A letter to the editor in my local favorite newspaper sent me flying to my word processor and within minutes, stopped me dead in my tracks. My brain is unable to reason with such gross stupidity.
The letter is about Cindy Sheehan, of course, but the writer also justifies the invasion of Iraq with reference to playing a game of poker.
It is entitled: "Grieving mother's stance makes son's death futile rather than heroic "
This letter was published in the
Times Union, an Albany, New York newspaper:
First published: Sunday, August 21, 2005
The loss of a loved one, especially the unexpected loss of an offspring, can be devastating, and can cause one to act in seemingly odd ways.
This appears to be the case with Cindy Sheehan. She grieves the loss of her son, in Iraq as a member of America's volunteer Army, as would any decent parent. However, her grief causes her to behave in odd ways.
She has taken to mouthing the mantra of the anti-war crowd: "Bush lied; there were no weapons of mass destruction."
There were weapons of mass destruction. Saddam used them against the Iranian army, and his own civilian population. One has only to search the archives of the Times Union to find coverage of these events. He killed and maimed countless human beings with his WMD.
In fact, the knowledge that Saddam had WMD is what motivated the United Nations to issue resolutions requiring Saddam to rid Iraq of them. That is exactly why the U.N. spent 12 years searching, without success, for these weapons. Saddam did have WMD, and he failed to comply with U.N. resolutions calling for their destruction. Bush did not lie.
(Given that no WMD have been recovered in Iraq, it appears that Saddam may have rid Iraq of the offending weapons. Perhaps he failed to certify this to the U.N., in order to facilitate the use of the threat of WMD against countries that could not know he no longer had them. As any poker player knows, you can win without the right cards, if you bluff well enough.)
Ms. Sheehan, whose son died after the toppling of Saddam, and before the successful implementation of a democracy in Iraq, now calls for the removal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
If President Bush were to comply, then it appears Sheehan's son will, indeed, have died in vain.
Any American deaths in Iraq, after the fall of Saddam, are an unfortunate part of the cost of bringing democracy to Iraq. The successful creation of an Iraqi democracy can only be effected with U.S. military involvement. Should the U.S. remove the military from Iraq, it is not likely democracy would take hold there. Should democracy not take hold, her son will have died for nothing.
Ms. Sheehan appears to be arguing that the United States act in a manner, which would cause her son's death to be for nothing. This is the truly odd part of her behavior, because she will spend the rest of her life grieving the loss of her son. She can grieve the senseless and useless death of her son, or she can grieve the loss of her son in making the world a better, safer place.
Her apparent preference, that she live the rest of her days grieving a senseless and useless death, seems odd.
I wish her well.
(I removed the writer's name and stated residence)
I need to respond to this letter without calling him stupid and uninformed, but I can't get beyond those two words.