Cindy Sheehan "retires"

Parent Cafe
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<p>To a sensible person, moderating one’s views in the face of empirical evidence is a good thing. And the empirical evidence shows that the more Bush and the AEI flounder around following whatever random whim they get, the worse things get in Iraq. </p>

<p>I was against the war from the start–because I thought we needed to keep our focus on Alqueda, bin Ladin and the Taliban, and not go haring off after rabbits–but I don’t think anyone could have reasonably foreseen how badly the Bush administration would manage the strategy and logistics of the occupation. </p>

<p>Right now we’re arming and training some of the very people that are firing on our troops, and all the 28%-ers can say is “let’s keep doing it.”</p>

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<p>@ razorsharp: Fascinating work digging that up, but it says “Join Date: Aug 2004” under interesteddad’s name and you say this comes from July 2003.</p>

<p>FWIW, I don’t have the track record for you to research, but I’ll readily certify that the parts of these two “oldies but goodies” from interesteddad that I read probably align with my thinking at the time. I’m very disillusioned with the execution of the war. I do think I understood very early on – before “Mission Accomplished” – that there was too much reliance on being able to conduct a remote control or aerial war, in which Tomahawks and laser-guided weaponry would bring Saddam’s standing army to its knees. Still, I think Bush had an opportunity to transform the Middle East. Instead, he squandered all the capital he had at his disposal. </p>

<p>I’m most bitter that, in failing to fully apprehend the manpower required to succeed, he ineptly ventured into a war in a way that needlessly revealed to powers great (China) and small (Venezuela, Iraq, N. Korea) that most sacred piece of intelligence: at what point does the U.S. military become over-extended and unable to project additional military power?</p>

<p>Where his father rightly declared that Desert Storm got the monkey of Vietnam off of America’s back – meaning that we could once again go to war when needed and the rest of the world had to reckon with that newfound American will to wage war when justice demanded it – the son has taken us to a place where we are less secure as a nation because the ghosts of Vietnam have come back to haunt us and when we do need to go to war (who knows…Iran?) we may hesitate or fail to answer the call to arms before it’s too late or after it’s too dreadful.</p>

<p>Anyway, if I may redirect this back to Cindy Sheehan, my complaint with her is that she made the transformations of people like me and interesteddad all the more difficult, instead of making them easier. </p>

<p>In order to get comfortable with the notion that Bush was screwing up royally when we started from a position of hope and confidence in his leadership, I know that I had to overcome the stigma that Cindy Sheehan helped bring to a rolling boil by doing the very things you so aptly point out. There were plenty of radical lefties who could hang with Chavez and talk smack about “Freedom Fighters” without her having to join that chorus.</p>

<p>It is possible to be P.O.'ed at Bush for the way he’s gone about prosecuting the war without dumping your conservative values. Sheehan could have made that case. Instead she made it harder for conservatives to come to that conclusion. Basically, she was the Anti-Ghandi of the Peace Movement…seemingly coming on like a savior but, ultimately, doing more harm to the cause she hoped to help.</p>

<p>My heart goes out to her for her loss and she was excellent at preaching to the choir, but as a missionary trying to win over converts she totally sucked. I don’t deny or pretend I thought differently about the Iraq War several years ago, but I’d be a fool to ignore what’s been happening and stubbornly cling to only thinking that’s consistent with my earlier thoughts. I made the philosophical move despite her. I doubt many people were swayed by her. So I pretty much agree with your assessment of her…albeit perhaps for different reasons.</p>

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<p>I wasn’t sure that invading Iraq was the right thing to do. But, my fatal mistake was assuming that our government had a plan for a post-invasion Iraq. I figured they’d go in, cut a deal with Sistani, wipe out the Baathists, and put a Shia majority government in place in exchange for an agreement to work with the US.</p>

<p>Believe me, I got a big pit in my stomach as it became clear that there were no WMD and as it became even more abundantly clear that the US had no idea what they were doing. That was also before the significant information has come out that the whole thing started with a determination by the neocons to invade Iraq and everything else was fudged to suit that decision.</p>

<p>To be honest, I don’t really care about how we ended up in Iraq. It’s interesting from an historic standpoint, but it’s water under the bridge. The issue is how the heck we get out of that quagmire now. Continuing to “double-down” is just pure folly.</p>

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<p>Razorsharp
how did you do that?</p>

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<p>Bless her and bless her family, hopefully she can find peace. She did what she thought she had to do. </p>

<p>I always find it interesting how much hatred she could garner, and that people could not find one ounce of sympathy, or empathy. But when Jerry Falwell died (I hope his family can find peace too), although he has said some things I find so completely out of line and unacceptable, it really, really surprised me that so many people came out (everywhere, no necessarily here) and said, well okay he’s extreme but his poor family and it is still too bad. I was actually glad to see it, because compassion really seems to be lacking way too much. </p>

<p>But it did seem odd because there seemed to be less compassion for someone who has been painted differently. Sheehan, it seemed, was always painted like someone crazy, acting only out of grief rather than conviction, whereas Falwell was perhaps portrayed much more respectably. And people pick up on that, I think. But in the end they were both living on the fringe. </p>

