More on the Anti-War Mom
Jimmy Akin, the chief apologist at Catholic Answers, has written on his blog a short history and commentary of what has happened to the Sheehan family since the death of Casey. Most of the comments below Akin's short article are not of high quality, but Akin makes a point that I had missed. Much of what Sheehan has stated for the record is irrational, and the close, illuminated attention paid to Sheehan in her current state serves no one. Not Sheehan, not the public. (Certainly not the President. :^) Indeed, the exploitation may be irresponsible and even despicable.
posted by Unknown @ 1:16 PM
4 Comments:
At 4:16 PM,
cvo said…
The public dissection of Cindy Sheehan's character follows the trend that the Bush Administration has followed for the last 5 years. Whenever someone criticizes their policies and starts to make valid points, Karl Rove dispatches his minions to attack their personal pasts (regardless of the relation to the actual issue at hand) then makes sure that all of the right-wing arms of the media parrots the attack in a "fair and balanced" way.
Just ask John McCain, Max Cleland, Richard Clarke and John Wilson.
Is Sheehan unstable? Probably. Try losing a son to a war you don't support and see how stable you are for the next few years of your life.
Has this instability affected the rest of her personal life? Absolutely. The death of a son and the stress of this public debate is surely enough to break apart a marriage.
Does any of that make her argument about the war and its toll on U.S. forces any less credible? I don't think so.
And as far as exploitation, it's hard to exploit someone who wants to get her message to as many people as possible. She is a willing participant in this circus.
I think her story has struck a chord because there has been a serious shift in momentum against the war as it drags on and continues to claim more U.S. lives.
At 9:25 PM,
Unknown said…
So far as the invasion of Iraq is concerned, I suspect that Akin was opposed. At least, I am unaware of his being in favor of the invasion. Certainly the Vatican was opposed. In the Church's view, the invasion of Iraq failed to meet the criteria for a just war. Of course, the Vatican's official diplomatic language left open the possibility of justification in the event that the Bush Administration were aware of information to which the public (and the Vatican) had no access. I suppose that, formally, this possibility still remains, however unlikely it may seem at present. Nevertheless, a good argument for the injustice of the invasion of Iraq was made at the beginning, and the case for that injustice seems only stronger now. Even someone who champions the Bush Administration's policy of "pre-emptive war" must, if he be honest, admit therefore that his opponent has a case.
I, for one, agree with the Church's assessment of the matter, and my point in posting was not to deride Sheehan's character in order to argue for the justification of the war. Nor does this appear to have been Akin's intent.
The question before us, however, is how to proceed, given the historical fact of the invasion. This is a more difficult problem than is the determination of whether or not the invasion was justified. Comparisons to Vietnam are mentioned in the press. The mortality rate on the U.S. side seems to be on average about one-fifth of the number of deaths per year in Iraq as compared to Vietnam. Our continued presence will likely have tragic consequences, but our sudden disengagement in the style of our retreat from Vietnam would likely also have tragic consequences, not just for those whom we should abandon after wreaking havoc in their country but also for long-term U.S. diplomatic interests in the region and beyond.
I do not pretend to know which is the best way forward, but I do know that one is unlikely to hold a constructive conversation with a grief-stricken other who, under the effect of perfectly understandable but severe emotion, makes ridiculous and irrational demands. Further, I believe that the good journalist recognizes that the camera should not point too long at the person whose remarks---regardless of the reason and regardless of how much she clamors for attention---are manifestly nonsensical. My assertion of this fact does not in any way imply my agreement with the policy of the Bush Administration; rather, I mean to suggest that in paying too much attention to Sheehan, certain ignorant or unscrupulous journalists fail to respect her human dignity. This point of Akin's is one that I had missed, and so I thought that I should bring it up.
At 10:41 AM,
cvo said…
Sorry I went off on kind of a tangent, Tom. You're right - the bigger issue is what do we do now that we have created this situation, regardless of whether you agreed with the original invasion or not.
It just feels like nothing is sacred today when it comes to political maneuvering. If you get a chance, watch Nightly News tonight on NBC. They're doing a piece on the Sheehan coverage and how it could signal a shift in the momentum of the anti-war movement. Might bring up some similar issues that we have discussed here.
At 8:31 AM,
R said…
Could you elaborate a bit on the idea that "...our sudden disengagement in the style of our retreat from Vietnam would likely also have tragic consequences, not just for those whom we should abandon after wreaking havoc in their country but also for long-term U.S. diplomatic interests in the region and beyond[?]"
Granted, it has taken 30 years, but it would seem to me that (1) Vietnam is better off today (or at least no worse) than it was before we invaded it, (2) US diplomatic interests in SE Asia and the world beyond have not had havoc wreaked upon them, on balance, since our withdrawal, and (3) the US and Vietnam actually seem to be enjoying reasonably cordial relations, at least since the Clinton Administration reached out to them.
In Iraq, it would seem to me that the main long-term diplomatic effect of our invasion, no matter when or how we get out at this point, will have been to strengthen Iran's role as a power-broker in the region. In recent years (e.g. during the Clinton Administration), there were some signs that had we reached out to the moderates in Iran, they might have had some chance of turning the tide against fundamentalism there. Unfortunately, we didn't do that, and they now appear to have been pushed aside, despite some signs that the general population no longer supports the mullahs as strongly as they once did.
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