Last week, "Iraq Mom" Cindy Sheehan spoke to a crowd at Shriver Hall and called for President Bush to immediately withdraw from Iraq. Sheehan's tours, constant protests and camping out in front of Bush residences need to end. Sheehan displays obvious irreverence by dishonoring her son's sacrifice. Her "peace" campaigns are mere media circuses. Interspersed between Sheehan's shriekings are claims of fallacies and deceit on the part of the government and poorly thought-out plans of retreat -- namely, her "pack up and leave" theory.
Cindy Sheehan wants answers. She wants to know why her son died. She wants to hear the government say that this war is for oil, not for freedom and democracy. She wants the troops to come home so that other families do not have to deal with the same tragic loss she has faced.
She is a distraught mother, a saddened wife and a grief-stricken citizen of America. However, she is nothing more. It seems that many people are giving her a bit more "ear time" than she deserves. Her platform of political theories is, to put it directly, cracked.
"How many innocent Iraqi people have to die before the citizens of America wake up and know that our government is a `bad guy'?" Sheehan said in her essay, "A Lie of Historic Proportions."
Some people may agree that the U.S. is needlessly interfering with the affairs of other nations, but that is irrelevant now that we're in Iraq. I loathe Bush like any other average-intelligence blue stater, but America is at war. Whether wrong or right, the decision to interfere with another country's problems has already been made. The only thing that can be done is to support our troops in an allied fashion. Sheehan is creating discord among Americans by using sentiment and emotion to cloud rationale.
Another problem with Sheehan is her finger pointing. Thousands of American soldiers are fighting in Iraq in the name of the American government, yet Sheehan dwells on Bush's inability to lead a nation. Continuing to dwell on the government and what now may seem like a corrupt dictatorship is pointless. The American troops need unified support. The troops need to know that when they come home they will be fully appreciated, instead of being caught in the middle of a moral battle between Sheehan's supporters and Bush's advocates.
Many soldiers feel that Sheehan has acted inappropriately by claiming she speaks for all the men and women in the armed forces. As one anti-Sheehan website, http://www.soldiersagainstsheehan.blogspot.com, noted, many soldiers are "flabbergasted that you dishonor his [Casey Sheehan's] service by suggesting his death allows you to speak for us. You do not speak for us."
Do I think this war was justified? No.
Do I think we should have gone to war? No.
Do I think we should bring our troops home immediately? No.
The "pack up and come home" theory that Sheehan favors would never work. Iraq's political, social and economic powers lie not in the hands of the Iraqi government, but rather in those of the American military. If we withdrew, Iraq would become a huge mess. We cannot leave and place the burden to rebuild their country on the shoulders of the Iraqi people when we know they are unprepared to do so.
--Samata Kamireddy is a junior neuroscience major from Hockessin, Del.
