Following the Voices of Love, Judy Wicks, Fall/Winter 2005
On April 4th I attended an event at Riverside Church in New York City, commemorating the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s historic speech there in 1967, which courageously condemned the Vietnam War when it was unpopular to do so. I went to Riverside to be inspired by the words of Dr. King as we face another tragic war, and came away deeply touched by a new voice. Cindy Sheehan almost didn’t join the speakers that day. April 4th was also the first anniversary of the death of her son Casey, killed in Iraq, and she had planned a private time. But Cindy did come, and so did Philadelphian Celeste Zappala, who also lost her son Sherwood in Iraq. While listening to the powerful and heart-wrenching words of these mothers, I recognized the new voice that I feel so deeply - it is the she-bear, the mother bear - ferocious, brave, and grounded in love.
Cindy’s standoff with President Bush near his Texas ranch in August, where she was joined by Celeste, other military families, and hundreds of supporters, drew a sharp contrast. On one side, a mother acts from a place of deep love for her lost son with a fierce intention to save other sons and daughters from a senseless war. On the other side, a man who role-plays the moral, bold father figure, has led our country into war from a place of fear. Cindy asks President Bush, “Just what is the noble cause Casey died for?”
How can Bush reply to her authenticity with his hollow answers? It can’t be that Casey died to avenge 9/11, when, despite this administration’s misleading implications, no connection has ever been found between Iraq and 9/11. It can’t be that Casey died to destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, which we were all led to fear, when none were ever found. It can’t be that he died to help the Iraqi people, when tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children have been killed, many more wounded, their homes and institutions destroyed, an ancient culture in shambles, their citizens humiliated and tortured in prisons, while a bogus democracy is being forced at the end of a gun barrel. It can’t be that Casey died to fight terrorists over there so we won’t have to fight them over here, when there wasn’t a terrorist threat in Iraq until the illegal US invasion. Our ongoing occupation creates more terrorists every day, increasing hatred of the US, and making us less safe at home.
Cindy knows why President Bush sent Casey to Iraq. “He died for oil,” she says. “He died to make your friends richer,” she says. “He died to expand American imperialism in the Middle East.” With passion and integrity, the she-bear dares to speak the truth. She knows that the only way to ‘support the troops’ and to honor the fallen is to stop the war. Though she has made herself vulnerable to the attacks of hate-radio, conservative commentators, and even the painful criticism of some of her own family, her bravery has strengthened others not to be led by fear. During Vietnam, it was the communists we were made to fear, and now it is the terrorists. But the real enemy is greed – the greed of our government, and the corporations it serves, to control and consume more than our share of Earth’s natural resources (though 5% of the world’s population, the US consumes 25% of its resources).
Blood for oil is not just a sign held by protestors; it underlies the foreign policy of our government. Historically, the US has propped up repressive dictators and deployed our military to protect corporate access to oil and other resources in Africa, Latin America, Asia and especially the Middle East. It was, after all, the deployment of American troops onto Saudi soil to protect the world’s largest oil reserves, and the continuing US support of the repressive Saudi regime that so angered Osama Bin Laden, a Saudi dissident, and provided a provocation for Al Queda attacks, including 9/11.
The choice is simple – if we want to continue to take more than our share of oil and natural resources, we must pay with the blood of our children. If we continue to burn fossil fuels, which is causing global warming and destroying the environment, we are risking the lives of our children’s children. We can act in fear of terrorists and fear of not having enough for ourselves, by continuing to kill and to hoard. Or we can act from love by ending our aggression, sharing Earth’s resources, and adopting a sustainable energy policy that protects our environment for future generations. As Dr. King said on April 4, 1967, now the anniversary of Casey Sheehan’s death in Iraq: “We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.” But time is running out.
Judy Wicks
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