The Exploits and Exploitation of Cindy Sheehan

The anti-war movement has made Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier slain in Iraq, the cover girl for their movement. Obviously, Mrs. Sheehan (soon to be Ms.) is grieving for her son and is entitled to criticize the Bush Administration's Iraq policy. However, it does not mean that people with opposing ideas have no right to challenge hers. James Lileks is a very entertaining commentator/blogger who has written persuasively about this topic.

UPDATE:

Arthur Chrenkoff chimes in on the Sheehan spectacle.

...what Cindy Sheehan's vigil increasingly reminds me of most is a vaguely blasphemous spectacle. Here we have Casey Sheehan, the martyred Messiah, and Cindy Sheehan, the grief-stricken Mother of God, sitting at the foot of a forest of little white crosses, while the anti-war crowd partakes in the unholy communion of Casey's body and blood, in the hope that he - through the agency and intercession of his mother - will be their new savior, leading them to the Kingdom of Heaven where the US troops are out of Iraq and George Bush is out of the White House. Casey Sheehan might have died for - and because of - President Bush's sins (and if we believe Cindy's anti-Semitic ravings, Casey, like the medieval Christ, was murdered by the Jews), but his sacrifice will surely bring the political resurrection to the anti-war movement, buffeted by the re-election of BushHitler.

I'm sorry that Casey died. I'm sorry that Cindy lost her son. I'm sorry that her family is now being torn apart. But I'm not surprised that the whole sorry saga is becoming increasingly distasteful to other grieving parents.

ANOTHER UPDATE:

Radio talk-show host Phil Hendrie chimes in with a devastating piece on the exploitation of Cindy Sheehan by the anti-war movement.

Anti-War Mom raised her children in the American culture of struggle, progress, success and failure. Like many, she refused to take ownership of her government, preferring the platitude of loving her country. No people own their government more than the American people. And no other people in the world more strenuously disassociate from it when the going gets tough. And the going is always the toughest when times are good and war arrives. For Cindy Sheehan and millions of other moms the inconvenience of this could not be overstated. While she was busy chasing the good life, made possible by the millions of backstairs deals cut globally everyday through American corporations and politicians (not to mention enforced by an international security apparatus) her good life was coming up against other considerations authored in the caves of Pakistan.

At first, since it was a question of country, not government, Anti-War Mom supported the war although her loyalty to one and not the other began to impede her ability to understand things clearly. When news arrived of her sons death, her tenuous line to reality snapped. Not only was she not at all responsible for her government, she didn't much like the country either, lecturing her fellow citizens on the costs of war, arrogant in the depths of her ignorance about the prices others have paid.

Anti-War Mom might be powerful had she any ideas of her own. But since she is a mouth-piece for the September 10th movement her guns
are empty. The Anti-War movement in America continues to lack anything approaching ideas or answers.