Cindy Sheehan has become a symbol. A symbol no one else could seem to come up with. Pat Buchanan pointed out several things Ms. Sheehan represents.

As a Gold Star mother of a soldier son slain in Iraq, Sheehan has authenticity and moral authority. Wedded to the passion of her protest, these make her a magnet for a bored White House press corps camped in Crawford for August. Cindy and the president are the only stories in town. And as a source of daily derogatory commentary on the president, Sheehan is using the media, and the media are using her, for the same end: to bedevil George W. Bush.

They are succeeding. When one considers the non-stop cable TV coverage given the mother of Natalie Holloway, the Alabama teen missing in Aruba, Cindy Sheehan will soon be a household name. The more media she attracts, the more people she draws to Crawford. The more people who join Cindy in Crawford, the more media coverage they will attract. It is hard to see what breaks this cycle before Labor Day and the president's return.

The purity of Sheehan's protest has lately been diluted by her association with the far Left, the extravagance of her language and the arrival of political operatives to manipulate and manage her. But in a slow news month, Cindy Sheehan has helped turn the focus of national debate back to the war, at a moment of special vulnerability for the president.

It's a shame that Ms. Sheehan had to become a symbol and unfortunately far too many comprehend her emotions. I heard an editorial on NPR yesterday, a letter from a man said that her son died in a just cause but that's turning out not to be the case. No one says defending our country is a just cause. My family has done for hundred of years. The problem is this wasn't a just cause. We weren't defending our country. We were attacking another nation.


A friend of mine through out an interesting point but certainly valid:

Since St. Augustine wrote the City of God, the only Christian justification for war has been defense, and the attack has been anathema. The US leadership has been shown to have known that there was no need for 'preemptive defense'. It is immoral war, unjustifiable war by the standards the United States has always espoused - not to mention the standards usually espoused by the loud Christianity that is W's primary support. The conclusion Augustine reached was that the attacker bore all the sin of war, and the leadership of the attackers the greatest share. Even the deist, secularised Founding Fathers followed these principles, as have virtually all moral philosophers.

There is no moral justification for this war. What's more, the U.S. in this venture is at odds with God for having done such a thing and since a majority of Americans voted to keep him in office, what does that say for the majority of Americans? I'd say many need to be reeducated on what being a good American really means.

posted by Stithmeister @ 9:17 PM
 
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