<p>I read an excellent piece by the BU prof in Sunday’s paper (I am sorry to say I forget his name). He really feels very similarly to the way I do. I go back and forth on whether I’m really a conscientious objector. On one hand, I think few wars have been truly “winnable” in a sense, but on the other hand, it seems too idealistic to expect that countries will rely solely on diplomacy. So like some people, I could have tolerated invading Iraq had it played out differently. But it didn’t play out that way. It played out the same sorry way everything has always played out, and then it was just doomed from the start. We made, IMO, most of the mistakes we’ve spent decades lamenting from Vietnam (I don’t think they are exactly alike but there is some definite comparative value). And now it just seems like we’re biding time until we hit the same turning point we’ve hit before where America refuses to finance, with money and with lives, a war they don’t see anything but problems coming from. And we’ll pull out like we have before, because really. Let’s face it. What’s America’s track record on establishing democracy in other countries? This is a war that started when I was in middle school. I’ll be in college next fall. I think a lot of people are angry, because they never perceived this whole thing as signing off on a war that would go on indefinitely. I don’t know what people expected but I think a lot of people have a problem reconciling what they thought would happen with what is happening, and then they just feel like they’ve been played a fool. Widespread dissatisfaction, justified or not, may have been inevitable, but it hasn’t worked out in our favor before.</p>

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<p>“I don’t know what people expected but I think a lot of people have a problem reconciling what they thought would happen with what is happening, and then they just feel like they’ve been played a fool.”</p>

<p>My problem is that, as a student of history in general and Middle Eastern history in particular, I expected from the beginning that the war, once launched, would turn out the way it has. Remember Hans Blix, Scott Ritter and others who warned us in advance? Remember the Lessons of Vietnam? </p>

<p>Those who believed in the cause initially can now claim that they were played for fools. I cannot. I never thought that the war on Iraq would turn out any other way…which makes me even more culpable.</p>

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<p>I feel like I was mostly played for the fool by Judith Miller, the NY Times, and “unnamed” administration sources.</p>

<p>I thought all along that the real motive for going to Iraq was permanent military bases and pressure on Iran/Syria. It thought it was a pure Machavellian power play. I still believe that there was a short-lived window for reconstruction of Iran. It would have taken throwing in with Sistani immediately and allowing the Sunni Baathists to be wiped out. It would certainly have required immediate progress on basic infrastructure like electricity (which still has not happened). But, that window was very short (six months to a year) and we squandered it with pure, unadulterated incompetence (and corruption).</p>

<p>The sad thing is that we actually were in a fairly strong position in the immediate aftermath of the invasion. Iran wanted to talk. Syria was nervous. Then, we squandered those opportunities fiddling and diddling under Bremer with no reconstruction plan.</p>

<p>Now, I think the only way to support our troops is to get them the hell out of there.</p>

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<p>But with all due respect, this kind of blanket response that it goes the same sorry way it always has doesn’t help us make good decisions. There ARE some wars worth fighting – WWII, the Revolutionary War, I guess as Americans we’d have to argue the Civil War, Korea at least below the 38th, etc.</p>

<p>This was a wrong-headed war for reasons you go onto state and others: 1) democracy is not well imposed on other societies by force. 2) This was not a front in the war against Al Qaeda (though it has now become one). 3) What did you think would happen, you idiots, when you weakened a neighboring state which had historically been the foil for another major enemy we have in the region, Iran – particularly when there are religious ties between large segments of the respective populations?</p>

<p>The fact is there are wars we need to fight, but these are primarily wars when we have specifically been attacked. Now some people will say we were, on 9/11, and that is true, horribly attacked. But just not by Saddam Hussein, who far from being a religious Sunni, was essentially an anti-religious and forcefully secular leader. We widened the conflict, played right into Bin Laden’s hands, created another front in our fight with Al Qaeda where there didn’t need to be one, diluted our focus, frittered away our resources, and reduced greatly general goodwill toward us.</p>

<p>And yes, I felt sorry for the Iraqis who lived under Saddam, but basically I felt it was their problem.</p>

<p>So what are we aiming for now? Simply prolonging the time when we declare its time to go home is not success. We won the war, success during occupation of the kind we were promised by the aerie-faerie soft-headed optimists who squelched the opinions of people who were harder-headed and knew better has eluded us – and unfortunately always will.</p>

<p>The burden is on the people who pushed for this war and who are pushing for us to prolong it to explain: where are we headed in Iraq? What is the win we are holding out for? Hanging in there simply so that the baton can get passed to others of our political leaders is not winning…</p>

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<p>I don’t see any public figures who urged that we attack Iraq taking any responsibility for it at this late date. Do you? I have no hope whatsoever for that outcome. Once again, it will be up to the peacemakers to mop up the whole sordid mess.</p>

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<p>No, and I largely blame the media for not holding them to sensible formulations of their intentions. Like what are our specific goals now for Iraq? And given the goals that we went in with and our falling far short, how can we trust that the new goals now represent achievable goals?</p>

