Mrs. Sheehan has the right to say and do anything she wants (within the law, of course) as far as I am concerned. I can't begin to understand the grief she must be feeling and she should deal with it however is best for her.

However, I can't help but feel that this whole brouhaha is not of Mrs. Sheehan's doing. I feel like the liberals latched on to her and are trying to make her into a "symbolic grieving mother" which is not the same as a mother who is in grief. It's not about Mrs. Sheehan, it's about their agenda and they're using her as a puppet. That's terrible and exploitative.

For the record, I detest this practice whether it's liberals or conservatives doing it. The press conference President Bush held where he was surrounded by children who had grown from frozen embryos turned my stomach.

As far as Mrs. Sheehan, I sincerely hope that she eventually finds the peace she deserves.

I said almost the same thing last night. I think that she is being exploited to further an agenda. I think that she is operating on raw emotion, and she would benefit from some grief therapy. She should be surrounded by friends and family and people who have her best interest in mind.

I also hope that she finds peace. I feel very sorry for her and her loss.

I think that the President should take a few minutes to meet with her in private. He can express his sympathy for her loss and end this media frenzy. It might help mend some fences with the opposition.

Maybe he could meet with her again. But, honestly I don't think it would mend fences. I think that if he did that, then they would just find another thing to demand and complain about.

It amazes me how once calm, level-headed mothers (regardless of political affiliation, as some of the most emotional are the ones who supported the war back in 2003) who have lost sons to war will say and do. She is operating off of raw emotion--just like a lot of the family friends who have lost children are acting. Believe me, she's not the only one; she's just the only one who is getting so much media scrutiny.

I dunno you guys & gals...
 

Did this war really start because of 9/11?

Many folks are thinking this was a conspiracy. You insight a lunatic to pile drive planes into buildings and his cronies are crazy enough to do it...

But not many of the gang members really came from Iraq... We just took the gang war to them and they are killing our service personnel daily...

Some folks think that we are training "insurgents" to kick our asses in Iraq... They can beat our butts out there...

And the longer we stay with these "convoys" following "Geneva Convention", the more we are going to lose service personnel...

And who is making money off this "joint venture" really? Because wars--if you win them--make money... Right now, gas prices are outta this world... And Halliburton stock is dropping... And I'm a firm believer that the "value" of money is not created or destroyed, it just changes from one hand to another... The only folks profiteering off our fighting is probably the Pacific Rim--'cuz what are they fighting right now? North Korea not aiming ICBM's to Seattle? Keep telling yourself that... :rolleyes:

And if we really wanted to nail Iraq, then it's time to make a clean slate and lay waste them... And call it to end the card game... No sense in allowing IED's bashing the isht outta our Abrams tanks... Their BS plastic explosives cannot fight a daisy cutter or a simple nuke... And I don't give a dayum about Iran and their asses... But you solve your insurgent problem in Iraq for a bit of time...

After that, the UN may have a nice talk with us along with the EU... But they tried that diplomatic isht with Iran and now Iran's building nukes...

I really think Bush ALLOWED US to bite off more than we could chew...

We haven't solved the Afghanistan issue, yet...

And we've got a Pakistani-Kashmir-India issue...

And soon we've got to deal with the Israeli's on the Gaza Strip in some form...

And if North Korea doesn't lose their minds, we've got to make sure that our missile defense sheild from the Reagan era Star Wars works--okay, I guess...

Either way... Ain't nunna of us living thru these "last days" once the nukes go off...

"Everybody's got the bomb and it will go off any day/But before I let that happen/I will dance my life away"

"Mommy? Why does everybody have a bomb?"

Prince, 1999

This is a slight hijack/off the topic post, but something I've noticed with mothers of Vietnam vets is there was an assumption by many that their sons wouldn't come back. My father, father-in-law and many of my father's friends went to Vietnam, and in almost of all cases their parents sold many of their belongings. The assumption was that there was a good chance their sons wouldn't be returning.

This is purely an observation, so I'm not sure how credible my small sample size is, but I thought it was interesting.

You're right, Mrs. Sheehan is absolutely not the only one - all one need do is go to an anti-war protest anywhere in the country, and you're likely to run into someone who feels the same way that she does.

Both sides are using her to push their agenda. The anti-Bush camp using her sentimentally. The pro-Bush camp using her by saying that the anti-Bush camp is exploiting her. both sides don't give a damn about her.

I can definitely see this from both sides. Her son signed up to be in the military, so he knew there was a chance he wouldn't come back. However, if we were fighting a just war, then his death would not be in vain. This "war" is totally ridiculous now. At first it was Afghanistan. Then Iraq with these mysterious WMDs. Now we're trying to train Iraqis. We're never going to be out of Iraq... my brother-in-law is about to leave for Iraq and he says they are building permanant bases there, so it looks like we definitely won't be pulling out any time soon. It's probably a good thing since we've made such a mess :rolleyes:

Anyways, back to the topic: I agree that she has been exploited. My thoughts are with her and everyone who has lost someone in this dumb war.

She doesn't have an agenda. So what if she has linked up with MoveOn.org.

-Rudey

Again? He has yet to meet with her.

I thought he met with her and other mothers earlier this year.

Re: I dunno you guys & gals...
 

It absolutely did. Even though Iraq probably had nothing to do with 9/11, there was (and still is) an extremely strong geopolitical motivation to take Iraq's Baathist regime out. There was the moral imperitive of removing the only genocidal regime in the region, and the political motivation to remove the only government in the region that was actively working against the US in the immediate post-9/11 era.

Look at a map. It makes perfect sense.

Re: I dunno you guys & gals...
 

North Korea does not have ICBMs. :rolleyes:

OK, I thought that a recent meeting was being referred to.

I never thought about it like that, but you're on to something. I think that most of today's young servicemen enlisted before 9/11, so they and their families had no idea that war was even a possibility. It's weird--one of our family friends lost her son in Iraq, and now she's on a mission (I kid you not) to get him canonized (!), and lo and behold, there is a group of mothers out there trying to do the same thing. My hometown is in a military area, so it's not as if these are a bunch of wacky liberals.

I asked my parents if they knew anyone who reacted like this when they lost someone in Vietnam, and it just seemed like everyone was more prepared for what could happen.