September 11, 2005

I got this in an email several weeks ago, when Cindy Sheehan and W were both still in Crawford. I think it is appropriate to post today, in memory of the tragedy of 4 years ago. I am interested to know what you think about this:

The grieving mother camped on the road outside Bush's home in Texas has company in her grief. Somewhere in Baghdad or Pakistan, maybe at this very moment, a mother in a black robe squats on the floor of a hut, watching the elders of her tribe strap a bomb to her handsome teenaged son.

They cinch up the belts and murmur to him of the car he will get to drive at high speed, his future as a hero of Islam, and, of course, the seventy virgins who await him in "heaven." She sobs as other women try to comfort her. He is such a good, handsome boy. She remembered nursing him as a baby, when she taught him to walk, and when he offered her a fistful of desert flowers from his small hands. Now she can see the fear in his eyes, but because she is a woman in an Islamic country she is powerless to stop the fanatical leaders of Jihad. Her son is to die. She knows it. And, she can not stop it.

They were the same kind of Islamic men who stole four American jetliners full of fathers, mothers, and little children and flew them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field. Here in America we were 'living in peace' that day, we and all those people in the upper floors of the two towers - sipping coffee at their desks, and chatting at the water coolers when their world exploded into flames.

The same kind of fanatical Muslim Jihadists who strap bombs to kids, even Downes Syndrome kids, did not care about little children on airliners, or loving dads in business suits whispering goodbye on cell phones in the back rows of jets.

So Cindy Sheehan down there in Texas blames George Bush for her son's death as a soldier in Iraq. But her son was of legal age when he signed his name and enlisted. He made the choice. And though he may have signed up for the benefits the military offers, and which she doubtless approved at the time, he also swore to defend his country. "His country," America. The leader of the free world, and now the foremost defender of Western civilization, Democracy, freedom of speech, liberty to worship as we choose, and the pursuit of happiness. America, the exception to all other countries in the world with our glorious constitution and Bill of Rights. America, the envy of the world.

The men who strap bombs to schoolboys in Iraq know nothing - nothing, of Democracy or civilization. What Cindy Sheehan of Vacaville should know -what Barbra Streisand, Susan Sarandon, and the Dixie Chicks should be mindful of, is that women have the biggest stakes of all in this war.

If Cindy Sheehan of Vacaville really wanted to honor her son's memory and add meaning to his heroic sacrifice, she would be using her pulpit to talk to the women swathed in black and squatting in the huts of the Middle East.

She might say to them: "You have the power to stop this insanity. In order to save your remaining children and the future unborn, you must all become secret agents, seditionists, spies, and soldiers in burkhas. Turn your hatred of the arrogant Arab males who started this mess into action. Use thoseblack robes to secret the weapons needed to destroy radical leaders. Use your jobs - even as street vendors in the markets of your cities - to get information to Coalition Troops about where the next"Improvised Explosive Device" is planted - or the whereabouts of vicious leaders like Abu al Zarqawi. A hollowed out eggplant makes an excellent hiding place. Use your positions as cooks in mountain camps to poison roomfuls of Al Qaeda - or maybe even the big man himself. Use your knowledge of weapons respositories to blow them up yourselves. Use your position as wives to stop a husbandwho is a leader of Jihad in his bed as he sleeps. You who have given life, use whatever you have to stop this insane cult of death."

The women could do it. But they, unlike Cindy Sheehan of Vacaville, would have to be willing to die for their efforts.

Cindy Sheehan's family members do not support her efforts as she camps out in Crawford, planting crosses in the dust. Her son's grandparents, along with other relatives, have posted an email message saying that she "appears to be promoting her own personal agenda and notoriety at the expense of her son's good name, his reputation, and the beauty of her free America."

Her husband, Patrick Sheehan, also disagrees with her. He filed for divorce on Friday, 8/12/05. He says, "I know President Bush is sorry and feels pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of faith." He adds, "I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis."

That, Mrs. Sheehan, is freedom. A wife and a husband can disagree, and she can go on doing what she's doing. She won't be beheaded in the town square of Vacaville. And that's what soldiers like your son are dying for in Iraq.

So what do you think about this line of thought? Too conservative? Too radical? Too onesided? Just right?