PeoplesChamp
09-11-2005, 04:22 PM
If there ever was a time in our nation's history that required the passion and compassion of extremists, it is now: This very minute. What kind of extremist will you be? - Cindy Sheehan
Most everyone who is reading this knows what happened to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968. Some of you may even know what happened to my son, Spc. Casey Austin Sheehan on April 4, 2004. If you don't know, Dr. King and Casey were murdered by the same malevolent entities: people and ideologies that say we have to be mortally afraid of the "ism" du jour and we, as Americans who have the "moral high-ground" in the world, can send our innocent children to invade innocent countries and kill innocent people to fight the "ists" that go with the "isms." In Vietnam we were fighting the evil Communists, and in Iraq we are fighting the evil terrorists. Our war against Communism out-stayed its welcome in the 1980s and the military industrial war complex was running out of excuses to build bombs, tanks, bullets, ships, submarines, and soldiers; so in 2001, our leaders who serve the war machine had to switch our enemy of the state to terrorism.
Dr. King had the temerity to challenge the war machine and war racketeers on April 4, 1967, in his famous speech on Vietnam and he paid for that bit of inspired, courageous honesty with his life exactly one year later. Casey had the na•ve gall to join the US Army, thinking he would be making the world a better, safer place É and he paid for that kind of immature (but honest) patriotic mistake with his wonderful life.
Casey was a brave and honorable man who we were told volunteered to go on the mission that killed him to save the lives of his buddies. He was shot in the back of the head and died a little while later in a medic's station while a medic was trying to hold his brains in while the doctors tried to keep him breathing. We have heard many wildly disparate stories of Casey's last few minutes on earth, I don't know if we will ever know the truth. One thing I do know, however, is that like Dr. KingŐs, Casey's murder will be to advance the cause for peace and in the name of love.
I am wholly and completely convinced that this aggression on Iraq is illegal, immoral and appallingly unnecessary. I am also convinced that one drop of blood was one drop of blood too much to be shed for this abomination in Iraq. Now oceans of blood - both Iraqi and American - have been spilled for ruinous and disturbing policies of very bad people in our government who have based their reasons for invasion and occupation on their twisted imaginations and their seemingly bottomless lust for power, profits, chaos and confusion.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090805K.shtml
Most everyone who is reading this knows what happened to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968. Some of you may even know what happened to my son, Spc. Casey Austin Sheehan on April 4, 2004. If you don't know, Dr. King and Casey were murdered by the same malevolent entities: people and ideologies that say we have to be mortally afraid of the "ism" du jour and we, as Americans who have the "moral high-ground" in the world, can send our innocent children to invade innocent countries and kill innocent people to fight the "ists" that go with the "isms." In Vietnam we were fighting the evil Communists, and in Iraq we are fighting the evil terrorists. Our war against Communism out-stayed its welcome in the 1980s and the military industrial war complex was running out of excuses to build bombs, tanks, bullets, ships, submarines, and soldiers; so in 2001, our leaders who serve the war machine had to switch our enemy of the state to terrorism.
Dr. King had the temerity to challenge the war machine and war racketeers on April 4, 1967, in his famous speech on Vietnam and he paid for that bit of inspired, courageous honesty with his life exactly one year later. Casey had the na•ve gall to join the US Army, thinking he would be making the world a better, safer place É and he paid for that kind of immature (but honest) patriotic mistake with his wonderful life.
Casey was a brave and honorable man who we were told volunteered to go on the mission that killed him to save the lives of his buddies. He was shot in the back of the head and died a little while later in a medic's station while a medic was trying to hold his brains in while the doctors tried to keep him breathing. We have heard many wildly disparate stories of Casey's last few minutes on earth, I don't know if we will ever know the truth. One thing I do know, however, is that like Dr. KingŐs, Casey's murder will be to advance the cause for peace and in the name of love.
I am wholly and completely convinced that this aggression on Iraq is illegal, immoral and appallingly unnecessary. I am also convinced that one drop of blood was one drop of blood too much to be shed for this abomination in Iraq. Now oceans of blood - both Iraqi and American - have been spilled for ruinous and disturbing policies of very bad people in our government who have based their reasons for invasion and occupation on their twisted imaginations and their seemingly bottomless lust for power, profits, chaos and confusion.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090805K.shtml