Coulter Vilifies A Grieving Mother
Cindy Sheehan is the mother from California whose 24-year-old son Casey, a soldier, has become one of the casualties of the war in Iraq. She has taken up a post on a road near G.W.'s ranch in Crawford, Texas, where Bush has gone for a five-week vacation in order "to keep a balanced life". Sheehan stands her ground out there, asking the President to meet with her and explain why her son had to die, why the troops were sent out and why they can't be brought home.
She has become the centre of a groundswell of protest being called the "Mom's Movement". Mothers across the States have gathered on street corners and in front of veterans' memorials, lighting candles and keeping vigils to call for the troops to be brought home. Some mothers have written letters to First Lady Laura Bush, asking her help. A group of mothers from Ohio who lost children on a day heavy with casualties, earlier this month, have gone to the media to make their call for an end to the war.
While she attracts so much positive support, Sheehan also attracts the negative. Some are accusing her of dishonouring the memory of those who have died there. They suggest that to be an anti-war protester makes it impossible for her also to be a grieving mother. They want to portray her as some kind of unnatural aberration, a mother who has lost her son but does not grieve for him; a mother who instead seeks the glare of publicity's floodlights in which to shed crocodile tears. Bush toady Ann Coulter, conservative publicist, goes so far as to say "Call me old-fashioned, but a grief-stricken war mother shouldn't have her own full-time PR flack. After your third profile on Entertainment Tonight, you're no longer a grieving mom; you're a C-list celebrity trolling for a book deal or a reality show." (quote from the Toronto Daily Star)
Anyone who has outlived a child has lived through hell. Anyone who has not suffered such a tragedy should never presume to judge those who have. Each one of them will handle it in their own way, and live through it the best they can. Many would eschew the scrutiny of the media, but there are those who would seek it out in order to give vent to their sorrow and their protest against the conditions that robbed them of a child, in the hope that the heart of the nation might be moved. Neither way is wrong. The only wrong here is the voicing of such calumnies as those uttered by Coulter.
She has become the centre of a groundswell of protest being called the "Mom's Movement". Mothers across the States have gathered on street corners and in front of veterans' memorials, lighting candles and keeping vigils to call for the troops to be brought home. Some mothers have written letters to First Lady Laura Bush, asking her help. A group of mothers from Ohio who lost children on a day heavy with casualties, earlier this month, have gone to the media to make their call for an end to the war.
While she attracts so much positive support, Sheehan also attracts the negative. Some are accusing her of dishonouring the memory of those who have died there. They suggest that to be an anti-war protester makes it impossible for her also to be a grieving mother. They want to portray her as some kind of unnatural aberration, a mother who has lost her son but does not grieve for him; a mother who instead seeks the glare of publicity's floodlights in which to shed crocodile tears. Bush toady Ann Coulter, conservative publicist, goes so far as to say "Call me old-fashioned, but a grief-stricken war mother shouldn't have her own full-time PR flack. After your third profile on Entertainment Tonight, you're no longer a grieving mom; you're a C-list celebrity trolling for a book deal or a reality show." (quote from the Toronto Daily Star)
Anyone who has outlived a child has lived through hell. Anyone who has not suffered such a tragedy should never presume to judge those who have. Each one of them will handle it in their own way, and live through it the best they can. Many would eschew the scrutiny of the media, but there are those who would seek it out in order to give vent to their sorrow and their protest against the conditions that robbed them of a child, in the hope that the heart of the nation might be moved. Neither way is wrong. The only wrong here is the voicing of such calumnies as those uttered by Coulter.
5 Comments:
I believe Cindy's words speak for themselves.
Sheehan on Hardball:
MATTHEWS: Can I ask you a tough question? A very tough question.
SHEEHAN: Yes.
MATTHEWS: All right. If your son had been killed in Afghanistan, would you have a different feeling?
SHEEHAN: I don't think so, Chris, because I believe that Afghanistan is almost the same thing. We're fighting terrorism. Or terrorists, we're saying. But they're not contained in a country. This is an ideology and not an enemy. And we know that Iraq, Iraq had no terrorism. They were no threat to the United States of America.
MATTHEWS: But Afghanistan was harboring, the Taliban was harboring al-Qaida which is the group that attacked us on 9/11.
SHEEHAN: Well then we should have gone after al-Qaida and maybe not after the country of Afghanistan.
MATTHEWS: But that's where they were being harbored. That's where they were headquartered. Shouldn't we go after their headquarters? Doesn't that make sense?
SHEEHAN: Well, but there were a lot of innocent people killed in that invasion, too. ... But I'm seeing that we're sending our ground troops in to invade countries where the entire country wasn't the problem. Especially Iraq. Iraq was no problem. And why do we send in invading armies to march into Afghanistan when we're looking for a select group of people in that country?
So I believe that our troops should be brought home out of both places where we're obviously not having any success in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden is still on the loose and that's who they told us was responsible for 9/11.
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When is it right to lose a child in a war? Never. Dying in a war, any war, is not a good thing. Regardless of whether the war is just or not.
Many feel the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq were not just. I won't argue this point, as the opinions on either side are so entrenched, that it is pointless trying to have either side of the argument understand each other.
For those who are quick to dismiss those who are grieving, or those who are angry because of a loss, try being in their shoes. Try being in the war zone. Try losing a child. It's quite easy to form opinions when you're unscathed. You're not dealing with the emotion of hurt, anger ...
Anyway, Ann Coulter is a well known bitch. The woman is single-handly working to reverse the gains women have made in the last century. She's worse than Bush, who's just plain stupid -- she's stupid and evil.
Nothing Ann Coulter says can be taken with any seriousness. She is exactly what she accuses others of being. A C-list celebrity. Coulter is one of the screaming right wing talking heads. Her opinions are laughably uneducated and what is worse, she chooses to believe the drivel. It is one thing to be a right-winger and have what they call "conservative values", it is a totally other thing to be wilfully blind and complicit in the lies of the Bubble boy bush group which Coulter is.
Ann Coulter is awesome; she speaks the truth.
Cindy Sheehan is grieving, but she is also allowing herself to be used by the Leftists.
Casey Sheehan volunteered for the US Marines. He fought in Iraq. He re-enlisted in summer 2003. Casey is a true hero. Cindy Sheehan dishonors him by calling the cause he died for wrong and useless.
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