I would be surprised if the USA gets out of Iraq by the end of President Bush's term. But that doesn't mean that the anti-war movement, jump-started by Cindy Sheehan, will have been a failure.
Sheehan may have prevented a larger war. Bush can not now go to war with Iran or Syria; since it is now politically feasible to oppose the war, it is now politically feasible to doubt the claims and credibilty of the Bush Administration. Perhaps more people in the media will start investigating, instead of parroting, what the Bush Adminsitration says.
Moreover, Sheehan has given more and more poltiicians the backbone to publicly oppose the war. Especially in the Democratic Party, which should have opposed the war all along.
What may reverse all of these probable trends, of course, is a terrorist attack on U.S. soil. But even then, the media and the people should be quite skeptical about the claims of the government as to who did it, and how the government responds.
The best-case result of the peace protest and the decline of Bush's popularity and influence, would be Bush's and Cheney's impeachment.
I'm not optimistic, but I'm hopeful.
James Leroy Wilson's one-man magazine.
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I think you're giving Sheehan way too much credit. I seem to be one of the few that feel this way but I wonder if she deserves credit for anything?
ReplyDeleteYou may not like her or her motives and tactics, but who else has done jack in protesting the war?
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