Letters to the Editor: A Mother and a Nation Seek Answers

Letters to the NY Times:

1. To the Editor:
"One Mother in Crawford" (editorial, Aug. 9) describes how Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, has been trying since last Saturday, in the broiling Texas sun, to speak to President Bush to ask him why he thinks her son died for a noble cause.

Before Mr. Bush left for Texas, his spokesman said that it is the president's desire to "shed his coat and tie and meet with folks out in the heartland and hear what's on their minds."

Apparently, meeting with the folks in the heartland does not include listening to those people who would dare disagree with the administration that has brought this country into a war filled with deception and untruths.
Clifford J. Hutchins
Rochester, Wash., Aug. 9, 2005

2. To the Editor:
Cindy Sheehan is my hero because she, unlike any politician, has the guts and commitment to demand a genuine accounting from the president for this disastrous war.

Perhaps the only thing that will get this administration to face reality is a thousand mothers camping out in Crawford.
Judy Levine
Kingston, N.Y., Aug. 9, 2005

3. To the Editor:
If Cindy Sheehan is able to meet President Bush, she might well ask him why his two daughters, both eligible for the military, do not enlist and serve in Iraq. After all, his recent statement, "We will stay the course; we will complete the job in Iraq," suggests shared involvement.

Who is the "we" he is referring to? Sadly, Ms. Sheehan, the "we" is your son, and the less well-connected brave men and women who do our nation's fighting and dying.
William Lyons
Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.
Aug. 9, 2005

4. To the Editor:
We all owe a debt to Cindy Sheehan, not only for the sacrifice of her son's life, but also for informing the American people of a truth about our president: he doesn't even bother to learn the basic facts about the men and women who have died in a senseless war, for which he holds the supreme responsibility.
Roger Waldinger
London, Aug. 9, 2005

5. To the Editor:
Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, is camped by the side of the road in Crawford, Tex., insisting that President Bush owes her an explanation for his war policies.

So far, the president has refused to meet with her again, sending instead two subordinates, who failed to mollify this "gold star mom."

The reason Mr. Bush will not meet with her is obvious: he cannot explain his policy in Iraq in any way that a growing number of Americans will accept. Weapons of mass destruction? None. Saddam Hussein's link to 9/11? None. Fighting terrorists over there? They weren't there until the United States lured them in.

This war is a classic example of bait and switch, and people are beginning to catch on.
Jim Calio
Marina del Rey, Calif., Aug. 9, 2005

AND Maureen Dowd is back from vacation with this op-ed:

Why No Tea and Sympathy? by Maureen Dowd

W. can't get no satisfaction on Iraq.

There's an angry mother of a dead soldier camping outside his Crawford ranch, demanding to see a president who prefers his sympathy to be carefully choreographed.

A new CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll shows that a majority of Americans now think that going to war was a mistake and that the war has made the U.S. more vulnerable to terrorism. So fighting them there means it's more likely we'll have to fight them here?

Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged yesterday that sophisticated bombs were streaming over the border from Iran to Iraq.

And the Rolling Stones have taken a rare break from sex odes to record an antiwar song called "Sweet Neo Con," chiding Condi Rice and Mr. Bush. "You call yourself a Christian; I call you a hypocrite," Mick Jagger sings.

The N.F.L. put out a press release on Monday announcing that it's teaming up with the Stones and ABC to promote "Monday Night Football." The flag-waving N.F.L. could still back out if there's pressure, but the mood seems to have shifted since Madonna chickened out of showing an antiwar music video in 2003. The White House used to be able to tamp down criticism by saying it hurt our troops, but more people are asking the White House to explain how it plans to stop our troops from getting hurt.

Cindy Sheehan, a 48-year-old Californian with a knack for P.R., says she will camp out in the dusty heat near the ranch until she gets to tell Mr. Bush face to face that he must pull all U.S. troops out of Iraq. Her son, Casey, a 24-year-old Army specialist, was killed in a Sadr City ambush last year.

The president met with her family two months after Casey's death. Capturing W.'s awkwardness in traversing the line between somber and joking, and his love of generic labels, Ms. Sheehan said that W. had referred to her as "Mom" throughout the meeting, and given her the sense that he did not know who her son was.

The Bush team tried to discredit "Mom" by pointing reporters to an old article in which she sounded kinder to W. If only her husband were an undercover C.I.A. operative, the Bushies could out him. But even if they send out a squad of Swift Boat Moms for Truth, there will be a countering Falluja Moms for Truth.

It's amazing that the White House does not have the elementary shrewdness to have Mr. Bush simply walk down the driveway and hear the woman out, or invite her in for a cup of tea. But W., who has spent nearly 20 percent of his presidency at his ranch, is burrowed into his five-week vacation and two-hour daily workouts. He may be in great shape, but Iraq sure isn't.

It's hard to think of another president who lived in such meta-insulation. His rigidly controlled environment allows no chance encounters with anyone who disagrees. He never has to defend himself to anyone, and that is cognitively injurious. He's a populist who never meets people - an ordinary guy who clears brush, and brush is the only thing he talks to. Mr. Bush hails Texas as a place where he can return to his roots. But is he mixing it up there with anyone besides Vulcans, Pioneers and Rangers?

W.'s idea of consolation was to dispatch Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, to talk to Ms. Sheehan, underscoring the inhumane humanitarianism of his foreign policy. Mr. Hadley is just a suit, one of the hard-line Unsweet Neo Cons who helped hype America into this war.

It's getting harder for the president to hide from the human consequences of his actions and to control human sentiment about the war by pulling a curtain over the 1,835 troops killed in Iraq; the more than 13,000 wounded, many shorn of limbs; and the number of slain Iraqi civilians - perhaps 25,000, or perhaps double or triple that. More people with impeccable credentials are coming forward to serve as a countervailing moral authority to challenge Mr. Bush.

Paul Hackett, a Marine major who served in Iraq and criticized the president on his conduct of the war, narrowly lost last week when he ran for Congress as a Democrat in a Republican stronghold in Cincinnati. Newt Gingrich warned that the race should "serve as a wake-up call to Republicans" about 2006.

Selectively humane, Mr. Bush justified his Iraq war by stressing the 9/11 losses. He emphasized the humanity of the Iraqis who desire freedom when his W.M.D. rationale vaporized.

But his humanitarianism will remain inhumane as long as he fails to understand that the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute.