Were these just the ravings of a distraught mother, who in the same speech called President Bush a terrorist and accused the United States of using nuclear weapons in Iraq? Sheehan made her odd remarks at a rally for attorney Lynne Stewart, who represented the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and was convicted earlier this year of providing material support for terrorism when she acted as a conduit for terrorist instructions from her client Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. Interestingly, of the journalists who have canonized Sheehan, none has seen fit to report her earlier remarks or her advocacy on behalf of Stewart.
The media seem desperate for a vibrant, Vietnam-style anti-war movement in the United States. But so far, not even America's college students are obliging. Certainly large numbers of Americans have misgivings about the war in Iraq, but with an all-volunteer military, the young don't have the same impetus to take to the streets in protest. More importantly, most Americans still recall those scenes of the World Trade Center collapsing and the Pentagon in flames.
Perhaps Mrs. Sheehan truly believes the Bush administration and its "neo-con" -- read pro-Israel -- allies orchestrated the horrific deaths of 3,000 Americans in order to justify going to war with Iraq, but if so, she's gone mad. More likely, she's spouting the lies fed her by conspiracy theorists who hate America and Israel in equal amounts. But the public, who've been treated to a sanitized version of Cindy Sheehan's story, won't ever learn that by reading the front pages of the nation's leading newspapers.