I'm Sorry for Cindy

I truly am. I'm sorry Cindy Sheehan, like thousands of others, has lost someone in this war. I guess what I'm struggling with is the implication, by virtue of the media's incessant coverage of her vigil, that her grief is of greater significance than that of all the others who have lost loved ones. I also have a problem with the idea that because she's grieving any opinion that pours out of her mouth should go unchallenged. She seems willing to use the celebrity that her vigil has given her, I can only assume she's comfortable with the risks of using it as well.

From what little I can gather about Casey Sheehan in Google searches--aside from the fact he died and is now a cause celeb for the anti-war crowd--there seems to be some indication he wouldn't necessarily share his mom's opinion that the war is a waste. According to several sources he volunteered for a second tour in Iraq. Now, I can't really say why he did that and I can't ask him. You would think, though, that the media might be a little more interested in his motivations since he is, after all, the only reason you've heard of his mother.

I'm not writing any of this to argue for or against the war, but to say that I'm growing weary of both sides of this issue trying to add moral weight to their arguments by referring to dead American soldiers as "children". Let's be clear. These are not 10 year olds who've been abducted that we're talking about. These were men and women who, for various reasons of their own, voluntarily gave up their rights as individuals to serve as instruments of American foreign policy. They raised their right hands and took an oath to obey orders regardless of how they felt about them. They did not recite this oath under any duress other than that of personal pride and/or a sense of duty.

"Oh, easy for you to say LD. You're not Cindy Sheehan." No, it's easy for me to say because of Casey Sheehan. It's easy for me to say because the constitution he swore to protect grants me the right to express my opinions regardless of whether I've experienced personal loss in a war or not. I will always try to express my opinions with the utmost respect for those that fulfill this oath, and their families, whether they agree with me or not. But the argument that only those who have lost a loved one have a right to have an opinion about this war, or worse that their's is the only valid one, is maudlin at best and shamelessly opportunistic at worst.

And while I'm on the subject of soldiers' parents I thought I'd share this story from today's NYT. Apparently some military families in smaller communities are a little annoyed with the AP coverage of the war. Since few, if any, small town papers can afford to have national and international reporters on staff, they rely on AP to provide them with this coverage. By and large, according to many of these families, AP's coverage of Iraq has been extremely negative when compared to the stories of progress they are hearing from their sons and daughters returning from service over there. I've included a link to the story here.

The reason given by the AP is somewhat summed up in these excerpts,

" . . . as Mr. Silverman (AP Managing Editor) and Kathleen Carroll, The A.P.'s executive editor, responded to the concerns, the editors realized that some questions were impossible to answer. For example, she said, the editors understood that it was much easier to add up the number of dead than to determine how many hospitals received power on a particular day or how many schools were built."

"Mr. Silverman said the wire service was covering Iraq 'as accurately as we can' while 'also trying to keep our people out of harm's way'."

"The main obstacle we face,"(Silverman) said, "is the severe limitation on our movement and our ability to get out and report. It's very confining for our staff to go into Baghdad and have to spend most of their time on the fifth floor of the Palestine Hotel," which is home to most of the press corps. The hotel was struck by a tank shell in 2003, killing two journalists."

In short it's dangerous to try and give the big picture. This response reminded me of Eason Jordan's mea culpa for CNN's failure to report Sadaam's atrocities because it would have been "dangerous" to their ability to keep an Iraq bureau. When the "legitimate" media refuses to take the risks neccessary to give the full picture on something as important as the Iraq war, all we're left with is punditry. They've shown they can do it when they want to. As far back as Edward R. Murrow braving the flames of London during the Blitz to as recently as the imbedded reporters at the outset of this war, the media has shown it can get in the thick of it and give the whole story, when it wants to. Why don't they want to anymore?