support the war on terror understand she is hurt very deeply," Taylor said Tuesday. "Those she got involved with in the anti-war movement realize it was to their benefit to keep her in that stage of anger."

I agree with Miss Taylor. Cindy Sheehan has always struck me as a person with a deep amount of pain over her son’s loss. I think she started asking why her son died, and couldn’t come to terms with it. I do hope that she finds peace, and hopefully, heal the wounds that the loss of her son created.

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