Lessons from the Cindy Sheehan Saga

Cindy Sheehan, the bereaved mother of a soldier who was killed in Iraq, has caused quite a stir over the last week and half. Sheehan has been camping outside President Bush's Crawford ranch, demanding an audience with the President. Her question: what noble cause did my son die for?

There is no question that Sheehan's act of protest has made her the current darling of the liberal blogosphere. At a time when many American's frustration with Bush's foreign policy is reaching a crescendo, Sheehan provides a sympathetic symbol, a conduit through which to channel that frustration.

At the same time, Christopher Hitchens is right (if a bit a callous) when he says that Sheehan's loss does not suddenly imbue her with foreign policy wisdom or immunize her from policy-based critiques by those who support the war. Those conservatives who have limited their criticism of Sheehan to respectful policy disagreement certainly have nothing to apologize for. Unfortunately, far too much of the criticism that the Right has heaped upon Sheehan in the last week hasn't been policy-based at all, but has instead been in the form of rather silly and mean-spirited ad hominem attacks. She's been accused of dishonoring her dead son, of being a "media whore," and perhaps silliest of all, of "flip-flopping." As the Cunning Realist observes:

"[H]ave any of the shameless smearsters seen the public
opinion polls recently? Here's some breaking news for
them: a whole lot of Americans who supported Bush a
year ago---including an increasingly large part of his
'base'---have turned against him. And that includes
many millions of people who haven't lost a parent, child,
or sibling in Iraq."

What these remarkably callous attacks reveal, more than anything, is how defensive many conservatives are right now. They realize that public support for the President and the war is plummeting. Conservatives know that this is their war, and they alone will pay the political price if the American people turn decidely against it. Lashing out at a bereaved mother is a sign of desperation.

If conservatives learn anything from the Cindy Sheehan saga, I hope they learn why it is that you don't conduct war the way this administration has. In a democracy, leaders must ultimately answer for their decisions, particularly those that involve life and death. That's why, if you are going to order men and women into battle, you exhaust all other options first. It's why you don't knowingly overstate intelligence or play upon public ignorance to make the case for war. It's why you don't make war hastily or arrogantly; why you do the necessary strategizing and contingency planning before going to war. It's why you do everything you can on the diplomatic front to get as many allies involved as possible; why you try to minimize the share of the burden that American soldiers must bear. It's why you prepare the country for the potential difficulty of the mission, asking everyone (not just soldiers and their families) to contribute to the effort. It's why you make every effort to maintain bipartisan support for the war effort, never using the conflict as a way of bludgeoning your opponents or scoring short-term political points. And most of all, it's why think long and hard about the consequences of being wrong before you send our soldiers into battle. You do all that stuff so that when a soldier dies, you can look a mother like Cindy Sheehan in the eyes and tell her that you did everything you reasonably could to avoid her son's death and that his sacrifice, though tragic, was in the service of a necessary and noble cause.

To put this all in some perspective, I leave you with a letter that Abraham Lincoln sent to a bereaved mother during the Civil War.

Dear Madam,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department
a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts,
that you are the mother of five sons who have died
gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of
mine which should attempt to beguile you from the
grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain
from tendering to you the consolation that may be
found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the
anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the
cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the
solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so
costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.
Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

Abraham Lincoln