She’s saying goodbye

I’ll write more later…

As posted on Daily Kos yesterday:

“Good Riddance Attention Whore” (by Cindy Sheehan)

I have endured a lot of smear and hatred since Casey was killed and
especially since I became the so-called “Face” of the American anti-
war movement. Especially since I renounced any tie I have remaining
with the Democratic Party, I have been further trashed on such
“liberal blogs” as the Democratic Underground. Being called an
“attention whore” and being told “good riddance” are some of the more
milder rebukes.
___________________________________

I have come to some heartbreaking conclusions this Memorial Day
Morning. These are not spur of the moment reflections, but things I
have been meditating on for about a year now. The conclusions that I
have slowly and very reluctantly come to are very heartbreaking to
me.

The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left
as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican
Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a
“tool” of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and
my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working
outside of our “two-party” system?

However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same
standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause
started to erode and the “left” started labeling me with the same
slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I
said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a
matter of “right or left”, but “right and wrong.”

I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should
be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying
for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican
alike. It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues and can
zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and political
expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it in their
own party. Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs
on. People of the world look on us Americans as jokes because we
allow our political leaders so much murderous latitude and if we
don´t find alternatives to this corrupt “two” party system our
Representative Republic will die and be replaced with what we are
rapidly descending into with nary a check or balance: a fascist
corporate wasteland. I am demonized because I don´t see party
affiliation or nationality when I look at a person, I see that
person´s heart. If someone looks, dresses, acts, talks and votes like
a Republican, then why do they deserve support just because he/she
calls him/herself a Democrat?

I have also reached the conclusion that if I am doing what I am doing
because I am an “attention whore” then I really need to be committed.
I have invested everything I have into trying to bring peace with
justice to a country that wants neither. If an individual wants both,
then normally he/she is not willing to do more than walk in a protest
march or sit behind his/her computer criticizing others. I have spent
every available cent I got from the money a “grateful” country gave
me when they killed my son and every penny that I have received in
speaking or book fees since then. I have sacrificed a 29 year
marriage and have traveled for extended periods of time away from
Casey´s brother and sisters and my health has suffered and my
hospital bills from last summer (when I almost died) are in
collection because I have used all my energy trying to stop this
country from slaughtering innocent human beings. I have been called
every despicable name that small minds can think of and have had my
life threatened many times.

The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however,
was that Casey did indeed die for nothing. His precious lifeblood
drained out in a country far away from his family who loves him,
killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war
machine that even controls what we think. I have tried every since he
died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which
cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many
people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and
Republicans play politics with human lives. It is so painful to me to
know that I bought into this system for so many years and Casey paid
the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the
most.

I have also tried to work within a peace movement that often puts
personal egos above peace and human life. This group won´t work with
that group; he won´t attend an event if she is going to be there; and
why does Cindy Sheehan get all the attention anyway? It is hard to
work for peace when the very movement that is named after it has so
many divisions.

Our brave young men and women in Iraq have been abandoned there
indefinitely by their cowardly leaders who move them around like
pawns on a chessboard of destruction and the people of Iraq have been
doomed to death and fates worse than death by people worried more
about elections than people. However, in five, ten, or fifteen years,
our troops will come limping home in another abject defeat and ten or
twenty years from then, our children´s children will be seeing their
loved ones die for no reason, because their grandparents also bought
into this corrupt system. George Bush will never be impeached because
if the Democrats dig too deeply, they may unearth a few skeletons in
their own graves and the system will perpetuate itself in perpetuity.

I am going to take whatever I have left and go home. I am going to go
home and be a mother to my surviving children and try to regain some
of what I have lost. I will try to maintain and nurture some very
positive relationships that I have found in the journey that I was
forced into when Casey died and try to repair some of the ones that
have fallen apart since I began this single-minded crusade to try and
change a paradigm that is now, I am afraid, carved in immovable,
unbendable and rigidly mendacious marble.

Camp Casey has served its purpose. It´s for sale. Anyone want to buy
five beautiful acres in Crawford , Texas ? I will consider any
reasonable offer. I hear George Bush will be moving out soon,
too…which makes the property even more valuable.

This is my resignation letter as the “face” of the American anti-war
movement. This is not my “Checkers” moment, because I will never give
up trying to help people in the world who are harmed by the empire of
the good old US of A, but I am finished working in, or outside of
this system. This system forcefully resists being helped and eats up
the people who try to help it. I am getting out before it totally
consumes me or anymore people that I love and the rest of my
resources.

Good-bye America …you are not the country that I love and I finally
realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can´t make you be that
country unless you want it.

It´s up to you now.

New Senate Intelligence Committee Report Released

It’s like everything else they claim they have either plead ignorance on or opted to go for the gusto on, despite the devastation they would leave behind.  Despite the voices of reason and those that had the experience and the knowledge of that region.  And, I think it is just a tad bit supersillious of Senator Bond to state the committee’s intelligence work on Iraq “has become too embroiled in politics and partisanship to produce an accurate and meaningful report.”  Partisanship my friends, is the foundation this whole administration has been built on.   If you aren’t a card-carrying-loyal-to-your-last-breath-Republican, they don’t have any use for you.  Former DOJ official Monica Goodling testafied to that effect.  Read the article below on the new intel report.

Report Says Iraq Problems Were Expected

By KATHERINE SHRADER
Lompocrecord
WASHINGTON – U.S. intelligence analysts predicted, in two papers widely circulated before the 2003 Iraq invasion, that al-Qaida would see U.S. military action as an opportunity to increase its operations and that Iran would try to shape the post-Saddam era. The top analysts in government also said that establishing a stable democracy in Iraq would be a long, turbulent challenge.

Democrats said the documents, part of a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation released Friday, make clear that the Bush administration was warned about the challenges it now faces as it tries to stabilize Iraq.

“Sadly, the administration’s refusal to heed these dire warnings _ and worse, to plan for them _ has led to tragic consequences for which our nation is paying a terrible price,” said Senate Intelligence Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.

But some Republicans rejected the committee’s work as flawed. The committee’s top Republican, Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri, said the report’s conclusions selectively highlight the intelligence agencies’ findings that seem to be important now, distorting the picture of what was presented to policymakers.

He said the committee’s work on the Iraq intelligence “has become too embroiled in politics and partisanship to produce an accurate and meaningful report.”

Publication of the 229-page document was approved by a vote of 10-5, with two Republicans _ Sens. Olympia Snowe of Maine and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska _ joining with Democrats in the prevailing position.

Asked about the report at his Thursday news conference, President Bush stood by his decision to topple the Iraqi regime. He said he firmly believes the world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power.

“Going into Iraq, we were warned about a lot of things, some of which happened, some of which didn’t happen,” he said. “Obviously, as I made a decision … I weighed the risks and rewards of any decision.”