Different paradigms of grief

[SuperScout]

The grieving mother camped on the road outside Bush's home in Texas has company in her grief, questionable as it is.

Somewhere in Baghdad or Pakistan or Afghanistan, maybe at this moment, a mother swathed in black robes squats on the floor of a hut, watching the elders of her tribe strap a bomb to her handsome teenaged son.

They cinch up the belts and murmur to him of the car he will get to drive at high speed, his future as a hero of Islam, and, of course, the seventeen or however many virgins who await him in "heaven." She sobs as other women try to comfort her. The boy is her favorite. A golden child, he with a mop of black curls and eyes that looked up at her when he nursed at her breast, when she taught him to walk and when he offered bunches of desert flowers from his small hands.

Now she can see the fear in his eyes, but because she is a woman in an Islamic country she is powerless to stop the fanatical leaders of Jihad. Her son is to die. She knows it. But she cannot stop it. She also knows that if she speaks out, she could be dragged outdoors, and have her throat slit.

It was the same kind of Islamic men who stole four American jetliners full of fathers, mothers and little children and flew them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field. Here in America we were 'giving peace a chance' that day, we and all those people in the upper floors of the two towers, sipping coffee at their desks and chatting at the water coolers when their world exploded into flames.

The same kind of fanatical Muslim Jihadists who strap bombs to kids, even Downes Syndrome kids, did not care about little children on airliners, or loving dads in business suits whispering goodbye on cell phones in the back rows of jets.

So Cindy Sheehan down there in Texas blames George Bush for her son's death as a soldier in Iraq? Wasn't her son was of legal age when he signed his name and enlisted? He made the choice. And though he may have signed up for the benefits the military offers, and which she doubtless approved at the time, he also swore to defend his country. At least he had some depth of character, as opposed to the absence that his mother exhibits.

"His country." America. The leader of the free world, and now the foremost defender of Western civilization, Democracy, freedom of speech, liberty to worship as we choose, and the pursuit of happiness - no matter how we live our lives. America, the exception to all other countries in the world with our glorious constitution and Bill of Rights. America, the envy of the world.

The men who strap bombs to schoolboys in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and who knows where else - know nothing - nothing - of Democracy or civilization.

What Cindy Sheehan of Vacaville should know - what Barbra Streisand, Susan Sarandon and the Dixie Chicks should be mindful of, is that women have the biggest stakes of all in this war. If Cindy Sheehan of Vacaville really wanted to honor her son's memory and add meaning to his heroic sacrifice, she would be using her pulpit to talk to the women swathed in black and squatting in the huts of the Middle East.

She might say to them: "You have the power to stop this insanity. In order to save your remaining children and the future unborn, you must all become secret agents, seditionists, spies, and soldiers in burkhas.

"Turn your hatred of the arrogant Arab males who started this mess into action. Use those black robes to secret the weapons needed to destroy radical leaders.

"Use your jobs - even as lowly street vendors in the markets of your cities - to get information to Coalition Troops about where the next Improvised Explosive Device is planted.or the whereabouts of vicious leaders like Abu al Zarqawi. A hollowed out eggplant makes an excellent hiding place.

"Use your positions as cooks in mountain camps to poison roomsful of Al Qaeda - or maybe even the big man himself.

"Use your knowledge of weapons respositories to blow them up yourselves.

"Use your position as wives to stop a husband who is a leader of Jihad in his bed as he sleeps.

"You who have given life, use whatever you have to stop this insane cult of death."

The women could do it. But they, unlike Cindy Sheehan of Vacaville, would have to be willing to die for their efforts, as they most surely would in the most male dominated and controlled society in the world. And besides willingness, it requires moral courage, which apparently is lacking in the Cindy Sheehans of this world.

Cindy Sheehan's family members do not support her efforts as she camps out in Crawford, planting crosses in the dust. Her son's grandparents, along with other relatives, have posted an email message saying that she "appears to be promoting her own personal agenda and notoriety at the expense of her son's good name and reputation."

Her husband and soon to be her ex-husband, Patrick Sheehan, also disagrees with her. He says, "I know [President Bush] is sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of faith." He adds, "I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis."

That, Cindy Sheehan, is freedom. A wife and a husband can disagree, and she can go on doing what she's doing. She won't be beheaded in the town square of Vacaville. And that's what soldiers like your son are dying for in Iraq.

[BLUEHAWK]

Well said...

[Packo]

Scout......how true. Thanks for posting this. Another way of looking at this problem I hadn't thought of. Thanks a bunch!

Pack

[colmurph]

Brice, you ought to send that to a "Liberal Rag" like the Philadelphia Inquirer. I'd love to see if they would publish it on the editorial page. Folks need to see things from this perspective. GR8 read!

[SuperScout]

Be my guest, and do a cut and paste, send it on and pray for the best!