The pithily titled Midwest Towns Sour on War as Their Toll Mounts provides some brief but intimate portraits of small-town folks coming to grips with the fact that the scion’s of their communities are coming home dead from an adventure they supported and even encouraged.
Retired electrician Bob Peck voted twice for Bush […] Peck would not vote for him again, even if he could.
Woody Marshall, a Vietnam War-era Navy veteran, described his own evolution as he trained his gaze on an elegantly stitched tapestry of a smiling Aaron Sissel in a VFW corridor. At first, he was "thrilled" that U.S.-led troops toppled Saddam Hussein and his tyrannical government.
(snip)
Like so many Tipton residents who saw the war delivered like an unwelcome package when the cortege passed, Pelzer realized that it took her son's death for her to focus on the war.
So where’s the counterpoint in this article, the “balance” we expect?
Where, for instance, is GOP representative Ann Coulter’s typical grief-counselor perspective? Strangely absent it seems.
How about a quote from the most famous war-widow in the US, Cindy Sheehan? Or the next-most famous, Mrs. Tillman?
There’s no mention of any effort to contact them for their view—perhaps the apparent reticence is due the intimate focus of the article and to introduce such “celebrities” into the story might detract from its essential tale.
The six weeks since have been a fog, she [Dixie Pelzer] said, an initiation into a parallel world occupied by the families of the 3,611 U.S. troops who have died in Iraq.
How about some quotes from those parents of the 3,611 who were actually opposed to the war-- not just from fear for their own sons and daughters lives but also from fear of the larger meaning and consequences of Bush’s and the Republican’s rabid and predictably destructive policies?
There is no time or column inches for them apparently; perhaps they aren’t victims the way these grieving staunch, twice-voting, moral, god-fearing family-values Republicans are.
No, there’s no sympathy for the anti-family, pro-abortion, homosexual-loving, tree-hugging, liberal, Democrat, immoral god-haters who opposed the war from the beginning and were branded traitors and lunatics by those who now bury their blind, bloodied and ignorant faith in the ground and weep over the bitter harvest they have sown.
Our sympathies should be with them for their personal loss, and they always have been from the beginning. But from them, to those liberal Democrat strangers who feared for others lives and railed in opposition of their likely waste have been called traitors and ghouls delighting in death by the champions of war and yet it seems no sympathy for the victimization of sage oppnents even now. is worthy of record.
Even now it seems there’s still no sympathy for the humanistic, altruistic, liberal “Devil”.
NOTE: I appreciate there are technical editorial contsraints on any story, but has anyone yet seen an MSM article or report anywhere that sympathetically adresses the pains of those who have lost their sons and daughters for a cause they knew was false but suffered the same sacrifice (or perhaps worse), despite their vehement oppostion?
Retired electrician Bob Peck voted twice for Bush […] Peck would not vote for him again, even if he could.
Woody Marshall, a Vietnam War-era Navy veteran, described his own evolution as he trained his gaze on an elegantly stitched tapestry of a smiling Aaron Sissel in a VFW corridor. At first, he was "thrilled" that U.S.-led troops toppled Saddam Hussein and his tyrannical government.
(snip)
Like so many Tipton residents who saw the war delivered like an unwelcome package when the cortege passed, Pelzer realized that it took her son's death for her to focus on the war.
So where’s the counterpoint in this article, the “balance” we expect?
Where, for instance, is GOP representative Ann Coulter’s typical grief-counselor perspective? Strangely absent it seems.
How about a quote from the most famous war-widow in the US, Cindy Sheehan? Or the next-most famous, Mrs. Tillman?
There’s no mention of any effort to contact them for their view—perhaps the apparent reticence is due the intimate focus of the article and to introduce such “celebrities” into the story might detract from its essential tale.
The six weeks since have been a fog, she [Dixie Pelzer] said, an initiation into a parallel world occupied by the families of the 3,611 U.S. troops who have died in Iraq.
How about some quotes from those parents of the 3,611 who were actually opposed to the war-- not just from fear for their own sons and daughters lives but also from fear of the larger meaning and consequences of Bush’s and the Republican’s rabid and predictably destructive policies?
There is no time or column inches for them apparently; perhaps they aren’t victims the way these grieving staunch, twice-voting, moral, god-fearing family-values Republicans are.
No, there’s no sympathy for the anti-family, pro-abortion, homosexual-loving, tree-hugging, liberal, Democrat, immoral god-haters who opposed the war from the beginning and were branded traitors and lunatics by those who now bury their blind, bloodied and ignorant faith in the ground and weep over the bitter harvest they have sown.
Our sympathies should be with them for their personal loss, and they always have been from the beginning. But from them, to those liberal Democrat strangers who feared for others lives and railed in opposition of their likely waste have been called traitors and ghouls delighting in death by the champions of war and yet it seems no sympathy for the victimization of sage oppnents even now. is worthy of record.
Even now it seems there’s still no sympathy for the humanistic, altruistic, liberal “Devil”.
NOTE: I appreciate there are technical editorial contsraints on any story, but has anyone yet seen an MSM article or report anywhere that sympathetically adresses the pains of those who have lost their sons and daughters for a cause they knew was false but suffered the same sacrifice (or perhaps worse), despite their vehement oppostion?
3 comments:
They sound like typical right-wingers that are jumping from Bush's burning ship as a matter of vogue dissent.
When it was popular and important to keep the blinders on in hopes that things would go well (kinda like how Bush and his cabal hoped they would find WMDs) they kept them on.
Now, as the tide finally turns, and they realize this is a futile adventure (like we told them it was almost from the outset), they find it unbearable and untenable.
Too late. Sorry. When Progressives warned of potential catastrophic results, we were called anti-American, unpatriotic Commies, Al Qaida and terrorist sympathizers. They continued to champion the cause despite warnings that this was becoming a recruiting vehicle for more and continued terrorist activity and sectarian violence.
The sad result is their prayers have been answered... and they don't even realize it. They made Bush their God, and he smites them for their sacrifice. They kneel, stunned, before their false idol.
Suckers.
targa..
"vogue dissent.." I assume you are referring to the politicians cited in the article, not the townspeople who's kids are dead from policies they apparently had agreed with.
Being a soldier is of course a deadly business and however that might be comprhended in theory, in practice people react emotionally regardless.
The overall tone of this article seems to me that it's all just very sad and unfortunate. But the people quoted STILL seem reluctant to grasp the truth--that the people they voted for killed their sons for their own twisted benefit.
I've absoultely NO sympathy for the two ex-military men quoted. Peck voted TWICE for Bush. Marchall was in the Vietnam war. These two obviously learned NOTHING since which is pathetic. They are accessories to the unneccessary deaths of these soldiers and for all they macho posturing an "honor" they still can't admit it.
Yes.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1226-02.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-03-17-bragg--rally_x.htm
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/access/425230191.html?did=425230191&FMT=ABS&FMTS=FT&date=Oct+19%2C+2003&author=Manny+Fernandez&pub=The+Washington+Post&desc=Antiwar+Activists+To+Revisit+District&pqatl=google
...and let's not forget the coverage Camp Casey got in 2004 when Cindy Sheehan was there.
In fact, on this point, I'd say anti-war families who have to bury dead soldiers have received more print that pro-Bush or pro-war families have.
It's nice to see this article.
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