The Fallout from One Mom’s Voice
This war was sold to the public as a matter of self-defense against weapons of mass destruction. But the WMDs never appeared.
Next we were told that Iraq was the front line in the war against terrorists: ”better there than here.” But evidence shows that the vast majority of the foreign fighters are not relocated terrorists but new recruits radicalized by the war itself. More recently, we were told to ‘’stay the course” to ensure democracy in Iraq. But as Iraqis wrangle over a constitution that may not look anything like ours, the list of rationales gets shorter and the support for the war gets weaker.
Taken altogether, the polls show a majority of Americans now believe that it was a mistake to send troops to war, that the results are not worth the loss of American life, and that the war has not made us safer.
The most powerful argument left is the one the president repeats again and again: ”And the best way to honor the lives that have been given in this struggle is to complete the mission.”
Enter Cindy Sheehan.
Until now, the rallying cry ”Support Our Troops” meant ”Support the War.” One seemed inseparable from another. Criticizing the war felt like criticizing the troops. But on a dusty, hot road in Texas, Sheehan worked to sever this link.
So the question is not whether the president will talk with her. He won’t. It’s not whether she speaks for her son. We’ll never know. It’s not whether she is ”just a mom” or an anti-Bush agitator. She’s both. It’s whether nearly 1,900 Americans died in a war of choice and how painful that is to acknowledge. It’s whether we go on quietly honoring those deaths with more deaths.
No wonder ”peace mom” has become a target of the war over the war. If she succeeds, the White House has lost perhaps the final and most powerful justification they offer a disheartened American public. At that point, there’s no way out of the Iraq muddle. Except out.
Ellen Goodman | Boston Globe (read more. . .)