Mamas don’t....

I think that we are making a mistake by focussing on one individual.  None of us can know her reality.  What we should be focusing on is the young men and women who are serving in Iraq, from whichever country, and think about what their experiences are doing to blight them, psychologically.  Vietnam vets, many, many of them, never had a chance at a "normal" life once they came home. The same is true of the troops there now.  No-one thought that after so many years, there would still be a vast and increasing military presence in Iraq in 2006: liberate, find, consolidate, get out...and support. Wasn't that the idea?  Nothing to do with vast oil reserves, no Sir!

In the meantime, young people, some with very little other hope for the future are falling prey to propaganda: kids so indoctrinated by America's might and right, that they could never believe that perhaps, just perhaps, their country might have another motive which has nothing whatsoever to do with them as human beings, and even less to do with the people they supposedly went to save!

 Sometimes the only way you can learn to truly begin to question America's agenda (and the U.K. which wants so little to do with Europe than it refuses even to use its currency) is to get out of the country, and stay out for a while.

Propaganda, unfortunately, creates its own reality.  It tells you the terms.  What do you have left to argue with?

I have studied Cindy Sheehan very intensely.  At the most she is seriously mentally disturbed, and at the least she is an extremely polished passive/aggressive who is on a mission of publicity for HERSELF.

She did not raise her son.  I have seen his grave.  There is no marker on it and NO flowers.  Unless they have just recently been placed there.)  Her son chose to join the military to to serve two tours in the Middle East.  She is a disgrace to the memory of her son.  This is not about her "lost son".  It's about HER.  She thrives on the publicity and attention this "cause" has bestowed upon her.  Even her former Hollywood buddies are quickly abandoning her, as they are seeing that she is not quite "normal".   And I don't mean that she is not normal because she is grieving the loss of the son who didn't live with her.....she is not normal because she has some very significant mentally abnormal symptoms.

Everyone should read EVERYTHING about her, read both sides of the coin.  I feel extremely sad for her son and for all the young people who die in battle.  But, remember, he was an adult, and he desired and chose on his own accord to enlist in the military and to serve two terms in the Middle East for his country which he loved.   Those are the facts.  You can read them if you can to study both sides on the internet....especially in scholarly articles, which offer truthful, unbiased opinions of her actions.

God's Peace.

Cassandra wrote: Norfolkenwaypal: Let's try a little thought experiment, shall we?  Someone tells you that someone else is a bad guy, evil, has evil things that he plans to use against you ("Someone" knows this is true because he gave them to him). Oppresses his people who would love to have a life just like your own. He convinces you that everything you hold dear could be destroyed if you don't go to get him, find his evil things, show to the world that you now have freed decent human beings and left them living in "freedom": that you had a right, no, an obligation to do that as the representative of the greatest country the world has ever known.  And that once you've done it, you can come home to everyone's praise, and most importantly with the joy of the people you went to free ringing in your ears. Now lets fast forward a few years. You are still there.  You have seen normal human beings turned into hating, killing machines with no more understanding of the people they see everyday than they have love. They have become that way because of the messages they hear, day after, hot, hot day. You are there to "do a job" but more and more you wonder just what that has to do with you.  They promised you glory. All you see is gore. You see your friends die, hideously.  It drives some of the others mad. You wonder how long you will hold on to your own sanity.  You see very little of the young highschool grad you once were. You have become hardened.  You have had no choice. Ity is that or be swallowed up by your own conscience. You see women and children blown to pieces.  You can't remember when you slept without nightmares, and then you wake up to find they are true. You want to go home: to your farm, to your little dusty town, to your city block, to your wife, your girl, your kids, your mom. This is the reality for the troops in Iraq, and no doubt far far worse. You message above is not only unsympathetic, but stupidly vaccuous.  You cannot possibly imagine the pain of a mother who knows that her son's death was brought about by a patriotic obscenity. A joke. A lie.

It would be terrible to go through what you have said above but one thing I think would make it worse is finding out your mother is making money off of your death. That would bother me more than any of the lies I was told before I went. My own mother profiting from my death, yeah I feel real bad for her. You keep supporting her and make sure you buy a couple copies of her book. She needs the money since the rest of her family disagreed with what she said and has apparently disowned her.