Posted on 08/10/2005 1:47:20 PM PDT by Sam Hill
From: SCINDY...@aol.com
To: ter...@mweb.co.th ; bullyard@googlegroups.com
Cc: skee...@ksc.th.com ; jwa...@cox.net ; h...@bfranklin.edu ; steppenwo...@msn.com ; Kurn...@netscape.net ; m...@loxinfo.co.th ; TQMN...@aol.com ; zpbr...@cox.net ; sharinpa...@hotmail.com ; v...@netium.com.br
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 10:41 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: Nightline Tonight Mon., March 14, 2005
That was my son's unit. He was killed on that day 04/04/04. Here is a letter that I wrote to NightLine about the broadcast:
Love
Cindy Sheehan
March 15, 2005
To Whom it May Concern:
Imagine my distress when I turned Night Line on last night and I was confronted with the gory details of my son's murder in Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq on 04/04/04. Imagine, also, my sorrow and rage at the side of the story that you presented to the American public.
[SNIP]
I was on the Night Line Townhall Meeting in Washington, DC on 01/27/05. After I spoke (which I think was a fluke), Ted Koppel dismissed me as being "emotional." First of all, how can I approach this discussion without emotions, MY SON WAS KILLED, AND KILLED FOR LIES? Second of all, that show was not fair and balanced and I think the conclusion "Should we stay" was foregone.
The show last night was also not fair and balanced. To see all the wives being interviewed who had not lost their husbands and to hear what "hard work" it is to be left behind when their husbands are at war. How hard to you think it is to have a child killed in an illegal and immoral war? In this "wonderful" group of families left behind, we had exactly ONE of the wives call us..she is Diane Rose who was my son's Colonel, Frank Rose's wife. The last time we heard from Diane was in October and we feel we have been left behind by anyone connected to the 2-5 Cavalry. Is support only given if your loved one stays alive? One wife was quoted as saying that Sundays were the hardest for the families left behind. My son was killed on Palm Sunday last year..how does anybody think Sundays are for my family?
Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel. Am I stupid? No, I know full-well that my son, my family, this nation, and this world were betrayed by a George Bush who was influenced by the neo-con PNAC agenda after 9/11. We were told that we were attacked on 9/11 because the terrorists hate our freedoms and democracy...not for the real reason, becuase the Arab-Muslims who attacked us hate our middle-eastern foreign policy. That hasn't changed since America invaded and occupied Iraq...in fact it has gotten worse.
It would be so amazing if your show would put me, or another parent who lost their child on who disagrees with the war and this administration: to have just an entire show..without presenting the false side of the debate. That would take a lot of courage and integrity. I hope your program will exhibit these qualities.
I also think that Mr. Koppel owes me an apology for the rude way I was treated on his show. After I expressed myself about the war being based on lies and that the troops should be brought home immediately because the war was based on lies, I was not thanked for my comments, or my son's sacrifice. He just said to keep the discussion away from emotions. Then, the wife of a soldier who was killed was allowed to speak and she praised the policies of this deplorable and despicable administration, and she was thanked and praised by the panel.
That was more or less my understanding of the term and proud to be one. :o) Thanks for clarifying it a little more.
Thanks Phantom. I honestly didn't really know.
"Her husband has aleady left her over this, I think she has let the grief drive her completely mad."
I've never found anything that supports that statement. Only things I've found are that he supports her.
What in the world are you talking about?
You are attempting to interpret facts in such a way that they fit into your preconceived opinion. Saddam Hussein (as other BAATH leaders) WAS a secularist and Westernizer. Just learn a little more modern history of the Middle East.
Iraq was a regime which had socialist sympathies and which tended to be pro-Soviet. It had stronger hold on power as it mobilised more support among lower poorer classes. The countries who mentioned: "Turkey, Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia" are the key pro-US countries - whenever they had problems with Islamists it was reported widely in US press.
When Assad or Saddam Huddein had problem at most it was buried in small print. Even when Algerian secularists who a pro-French and have huge problem with Islamic insurgents you hear very little about.
He was an admirer of Stalin and Hitler. Are you really suggesting he had Iraq on an enlightened path to liberty and peace?
But if you need job in order to survive and job is in the city you are "forced", aren you? I guess you can say that you are free not to move and to starve.
How in Sam Hill did you find all this stuff :-)
Have you seen it? I did see the life in preindustrial village in Poland when I was a child.
No electricity, no shoes (shoes were used only for the church - you put them on after long walk just before entering so they last long).
They ate from one bowl (the gave me separate plate because I was a guest from the city). All family slept in one room sharing two beds. They gave me one special for the guest in second room - I felt like a prince :)
There lives WERE NOT "lonely, hard, harsh, and uncomfortable". I would last there for much longer than "a week" even if they did not give me separate plate or bed.
Also Polish villages were poorer that the American ones even in preindustrial time because American settlers had better agricultural traditions (from Western Europe) and much more land.
DS: Have you lost any friends or family over this? OR, how do your husband and neighbors feel about your sudden rise to prominence in the media and the role you've accepted in those venues?
CS: I have lost almost every friend that I had before Casey died. My husband and I are separated, because he doesn't support my activities, although he knows the war is a lie.
Whether we was or not it does not change the facts that he was a secularist and Westernizer. And he was not alone among our "friends" in Middle East to have unhealthy sympaties.
Are you really suggesting he had Iraq on an enlightened path to liberty and peace?
Baath policy of secularism, emancipation of women, universal education focused on science, sooner or later would produce modern society with expanded freedoms.
Tell me how the present reforms in Iraq will do this job better?
I'm all Cindy'd out. :)
If you are so "intellectual", why do you depend on lying, saying stupid things, and allying with socialists?
Just a question: has this lady actually spewed outright anti-semetism? Or does her opposition to, say, our support for Israel's foreign policy automatically qualify her as a Jew-hater?
Bookmarked.
Counterpunch.org material is not wanted on FR. Thanks.
She's probably getting paid.
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