Cindy Sheehan was catapulted into the national limelight in
recent weeks when she planted herself in front of President
Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, to demand an answer as to
why her son was killed in Iraq.
Specialist Casey Sheehan, a 24-year-old Army Humvee mechanic,
was killed April 24, 2004 in Sadr City, Iraq. His family met with
the president two months later at Fort Lewis in Washington as part
of one of Bush’s meetings with families of the fallen,
meetings that are hidden from the public eye. But, Sheehan says the
answers the president provided then were not satisfactory, and she
accused Bush of even being unwilling to look at a photo of
Casey.
Now, the 48-year-old mother says she won’t leave
Bush’s ranch until he meets with her. Sheehan’s one-mom
campaign has attracted dozens of antiwar activists and reporters,
who have flooded “Peace House,” an antiwar camp outside
Bush’s ranch, now turned into Sheehan Central.
Sheehan serves as a poignant reminder of the cost of war. It is
hard for the public to wrap its mind around the sheer number of
American casualties in Iraq (to date, at least 1,853). But
Sheehan’s actions make reality clear: It’s not just
numbers, but sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, who are dying
in Iraq.
President Bush doesn’t have much problem with claiming
credit for the war’s successes ““ as evidenced by his
“Mission Accomplished” aircraft carrier fly-in on May
1, 2003. He should be equally open to bearing some of the
responsibility for the war’s costs.
Bush likes to use broad strokes to define why American soldiers
are in Iraq now, among them “terrorism,”
“freedom” and “democracy” (conveniently,
the administration seems to have forgotten how to say
“weapons of mass destruction”). Sheehan said she was
particularly irked by comments Bush made on Aug. 3, when he said
U.S. troops who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan “have died
in a noble, selfless cause.”
Words like these are all the public has come to expect from this
administration, and sadly, Sheehan’s struggle isn’t
likely to garner any new explanation from the president, if he
meets with her at all. But when “democracy” and
“freedom” don’t suffice, it is the
president’s responsibility to supply some real answers to the
family of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. As an elected
representative of the people, it’s the least Bush could do,
and Americans should hold him accountable to that expectation.
The Bush administration’s determination thus far to turn a
blind eye to the cost of its actions is perhaps best illustrated in
a recent incident at the ranch: On Aug. 12, Bush’s motorcade
passed within 100 feet of Sheehan and some of her supporters as the
president travelled from his Prairie Chapel Ranch to a nearby
friend’s ranch for a fund-raising event.
The president rode in a black suburban with tinted windows. As
the convoy passed the antiwar group, Sheehan held up a sign that
read, “Why do you make time for donors and not for
me?”
Her question is a valid one. She ““ and every other family
who has lost a loved one in Iraq ““ deserve a good answer.