Another One Bites the Dust

Cindy Sheehan has decided to what appears to be the American thing to do and put her life first. After two years of service to the American public, and the loss of her son, I think she's entitled to do just that. While I think it is probably the right thing for her to do personally, I'm deeply saddened by two things. First, that there is no one really to take up her cause, and second that after two years she's not retiring because the job is done, but because she's become so disheartened with the apathetic American public that she feels as a society we're beyond redemption. She's given up.

This is what it means to lose a war. I believe that Al-Quaida's goal is not military domination or even the annihilation of the American people. Their goal is simply to break the American spirit. At the heart of the American spirit is the cherished responsibility to challenge authority, to stand up for beliefs, and to work to affect change. Cindy Sheehan will no longer be doing that.

There have been nearly 3,500 American deaths in Iraq, but Cindy Sheehan is the casualty that really signals the loss of the war. The George Bushes aren't Al-Quaida's enemy. They are Al-Quaida's play things. Al-Quaida is smart enough to know that they can't change the George Bushes, but they can control them. Bush and his ilk are as predictable as the sun. Al-Quaida knows how to provoke George Bush. The Republican party has shown the way to condition the American public to knee-jerk respond to specific stimuli and were too mesmerized or too lazy to control that response.

The Cindy Sheehans are the ones that Al-Quaida should fear. They have the guts to stand up for their beliefs, even when those beliefs may not be popular. They demand to be counted. That is the American spirit and today we had another crack in it.