Message to Cindy Sheehan from Baghdad
Dean
Mohammed, a lifelong Baghdad resident and blogger at Iraq the Model, has something to say to Cindy Sheehan:
I have heard your story and I understand that you have the full right to ask people to stand by your side and support your cause. At the beginning I told myself, this is yet another woman who lost a piece of her heart and the questions of war, peace and why are killing her everyday. To be frank to you the first thing I thought of was like "why should I listen or care to answer when there are thousands of other women in America, Iraq and Afghanistan who lost a son or a husband or a brother..."
But today I was looking at your picture and I saw in your eyes a persistence, a great pain and a torturing question; why?
I know how you feel Cindy, I lived among the same pains for 35 years but worse than that was the fear from losing our loved ones at any moment. Even while I'm writing these words to you there are feelings of fear, stress, and sadness that interrupt our lives all the time but in spite of all that I'm sticking hard to hope which if I didn't have I would have died years ago.
Ma'am, we asked for your nation's help and we asked you to stand with us in our war and your nation's act was (and still is) an act of ultimate courage and unmatched sense of humanity.
Our request is justified, death was our daily bread and a million Iraqi mothers were expecting death to knock on their doors at any second to claim someone from their families. Your face doesn't look strange to me at all; I see it everyday on endless numbers of Iraqi women who were struck by losses like yours.
Our fellow country men and women were buried alive, cut to pieces and thrown in acid pools and some were fed to the wild dogs while those who were lucky enough ran away to live like strangers and the Iraqi mother was left to grieve one son buried in an unfound grave and another one living far away who she might not get to see again.
We did nothing to deserve all that suffering, well except for a dream we had; a dream of living like normal people do.
We cried out of joy the day your son and his comrades freed us from the hands of the devil and we went to the streets not believing that the nightmare is over.
We practiced our freedom first by kicking and burning the statues and portraits of the hateful idol who stole 35 years from the life of a nation.
For the first time air smelled that beautiful, that was the smell of freedom.
The mothers went to break the bars of cells looking for the ones they lost 5, 12 or 20 years ago and other women went to dig the land with their bare hand searching for a few bones they can hold in their arms after they couldn't hold them when they belonged to a living person.
I recall seeing a woman on TV two years ago, she was digging through the dirt with her hands. There was no definite grave in there as the whole place was one large grave but she seemed willing to dig the whole place looking for her two brothers who disappeared from earth 24 years ago when they were dragged from their colleges to a chamber of hell.
Her tears mixed with the dirt of the grave and there were journalists asking her about what her brothers did wrong and she was screaming "I don't know, I don't know. They were only college students. They didn't murder anyone, they didn't steal, and they didn't hurt anyone in their lives. All I want to know is the place of their grave".
Why was this woman chosen to lose her dear ones? Why you? Why did a million women have to go through the same pain?
We did not choose war for the sake of war itself and we didn't sacrifice a million lives for fun! We could've accepted our jailor and kept living in our chains for the rest of our lives but it's freedom ma'am.
Freedom is not an American thing and it's not an Iraqi thing, it's what unites us as human beings. We refuse all kinds of restrictions and that's why we fought and still fighting everyday in spite of the swords in the hands of the cavemen who want us dead or slaves for their evil masters.
You are free to go and leave us alone but what am I going to tell your million sisters in Iraq? Should I ask them to leave Iraq too? Should I leave too? And what about the eight millions who walked through bombs to practice their freedom and vote? Should they leave this land too? Is it a cursed land that no one should live in? Why is it that we were chosen to live in all this pain, why me, why my people, why you?
But I am not leaving this land because the bad guys are not going to leave us or you to live in peace. They are the same ones who flew the planes to kill your people in New York.
I ask you in the name of God or whatever you believe in; do not waste your son's blood. We here have decided to avenge humanity, you and all the women who lost their loved ones. Take a look at our enemy Cindy, look closely at the hooded man holding the sword and if you think he's right then I will back off and support your call.
I don't expect it to get any attention from the fascist apologists, but I hope some people will listen. Any chance someone near Crawford can print it out and go circulate a few copies on paper?
