Publisher's Message

"What exactly did my son die for?"

By Cindy Sheehan

Just because we live in a culture of lies does not mean Americans cannot say, enough is enough. That tipping point arrived with the singular effort of Cindy Sheehan. Whether you agree with her statements or not, it is generally accepted that it was Sheehan, who through her grief over her slain soldier son, Casey, shone a glaring light directly in the face of a vacationing President Bush, by asking, “What exactly did my son die for?”

Thanks to Cindy Sheehan, Americans are now, finally, demanding an answer to the same question.

And thanks to Sheehan, the delusions of so many Americans, that this administration has shamelessly fueled, appear to be dead. The latest Gallup Poll, conducted in August, shows that President Bush’s approval rating is down to 40 percent, the lowest for any re-elected president since World War II, except for Nixon. The poll also shows that only 34 percent of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in Iraq.

During the Vietnam Era the majority of the protestors were young males. Today, it is women who are the fiercest opponents of the Bush war policy, taking to the streets and demanding answers. These women are mothers and widows who have lost their husbands, sons, and daughters. They refuse to be quieted or marginalized. Interestingly, the conservative cable news pundits’ Swiftboat tactics to discredit them haven’t worked. Try as they might – and they are relentless – nothing they say seems to be resonating, not even with some of the Party faithful.

How did delusion and fear take such a foothold in the American psyche?

Delusion for me began with 9/11. Naively, I always believed our government and military had systems in place that would protect us from such an attack. Every system failed and I, like many, became fearful. Greatly exacerbating this fear was the Bush administration’s stonewalling of the investigation for over three years. The 9/11 Commission completed its report and still much remains unexplained. Fear was the basis of the Democrats endorsement for the preemptive invasion of Iraq and fear certainly contributed to Bush’s re-election in 2004.

Fear and delusion have deadly and far-reaching consequences.

Think about how our fear has resulted with decisions which have actually added thousands more deaths in the name of 9/11 (which killed 3,000). Nearly 2,000 more Americans have died in Iraq, 16,000 are seriously wounded. Perhaps as many as 100,000 Iraqis have died. These losses occurred in Iraq, a country which had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. Now, the U.S. is deeply mired in a quagmire. More terrorists are coming into Iraq through neighboring borders and using Iraq as their training ground, and Iraqi tribes continue to fuel volatility in the region as they have for thousands of years. Iraq is surrounded by countries hostile to the U.S. like Syria and Iran. And we are alone, with virtually no support from other countries.

We Americans are very good at deluding ourselves. Eventually though, memory, history, and reality take over. My generation fought in Vietnam. The dead had real faces because we actually saw combat and body bags every single night on television and because the dead were our high school classmates. We knew them. We remember the draft and every town in the country was impacted. We remember how awful war was.

And we remember the lies of Presidents Johnson and Nixon and the Generals. Those lies kept us in Vietnam for years (i.e., the Gulf of Tonkin), successfully deluding most Americans until in ever-increasing numbers they asked, “What exactly did my son die for?” 53,000 deaths and years later, we left Vietnam because there was no satisfactory answer.

Our generation’s parents fought in WW II. The U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on two Japanese cities, full of civilians. Our parents remember how awful war is.

No one who remembers would choose to go to war.

No one who remembers says, “Wow. Let’s go to war. What fun. Let’s do it again.” Except the uneducated, the inexperienced, or the delusional.

If the latest polls are correct and stick, most Americans are delusional no more. Support for the war is eroding rapidly; perhaps to the point of no return for the Bush administration. The Karl Rove media manipulation tricks are transparent to the media and the public. Real life facts and the Cindy Sheehan movement are overwhelming their standard stalwart answers to her question. “What exactly did my son die for?”

We were going to be attacked. No evidence.

Hussein had nuclear weapons and would use them on us. No evidence.

Weapons of Mass Destruction. U.N. inspectors never found any. And neither did we.

Hussein is a bad guy and we had to get rid of him. Fine. There are a lot of bad guys. Wasn’t there another way?

Spread Freedom to Iraq and throughout the Middle East. The new reason given when none of the above proved to be true. And at what cost? To die for?

The Exit Plan: Once the Iraqis have a constitution and can secure their own country, we will leave. Really? A safe secure Iraq democracy? Surrounded by hostile countries and riddled with radical Islamists? Then what? Will this then be Cindy Sheehan’s answer?

Many want to believe that Iraq is a noble effort and worthy enough to die for or be maimed for life. The pain of a lost loved one is horrible enough. Coming to terms with an unacceptable reason for the loss compounds the pain to a nearly unbearable level.

The soldiers, fighting in this urban guerilla war, do not set policy. Indeed, they are called upon by our elected Commander-in-Chief to do their job. Make no mistake about it, Americans are grateful and will always honor their service and sacrifice.

Because we are all Americans we all share responsibility for this war and will pay dearly for it. We therefore have every right to demand accountability for the deceptive reasons for going in the first place, for truthful answers as to why we are there now. and why we should stay and what will be the criteria for leaving. We also need truthful answers on the cost and how it will be paid. We also want to know the criteria which will trigger a draft.

Delusion is a powerful detachment mechanism.

Cindy Sheehan and more women like her put an end to that escape.