|
Page 4 of 4 And yet Sheehan herself seems unfazed by the media circus and image-shaping going on around her. In a world where horrors are referred to euphemistically, or limned in politely, or artfully ignored, she does something quite rare -- she calls things by their names as she sees them. She is as blunt and impolite in her mission as the media is circumspect and polite in its job, as most of the opposition to George Bush is in its "opposition." And it was her very bluntness, her ability to shock by calling things by their actual names, by acting as she saw fit, that let her break through and that may help turn a set of unhappy public opinion polls into a full-scale antiwar movement.  What will happen next? Will the President actually attend a funeral? Will Cindy Sheehan force him from his Green-Zone world? Suddenly, almost anything seems possible. However the media deals with her, she embodies every bind the administration is in. As with Iraq (as well as Iran), the administration can't either make its will felt or sweep her off the landscape. Bush and his officials blinked at a moment when they would certainly have liked to whack her, fearing the power of the mother of a dead son from their war. And then, completely uncharacteristically, they vacillated and flip-flopped. They ignored her, then negotiated. They sent out their attack dogs to flail at her, then expressed sympathy. Officials, who have always known what to do before, had no idea what to do with Cindy Sheehan. The most powerful people in the world, they surely feel trapped and helpless. Somehow, she's taken that magical presidential something out of George and cut him down to size. It's been a remarkable performance so far. The Tipping Point? Casey Sheehan died on April 4, 2004, soon after he arrived for his tour of duty in Iraq. His mother had never wanted him to go to a war that was "wrong," a place where he might have to "kill innocent people" and where he might die. ("I begged him not to go. I said, 'I'll take you to Canada'... but he said, 'Mom, I have to go. It's my duty. My buddies are going.'") In her grief -- always beyond imagining for those of us who have not lost a child -- this woman found her calling, one that she would never have wanted and that no one would have ever wished on her. For more than a year, having set up a small organization, Gold Star Families for Peace, she traveled the country insisting that the President explain, but in relative obscurity -- except on the Internet, that place where so much gestates which later bursts into our mainstream world and where today, at Technorati.com which monitors usage on blogs, her name is the most frequently searched for of all. As she has said, "If we didn't have the Internet, none of us would really know what was truly going on. This is something that can't be ignored." In March, she appeared -- thanks to prescient editors -- on the cover of the Nation magazine for an article, The New Face of Protest?, on the developing military, and military-family inspired, antiwar movement. She was giving a speech at the Veterans for Peace national convention in Dallas when she evidently decided that she had to head for Crawford and the rest you know. As our President likes to speak about "our mission" in Iraq and "our mission of defeating terrorists" in the world, so Cindy Sheehan has found herself on a mission. Our President speaks resolutely of "staying the course" in Iraq. That's exactly what Cindy Sheehan is planning to do in Crawford (and undoubtedly beyond). George prides himself on not flinching, giving ground, or ever saying he's sorry. But he also had remarkably good luck until he ran into Cindy. Whether in his presidential runs, in Congress, or elsewhere, he really hasn't come up against an opponent who was ready to dig in and duke it out blow for blow, an opponent ready never to flinch, never to apologize, never to mince words, never to take prisoners. Now he's got one -- and like so many personal demons, she's been called up from the Id of his own war: A mother of one of the dead who demands an explanation, an answer, when no answer he gives will ever conceivably do; a woman who, like his neocon companions, has no hesitation about going for the jugular. And, amazingly, she's already made the man flinch twice. No matter how the media surrounds her or tries to tame her, the fact is she's torn up the oppositional rule book. She's a woman made in the mold of Iraq War vet Paul Hackett, who ran in a hopelessly Republican congressional district recently. He didn't hesitate to call the President a "chicken hawk" or a "son of a bitch," and to the surprise of all won 48% of the vote doing so, leading Newt Gingrich to say that the race "should serve as a wake-up call to Republicans" for the 2006 elections. There's a lesson in this. Americans are not, generally speaking, your basic turn-the-other-cheek sorts of folks. They like to know that the people they vote for or support will, at the very least, stand there and whack back, if whacked at. Whatever she may have been before, Cindy Sheehan was beaten into just that shape on the anvil of her son's death. ("I was stunned and dismayed when the United States invaded Iraq. I didn't agree with it. I didn't think it was right, but I never protested until after Casey was killed.") Some of her testimony at the Conyers hearings on the Downing Street Memo catches this spirit and it's well worth quoting:
"There are a few people around the US and a couple of my fellow witnesses who were a little justifiably worried that in my anger and anguish over Casey's premeditated death, I would use some swear words, as I have been known to do on occasion when speaking about the subject. Mr. Conyers, out of my deep respect for you, the other representatives here, my fellow witnesses, and viewers of these historic proceedings, I was able to make it through an entire testimony without using any profanity. However, if anyone deserves to be angry and use profanity, it is I. What happened to Casey and humanity because of the apparent dearth of honesty in our country's leadership is so profane that it defies even my vocabulary skills. We as Americans should be offended more by the profanity of the actions of this administration than by swear words. We have all heard the old adage that actions speak louder than words and for the sake of Casey and our other precious children, please hold someone accountable for their actions and their words of deception."
Last week, the Pentagon relieved a four-star general of his command allegedly because he had an affair, while separated from his wife, with a woman not in the military or the government; and yet not a single top official or high-ranking officer (except for scapegoat Brig. Gen. Janice Karpinski) has suffered for American acts at Abu Ghraib, or murder and torture throughout our imperium, or for torture and abuse at our prison in Guantanamo, or for any of the disasters of Iraq. In such a context, the words "please hold someone accountable" by the mother of a boy killed in Iraq, a woman on a mission who doesn't plan to back down or leave off any time soon -- well, that truly constitutes going directly for the President's political throat. It's mano a mano time, and while I would never underestimate what this administration might do, I wouldn't underestimate the fierce power of an angry mother either. The Bush administration is in trouble in Iraq, in Washington, and in Crawford. Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com ("a regular antidote to the mainstream media"), is the co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of American triumphalism in the Cold War. [Note on sources: Cindy Sheehan is first and foremost an Internet phenomenon. Those of you who want to read her writings since 2004 should visit her archive at the always lively libertarian site, LewRockwell.com. (Rockwell seems to specialize in strong women, publishing as well the writings of ret. Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski.) For the Sheehan phenomenon in its present incarnation check out a new website www.meetwithcindy.org, but then go to the must-visit site, Afterdowningstreet.com, which has a fascinating, ever-updated Sheehan subsection.] Recommend this article...
 Quote this article on your site | Views: 1851
Powered by AkoComment Tweaked Special Edition v.1.4.4
Tags: Cindy Sheehan Tom Engelhardt Cindy Sheehan's War
|
Commentary 