* Update * Joe Gandelman has a lengthy roundup and analysis on the Sheehan story. Where I think his analysis is flawed is in portraying it as Bush vs. Sheehan, Bush supporters vs. Sheehan supporters. Some Bush supporters are obviously not helping this, but the most important thing is being lost:Supporting what we are doing in Iraq does not mean "supporting the President." The fact--the indisputable fact--is that the vast majority of Iraqis want freedom and democracy. We know this, and it is not a matter of debate. The Iraqi people are under horrible assault by religious and secular fascists who murder them on a daily basis in order to put a stop to this:
They wish to impose either a restoration of Saddam-style fascism or Al-Qaeda/Taliban style fascism. We are helping the Iraqis fight this off. This makes her more than a grieving mother. It makes Ms. Sheehan a fascist propagandist. Is it what she means to be? It does not matter: it is what she is doing.
It's not criticizing the President that's the problem with what the grieving Ms. Sheehan is doing. Let her criticize him until the sun goes down.
I am not angry with Ms. Sheehan. It is almost certain that her grief has led her astray. There are ways to criticize the handling of the effort, or criticize the President, or to give strong suggestions for how to proceed in Iraq. But by simply slamming the effort as meaningless, dishonorable, characterizing it merely as "killing," she demeans all who've fought and died there, and all of us who support the fight against fascism.
Read Mohammed's message above again. Recall again why we did not just go to Baghdad, kill Saddam, then turn around and leave. Or why we ddn't just go to Iraq, install a new dictator, and steal the Iraqis' oil. We are seeking to do the honorable thing by the people of Iraq. Most of them want us to leave, but not until their own elected government is stable--which we all hope will be soon. What can Ms. Sheehan hope to accomplish by calling for "peace" with fascists who would do everything they can to prevent elections, to prevent civil rights for all the people of Iraq?
Related Posts (on one page):
- Message to Cindy Sheehan from Baghdad
- Cindy Sheehan
If we withdraw from Iraq, what then? What do they believe would happen?
Cindy needs to go home and get out of the spotlight, and begin to rebuild ties with her family. She will need them after the political orgs are done with her, and the real work of grieving begins. I wonder if she thinks the big activist orgs will stand by her after she's served their purpose.
CNN is running a loop of Ms. Sheehan praying in front of a white cross then standing up to hug someone. Is anyone else creeped out by all of the MSM "paparazzi" snapping photos like she is some kind of zoo exhibit?
I think everyone feels for Cindy Sheehan's loss, but when she starts in with the "we invaded Iraq for oil, Israel should get out of Palestine, I'm not paying my 2004 taxes" she quickly loses that sympathy.
Speaking of which, when do we start getting that sweet sweet stolen oil? Because my gas hasn't gotten any cheaper.
She's a mother who lost a son but that doesn't mean she's still not an idiot.
I'm no longer of the opinion that Sheehan is being used - she seems to me to be an enthusiastic and pro-active member of the anti-semitic, conspiracy-theory-mongering left...not "anti-war", but actually anti-American and anything America does. To her, it is the United States which is the enemy...find and dandy, but I'm on the side of the United States.
Casey Sheehan has my respect and undying gratitude - Cindy Sheehan has my undying contempt.
Given Ms. Sheehan's previous statements, we can only assume that she'd hold Iraq the Model and any other Iraqi's who laud our efforts - or even just say they understand what we're trying to do - puppets of American imperialist/racist/zionist occupiers...people who should rightly be killed by the patriotic fighters of the anti-occupation Iraqi militia...in other words, she'd have nothing but contempt for those Iraqi's who in any way, shape or form participate in the post-liberation Iraq. To her, their deaths would be a good thing - proper punishment for their working with the Great Satan.
An Objectivist made an excellent point that had not occured to me at all. This Cindy Sheehan, or "Mother" Sheehan as the Kos crowd are now calling her, is exactly like "Ma" Chalmers in Atlas Shrugged, who was similarly made into a "sainted" authority figure by the collectivists after her son's death. The only difference is that Casey Sheehan was a brave soldier who died fighting for his country, while "Kip" Chalmers was merely a corrupt politician who died in a train wreck that he himself caused.
As for Ms. Sheehan's motivations--"media whore" isn't quite it. I've decided that the appropriate term--given her willingness to ally with a cheerleader for her son's actual murderers in the name of her vendetta against George Walker Bush--is to be found in the Klingon language:
Tokhe straav'.