<p>Peacemakers will be slandered as people who lost us Iraq. This is one reason the Dems are hesitant to get out in front on a war the president created (albeit with a lot of support across the board).</p>

<p>The fact is that pulling out of Iraq will leave a vacuum that could result in great amounts of bloodshed. If this happens, the refrain will go that we never should have left and that this is the fault of our pulling out “prematurely” from “a war we could have and should have won.”</p>

<p>It is much easier to start a war than end one, when the end involves an admission of defeat and powerlessness. Too bad the idiots that thought this war up didn’t think in those terms.</p>

<p>Pressure on Washington needs to continue across the board.</p>

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<p>Amen. The media has really done a sorry job. Chris Matthews is the only one who has said, “wait a minute, that’s a bunch of BS, I’m not going to let you get away with that. Answer the question…”</p>

<p>I’ve heard Bush recently answer what winning means. “A stable democratic goverment that can handle its own security and is an ally in the war on terrorism.” What a bunch of nonsense. Iraq doesn’t have anything even remotely like a functioning government.</p>

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<p>I don’t think you have to worry about that. I don’t recall any other time in recent memory where the entire country is so unified on a policy issue.</p>

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<p>What also scares me is the trillions for this war that our children will be saddled with. They will never know the prosperity we have had in our generation.</p>

<p>What was/is Bush thinking? Is he evil or just fatally arrogant (or incredibly stupid?)</p>

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<p>A lot of the people advising him don’t expect for there to be future generations. They think we’re in the end times, so there’s no reason not to destroy our country in pursuit of a conflagration in the Middle East. Pastor James Hagee, one of the most visible proponents of this theory, has an audience in the millions.</p>

<p>Others aren’t concerned because they simply don’t expect their posterity to be affected by the problems they’ve created for America. The Bush family has bought land in South America, Halliburton’s already left the U.S. For some people, this war is simply an opportunity to milk America for all she’s worth, then move on, leaving you and me holding the bag.</p>

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<p>Ever read the message boards on <a href=“Rapture Ready | End Times News, Rapture Index, Pre-Tribulation”>www.raptureready.com?</a></p>

<p>Those loons are rubbing their hands together at the conflagration in the ME. Mo’ terra, mo’ war, mo’ global warming? No problem! It means Jesus is coming! Amen! </p>

<p>(Bush panders to this group, but I don’t think he shares their views…he is more cozy with the corporate yahoos in Halliburton, et al, who are laughing all the way to the bank).</p>

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<p>Bush has put us in just the position I expected when he started talking war. There is no good way to approach this mess so he’s trying to “kick this can down the road” (someone–I can’t remember who–said this on a radio show recently) for the next administration to deal with. Since there’s no good way to deal with it, there’s no credit to be had. I don’t know if Bush is evil, but he’s stupid and arrogant for sure. On a recent trip we saw this bumper sticker: “We’re making enemies faster than we can kill them.”</p>

<p>I met Cindy Sheehan in Venezuela at the World Social Forum. She’s a good and sincere person. You can say what you like about Chavez, but he’s using oil money to feed, educate and house the poor in his country. Not to mention that everyone can get health care. Bush/Cheney/Rove are using our money to make enemies and then kill them. And Halliburton gets a share.</p>

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Conyat, if you had caught me with my pants down the way I caught ID, you would not have been so kind. Righteous indignation is fine, but is only for those who avoid hypocracy.</p>

<p>I initially supported the war because Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright, George Tenent and every other democrat told me Saddam had WMD. It was no surprise to me when Bush told me Saddam had WMD. Yet the liberals want to re-write history and say they opposed it all along (sort of like what ID did). </p>

<p>If you opposed the war in Iraq before it started and still oppose it, the only moral thing to do is vote against Hillary Clinton and refuse to support her once she is nominated as the democrat candidate. If one can’t do that then he or she is a hypocrite. I can’t wait to do another search and compare the antiwar comments on this forum with pro hillary posts.</p>

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ID’s comments are from the old collegeconfidentiale forum. When the fine people owning this forum converted to the new forum, everyone got a new join date, thus, ID got a new join date.</p>

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<p>It’s called Google. All the worlds information in one place. It does not get any better than Google.</p>

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<p>Razorsharp: Putting aside your views on various political figures for a moment, where do you actually stand on the war?</p>

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<p>thanks/<em>hfjhgffdj</em>/</p>

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<p>I stand by my 2002 vote authorizing the war. If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t have voted the same way. But, I can’t change my vote, so it would be kind of chicken$&% to disavow it. My position at the time was that getting rid of Hussein was a desirable goal and if a stable funtioning Iraq could emerge in short order, then the invasion/occupation might not be a bad idea.</p>

<p>I did not know whether it was smart to invade Iraq or not in 2002. To make that determination, one would have to assess the planning of the administration making the decision. Given that few administrations share their detailed military planning, that was not a determination I could make, so I accepted the administration at its word that it had a plan. I have found that it is almost impossible to really judge whether a government action was justified until the history books are written. You have to know what the decision makers had available to them at the time the decision was made. We now know that the decision making was arrogant, imcompetent, and corrupt.</p>