Anti-war “face” resigns

Cindy Sheehan has had enough. Following the death of her son Casey (24) in Iraq in April 2004, she founded Gold Star Families for Peace, heckled Bush and became the “face” of the American peace movement. On Memorial Day (May 28) she wrote her resignation letter. She came to the heartbreaking conclusion that her son “indeed died for nothing”. She is disillusioned in the Democrats, who failed and continue to fail to stop the Iraq war.

“People of the world look on us Americans as jokes because we allow our political leaders so much murderous latitude and if we don’t find alternatives to this corrupt "two" party system our Representative Republic will die and be replaced with what we are rapidly descending into with nary a check or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland.” (Daily KOS: "Good Riddance Attention Whore")

She regrets that she “bought into this system for so many years”. Unfortunately, she still does to some extent. She talks about “our brave young men and women in Iraq”. What's so brave about invading another country and murdering its inhabitants. The “American men and women in uniform” are not brave at all, on the contrary, they're cowards for not standing up to their war criminal commander-in-chief. They 'dare' to murder Iraqi women and children, but they don't dare to say “no” to Bush.

The peace movement is useful to undermine the will to fight in imperialist countries, but it can only do that much. The force that will defeat the U.S. occupiers is the armed resistance. Words are useful to undermine the morale of the occupiers, but the power is still coming out of the barrel of the gun. If Cindy Sheehan really wants the war to stop, she has to take the next step – even more difficult and painful no doubt – to actively support – be it in words only – the Iraqi resistance, the same people who killed her son. And that, probably, is a step too far. People do have their limits.

“I have used all my energy trying to stop this country from slaughtering innocent human beings.”

Anyway, thank you, Cindy, for your three years of struggle against the criminal Bush administration. You deserve to take a rest. The Iraqi resistance will continue the fight.