Cindy Sheehan, George Bush, and Jacob Marley

So--I know I promised part II of my personal account of how I grew into and out of homophobia (yeah, yeah, baited breath and all that...) but then I started reading articles on Cindy Sheehan. Man, does that mama rock, or what? And what I best of all about it is that she apparently decided to go to Crawford in the middle of a speech she was delivering and asked if there was anyone in the room who would be willing to drive her.

Do you think that a single hand in the room stayed down?

But what got me thinking tonight was her statement that she would follow Bush back to DC and "camp on his lawn." Given that as of this afternoon she had an estimated 700 people with her, and more streaming in, that would be a hell of an encampment. And suddenly I had this image of a crowd of grieving mothers, fathers, children, trailing behind Bush everywhere he went. He would have to drag them around the country behind him like a human ball and chain. Like Jacob Marley, with his tangle of chains and cashboxes and ledgers. Far from escaping his sins, he'd be condemned to drag them along behind him.

I mean, the symbolism would be great, wouldn't it? One thing Bush has managed to do with unnerving success is dodge the human cost of his lies and mistakes. He's banned photographers from pictures of returning caskets. He's simply denied the terrible toll that his war has taken on the Iraqi people. And no matter how bad the news is from Iraq, he's always just looked straight into the camera and insisted that things are looking up, that there's no cause to doubt. Next question.

Well, Cindy Sheehan has cause to doubt. And so the other other Moms in Gold Star Families for Peace. And although the majority, even the vast majority of the Gold Star families out there probably support Bush and his war, there's a growing number who don't. And thanks to Cindy Sheehan, they're getting less and less shy about speaking out.

What would make the irony of an encampment of grieving family members following Bush around the country so rich is that Bush has so far managed to separate two very important aspects of "Gold Stars" from each other. Cindy Sheehan is a living reminder of the half that Bush wants us all to forget.

[warning: I'm about to geek out]

Elaine Scarry has a book called The Body in Pain, and part of it is a fascinating dissection of the role that physical human bodies play in the cultural and political aspects of war, which is, after all, a cultural and political pursuit. In war, a dead soldier exists in at least two different ways. Bush (or, more likely, Rove) has consistently kept attention on the useful political reality of a "Gold Star Mother." In this sense, the dead soldier is politically helpful--s/he is a "sacrifice," a "loss," a "cost" of freedom and democracy. Elaine Scarry details the ways in which the death of soldiers is used to ennoble the country's military efforts--if no one was dying in Iraq, those of us who oppose the war couldn't be shouted down with "how dare you not Support The Troops?!" If no one were dying, it would be a political issue on which reasonable people of good will could disagree--like social security. But Bush mobilizes dead soldiers politically to give a golden glow of dignity to the proceedings, a nobility to everything he does. Bush gets a hell of a lot of his political capital--maybe all of it--out of being a "War President." But where would a war president be without dead soldiers? No dead soldiers, no "sacrifice," equals no "War President," and poll numbers even lower than he currently has.

The other side of the coin, of course, are the non-symbolic, non-abstract sons, daughters, fathers, and sisters who have been shot, blown apart, burned alive in their humvees or otherwise killed in Iraq. There are very real, very bloody, torn apart bodies involved. Bodies of people who were dearly, dearly loved by family members who wake up in tears on a regular basis--and will continue to do so for years.

These are the dead soldiers that Bush doesn't want us to think about. If you are over the age of 30, you will probably never forget the photograph of Kim Phuc running naked down a Vietnam road, screaming in pain as the American napalm that had burned her clothes off continued to burn on her flesh. If you're under 30, you probably still know the photo without even having to click on the link, but if you're my age or older, that photo is a part of your consciousness because it brought home, like nothing else could, that we were violently and painfully destroying the bodies of people who very much deserved to be alive. That picture had a lot to do with the end of the Vietnam war.

The reason I'm being so graphic in my descriptions is that politicians like Bush have always benefited from the non-graphic, abstract, reverent, glowing version of the dead soldier. All the way back to Dulce et decorum est and I'm sure earlier, men and women in power have hijacked the genuine, honest feelings that are conjured by contemplating the death of fellow-citizens who have been killed in order to further their political ends.

The graphic descriptions are an attempt to distinguish the aspect of "dead soldier" that Cindy Sheehan represents (burned flesh, decapitation, excruciating pain) from the aspect of "dead soldier" that Bush has been relying on (Taps, heroism, sacrifice). I'm not saying that both aren't valid. I believe in honor and sacrifice. I am in awe of the courage it must take to be a soldier. I am a hard-core pacifist and I still choke up when I hear "Taps." But there are two sides to the "dead soldier" coin, and Bush has been working very hard to make sure we only see one.

Some of Cindy Sheehan's detractors charge her with "politicizing" her son's death. Excuse me, what the hell could be more political than a war? People say that she shouldn't tarnish her son's sacrifice with "partisan politics," but it's partisan politics that got us into this damn war, and ultimately, that got Casey Sheehan killed

Which brings up another of the detractors' favorites points. Cindy Sheehan repeatedly and pointedly accuses Bush of "murdering" her son. As the detractors point out, the insurgents who ambushed his truck actually did the killing. So, technically, it's not fair to accuse Bush of murder.

But how about manslaughter II? How about "A person is guilty of manslaughter in the second degree when he recklessly causes the death of another person" (Penal Law, s 125.15, subd. 1); and "A person acts 'recklessly' with respect to a result when he is aware of and disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that such result will occur. (subdivision 3 of section 15.05 )"

Now, there's no question that Casey Sheehan was directly killed by the Iraqi insurgent who ambushed his truck. But if you can get manslaughter II for operating a car, boat, or snowmobile recklessly, then could George W. Bush be charged with manslaughter II for operating the Armed Forces of the United States of America recklessly?

Was Bush aware of "a substantial and unjustifiable risk" in attacking Iraq? Yes. Did he recklessly disregard that risk? Yes. Did Casey Sheehan die as a result?

Yeah, I know that case won't hold legal water. But my point stands. Bush is responsible for this mess. The French and the Russians and the Germans told him not to do it. His advisers (the ones that weren't under the Neo-Con's spell) told him not to do it. We told him not to do it. On February 15, 2003, Thirty Fucking Million of us told him not to do it.

But he did it anyway. And he is culpable for every single one of the deaths that resulted. Listen to Shakespeare talk about the horror of death in battle and the guilt of the leader:

if the cause be not good, the king himself hath
a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and
arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join
together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at
such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a
surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind
them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their
children...
Now, if these men do not die well, it
will be a black matter for the king that led them to
it.

No, it's not likely that the severed heads and arms and legs will rise up and hold Bush to account. But Cindy Sheehan is doing a decent job of it so far. If we can't get all those slain sons and daughters and fathers and uncles back to accuse Bush of his wrongdoing, then how about a permanent, traveling encampment of grieving family and angry citizens following Bush across the country, making the destruction and sorrow he has recklessly caused palpable?

Palpable and concrete. Not abstract, not dignified or glorious--there's nothing dignified about bleeding to death in a Baghdad street--but messy, inconvenient, and complicated, just like the human bodies, both American and Iraqi, that are being destroyed because of Bush's war every single day.

That, my friends, would be the first sensible war memorial in the history of the world.