Today's "must read" piece
Scott is right -- please don't miss Mark Steyn's column on Cindy Sheehan. I consider myself relieved of having to say anything more on the subject.
SCOTT adds: I think we should accord the last word on the subject to Air Force Technical Sergeant George Wells. It is today's must-read email message:
I am currently towards the end of a very short tour in the desert, and I’ve been following this Cindy nonsense since it began. I can’t imagine a more colossal waste of journalistic, technical, and even sanitation resources than her presence in Crawford. I just read [Steyn's] column on the Sun Times’ website, and I am extremely impressed. He's expressed a good deal of my feelings on this non-issue. Why is it news that a woman who was against the war before her son left would turn so vicious and lose her sanity when her son is killed fighting that war?I am here, and my Dad is joining me in less than a week on his way to a different location in the area. I would hope that even though she is against the war, my grandmother would maintain her sanity should the unthinkable happen to either my father or me.
The saddest part is that for the foreseeable future, the Sheehan name will be connected to his lunatic Mom and her Quixotic quest to humiliate the leader of the free world. The Sheehan name should refer to Casey, his valiant life, and his heroic death. Therefore, I cannot refer to her by her family name; I reserve that for Casey. She is simply Cindy.
As for the left viewing the military as children, the reason the left is so insistent that those who are serving and dying are children is so they can "rationally" say they support the troops but not the war. If those who oppose the war are honest about it all, they would have to recognize that a good portion of us understand fairly well why we're here. Most of us think we should have finished Hussein off the first time, when there weren't so many crimes to convict him of. The majority of us (and I’d say the majority is even stronger among those who are serving in theater) recognize that while Iraq may not have planned 9/11, that horrible day showed us that we cannot sit and wait for terrorists to come to us so we can convict them. Yeah, we know what we’re doing over here.
As long as the left treats us like children, they can claim to support us without supporting what we're doing. This allows them to offer these meaningless statements such as, "I support them by asking to have them brought home." As long as they can convince themselves that we’re not culpable for our presence here, they can continue to cast 100% of their blame on President Bush. To admit that we are adults who are here willingly and with full knowledge of why we are here would mean they cannot focus all of their blame on the President. Of course, that wouldn’t benefit Howard Dean politically now, would it?
I will be home in a couple of weeks, and will get to hold my son for the first time since he was born 2 weeks ago. I would love for him to grow up in a world that doesn’t know war, but the realist in me knows it won’t happen. Should he decide to serve his country, I will be honored to be a military Dad. I know my wife feels the same way.
