Posted on 05/29/2007 8:25:01 AM PDT by kristinn
FORT WORTH, Texas — Cindy Sheehan, the soldier's mother who galvanized an anti-war movement with her monthlong protest outside President Bush's ranch, says she's done being the public face of the movement.
"I've been wondering why I'm killing myself and wondering why the Democrats caved in to George Bush," Sheehan told The Associated Press by phone Tuesday while driving from her property in Crawford to the airport, where she planned to return to her native California.
"I'm going home for awhile to try and be normal," she said.
In what she described as a "resignation letter," Sheehan wrote in her online diary on the "Daily Kos" blog: "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."
Sheehan began a grass roots peace movement in August 2005 when she camped outside Bush's Crawford ranch for 26 days, demanding to talk with the president about her son's death. Army Spc. Casey Sheehan was 24 when he was killed in an ambush in Baghdad in 2004.
Cindy Sheehan's protest started small but swelled to thousands and quickly drew national attention. Over the next two years, she initially drew huge crowds as she spoke at protest events. But she also drew criticism for some actions, such as meeting with Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's leftist president.
"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," Sheehan wrote in the diary.
Kristinn Taylor, spokesman for FreeRepublic.com, which has held pro-troop rallies and counter-protests of anti-war demonstrations, said dwindling crowds at Sheehan's Crawford protests since her initial vigil may have led to her decision. But he also said he hopes she will now be able to heal.
"Her politics have hurt a lot of people, including the troops and their families, but most of us who support the war on terror understand she is hurt very deeply," Taylor said Tuesday. "Those she got involved with in the anti-war movement realize it was to their benefit to keep her in that stage of anger."
When she had first taken on Bush, Sheehan was a darling of the liberal left. "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," she wrote.
Sheehan said she had sacrificed a 29-year marriage and endured threats to put all her energy into stopping the war. What she found, she wrote, was a movement "that often puts personal egos above peace and human life."
But she said the most devastating conclusion she had reached "was that Casey did indeed die for nothing ... killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think."
Sheehan told The Associated Press that she had considered leaving the peace movement since last summer while recovering from surgery.
Then she decided on Memorial Day to step down and spend more time with her three other children. She said she was returning to California on Tuesday because it was Casey's birthday. He would have been 28.
"We've accomplished as much here as we're going to," Sheehan said Tuesday, saying she was leaving to change course. "When we come back it definitely won't be with the peace movement with marches, with rallies and with protests. It will be more humanitarian efforts."
Last year, with $52,500 in insurance money received after her son's death, Sheehan bought 5 acres near downtown Crawford as a permanent site for protests.
"Camp Casey has served its purpose. It's for sale. Anyone want to buy five beautiful acres in Crawford, Texas?" she wrote.
Perfect response.
If nothing else, she can lay her head on Jesse’s broad shoulders again. Or maybe he will pay for a scholarship to some school somewhere.
Her 15 minutes were too long.
I knew those late night meetings at the Free Republic cave under Bulldog stadium would pay off.
Given time, she might just come to the realization that her son died to allow Iraqis the freedoms people like her and her former “friends” to do exactly what they did without the fear...............
And another Reality Show comes to an end.
Isn’t THAT the TRUTH!
Good for Cindy. Her faith in radical partisan politics has been met with the reality that the aparachniks will use you till they use you up...drop you in the grease and move-on.org to the next useful idiot. Kristinn, you’re words were thoughtful and represent the best of FreeRepublic. Thanks.
How would that effect any of us - I dare say we would only find out if that tragedy came into our home.
I say Leave her alone !
If she wants to rant and rave - go ahead - give her leave.
and.... pay her no attention if it bothers you.
She lost her child.
Cindy’s next gig will be one of the “Hollywood Squares.”
Thanks, I'll just wait until you let the taxes on the property lapse...
Maybe if he loses the beard. :)
}:-)4
That was a great observation, very well stated and well thought out.
More hatred is the last thing any American needs.
Welcome to FR Troll!
“It was a quagmire, she had to quit as fast as possible......”
Heh heh heh heh heh...........quagmire
Excellent quote Kristinn! I’m proud to be associated with someone so well-spoken with a complete lack of finger-pointing and hyperbole
I would normally feel exactly as you do in this regard, but only if what she were doing were harmless to others. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case here. She has made life so much more difficult for so many other families by claiming to speak for military families. She has made it easier for people to condemn and disdain us with her claims that the rest of us (military families) aren’t capable of understanding what pawns we are. I place a lot of blame for the fact that I constantly feel I have to make apologies for my husband (and I do have to more often than I would like) squarely on shoulders of her and people like her.
I realize she lost her child, and I realize that is an awful, terrible, agonizing thing. But Casey made his choices. He chose to reenlist, IIRC, he actually chose to go back and join his unit again in Iraq. She should respect his choices and what clearly seem to be his wishes and not do this in his name. She can’t seem to face that though, so her behavior seems more like selfishness to me. I pray that some day she finds peace. But she has also done a lot of damage.
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