Aug 11th, 2005, 10:15 AM
Here's an exeprt from Ms. Sheehan's speech to the Vets For Peace convention. She can be a little strident for my tastes, but as a parent I want to tell you, even the idea of loosing a child can make you a little crazy. Plus, stridency asie, she calls W. a liar, and I think it's way past time to be doing that, calla spade a damn spade.
She wants to yell at W in person. Who could blame her? If W, had the least little bit of spine or humanity, he'd let her. He's the commander in chief, no matter who else signed off on it, this is his war, a war he claims to believe strongly in. he can't take an hour out of his vacation to face one of the ugly consequences of that war? He accepts the scarafice her son made and he can't face an angry mother for one hour of a five week vacation? Anyway, here's the speech:
" I never heard about Veterans For Peace until, I can tell you the exact day I heard about VFP, it was May 4th, 2004, and my son had been dead exactly a month, and I was watching CNN, and something came on - it was a report on Arlington West in Santa Barbara, and we lived about 6 hours north of Santa Barbara, and it was the May 4th before Mother's Day, which was May 8th, and VFP was going to put it up on Sunday, every Sunday - so I called my husband and I said, "There's only one place I want to be on Mother's Day this year, I want to be at Santa Barbara. I want to go and see Arlington West."
When we went, the first time we went, there were a little over 700 crosses. Now there are over 1,800 crosses.
And I'm glad to hear everybody else's words, because somebody's gotta stop those lying bastards. Somebody has to stop them.
I got an email yesterday - if you guys heard, I just had a story published called "Where Do I Live?" - it talks about an Iranian-American who got the shaft because a recruiter liked him, and the recruiter falsified his paperwork, so he ended up in prison.
He's been in prison since November without due process.
Another mother whose son was found dead in Iraq, they told her that he died from a drug overdose. Three months later, they got the toxicology report: no drugs. She was devastated. She said, "I know my son, he did not do drugs." She was told that her son's wife and his battle buddies said in a report that yes, her son abused drugs in Iraq. But when she got that report it said categorically that no, he did not abuse drugs. So how did her son die?
And then there's Kevin and Monica Benderman. Kevin did exactly the right thing and got 15 months in prison. Whereas, like Dahr [Jamail] said, the war criminals in Washington DC, they don't even lose a night's sleep.
Then we have this lying bastard, George Bush, taking a 5-week vacation in a time of war. You know what? I'm never going to get to enjoy another vacation, because of him.
My vacation probably ... this is really sad because I have a really cute dress I was going to wear to the banquet tomorrow night, but I'm either gonna be in jail or in a tent in Crawford, waiting until that jerk comes out and tells me why my son died.
Anyway, I got an email, I kinda got off track, a man emailed me yesterday, I get contacted by all kinds of people with their stories, and he said Cindy, I read everything you write, I read it on LewRockwell.com, he said, "I get tears in my eyes, but today I cried real tears, and I screamed, because my dear sweet nineteen ear-old cousin was killed in Iraq."
And he said, "Cindy, why didn't I save him? Why didn't I knock him out, why didn't I take him to Canada?" and I wrote him back and I said, "You know what? We all think that."
I said to my son not to go. I said, you know it's wrong, you know you're going over there. You know your unit might have to kill innocent people, you know you might die. And he says, "My buddies are going, I have to go." He said, "If I don't go, someone's going to have to do my job, and my buddies will be in danger."
So what really gets me is these chicken-hawks who sent our kids to die, without ever serving in a war themselves. They don't know what it's all about.
Thirty of our bravest young men have already died this month, and it's only the 5th of August. And the tragedy of the marines in Ohio is awful.
But do you guys remember back in March when we were having our 2nd year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, which was pre-empted by Terry Schiavo, so that's all that was on the news, not 5,000 of us in Fayetteville. Wolf Blitzer said it was insignificant, but they put Terry Schiavo on, and I wrote something then called "The Amazing Hypocrites" and I asked, why does she deserve life more than my son, and the Iraqi people? And more than the other people that this war has killed.
But do you think George Bush will interrupt his vacation and go visit the families of those 20 marines who have died in Ohio this week? No, because he doesn't care, he doesn't have a heart. That's not enough to stop his little "playing cowboy" game in Crawford for 5 weeks.
So, as you can imagine, the grieving parents who lost - lost, I don't like to use that word - whose child was murdered, it's extremely difficult, you can't even get a small scab on our wound, because every day it rips open. Every day, I don't know why I do it because I already know that war is ugly, I already know that war is hard. But I open up the DOD site to see who became an angel while I was sleeping.
And that rips my heart open, because I know there is another mother whose life is going to be ruined that day. So we can't even begin to heal.
So anyway that filth-spewer and warmonger George Bush was speaking after the tragedy of the marines in Ohio, he said a couple things that outraged me.
Seriously outraged me.
And I know I don't look like I'm outraged, I'm always so calm and everything, that's because if I started hitting something, I wouldn't stop 'til it was dead. So I can't even start, cause I know how dangerous that would be, but George Bush was talking, and he never mentioned the terrible incident of those marines, but he did say that the families of the ones who have been killed can rest assured that their loved ones died for a noble cause.
And he also said, he says this often, and this really drives me crazy, he said that we have to stay in Iraq and complete the mission, to honor the sacrifices of the ones who have fallen.
And I say, why should I want one more mother to go through what I've gone through, because my son is dead. You know what, the only way he can honor my son's sacrifice is to bring the rest of the troops home. To make my son's death count for peace and love, and not war and hatred like he stands for.
I don't want him using my son's death or my family's sacrifice to continue the killing. I don't want him to exploit the honor of my son and others to continue the killing. They sent these honorable people to die, and are so dishonorable themselves.
So, as many of you have heard, and I didn't mean to cause any problems with the convention, but I was writing an email to everybody, and I was so mad, like I said, and I just had this brainstorm, I'm going to Dallas, I don't know where Crawford is. I've been in Texas, Casey was stationed at Fort Hood. I drove from northern California to Fort Hood one time - it took, like, 30 hours. And I thought, I could be driving for days to get from Dallas to Crawford!
But I don't care, I'm goin'. And I'm gonna tell them, "You get that evil maniac out here, cuz a Gold Star Mother, somebody whose blood is on his hands, has some questions for him."
And I'm gonna say, "OK, listen here, George. #1, you quit, and I demand - every time you get out there and say you're going to continue the killing in Iraq to honor the fallen heroes by continuing the mission - you say, except Casey Sheehan.'"
"And you say, except for all the members of 'Gold Star Families for Peace' cuz we think not one drop of blood should be spilled in our families' names. You quit doing that. You don't have my permission."
And I'm gonna say, "And you tell me what the noble cause is that my son died for." And if he even starts to say "freedom and democracy," I'm gonna say "bullshit."
You tell me the truth. You tell me that my son died for oil. You tell me that my son died to make your friends rich. You tell me my son died to spread the cancer of Pax Americana, imperialism in the Middle East. You tell me that, you don't tell me my son died for freedom and democracy. "
|
Linear Mode
