How Did Your Vigil Go?

How did your vigil go?

Ours went very well. There must have been more than one hundred people conducting a silent vigil in front of a local museum. That was more people than I've ever seen assembled for anything in this town. Of course there were the Bush bufoons across the street waving the flag inferring that we were patriotic and we were not, as if they could preempt patriotism. What oafs! But the fact that many of us wore our combat identification gave the lie to that claim. We maintained a silent vigil for over one half hour. And I can't tell you how many cars drove by and waved, tooted their horns and shouted us on.

We were also covered by the media. It turned out that a reporter was interviewing a friend of mine and she told him to speak to me. Well, I got a little exhuberant and I expect if he reprints what I say, I will be drummed out of town by the Republican majority for being unpatriotic and a liberal traitor. It had been a banner day. I started it out picking up the big editorial paper and discovering that it was full of attacks on me for an article I wrote that was critical of this president for a policy that sent troops to war but allowed him and his family to invest with the Royal family. I laughed all the way to the local coffee bar. I look at that kind of stuff as an indication that I've arrived. People are starting to react to what I'm saying and that left me smiling all day.

Before I left for the Vigil this evening, I had written another commentary to the leading local media excoriating them for publishing some stupid poop that stating in affect that what Cindy was doing was impacting the war effort. And my response to them follows just in case you're interested.
All in all, a very successful evening that brought people together from all parts of our town in support of Cindy Sheehan and it was good and renewed my confidence a little bit in what Americans are capable of when they start pulling together.
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Les Aaron
http://lesaaron.blogspot.com


Letter to the Editor:

There has been talk both 'pro' and 'con' about the Vigil scheduled to commemorate the lonely vigil Cindy Sheehan has been forced to hold outside of Bush's ranch in Southwest Texas because the president will not meet with her or explain why her son was sent to die in Iraq.

What was especially interesting were the characterizations and comments coming from a critic who said that her actions were not supportive of the War effort!

Excuse me? Let's take a step back for a moment. If I'm not mistaken, Cindy wanted to ask the president why her son was sent to die. I think that's a perfectly valid question. But it should come after the most important question is posed, "What was the justification for going to War in the first place?"

It seems that all of the rationales for going to war that were played to the UN were chipped away and found to be either false, inaccurate or inappropriate. Even the administration stopped talking about the reasons it had put forward for going to war saying only that "Saddam was a bad guy!"

Well, that may be true but it's hardly a reason to declare War. There are plenty of bad guys in the world. So, why did we decide on Saddam? We know he was not connected with bin Laden. We know that he had nothing to do with 9/11. So we know those couldn't have been the reasons. We know that he didn't have WMD; that he was in no position to attack us "within 45 minutes" as claimed. And we know according Valerie Plame's husband that he was not buying nuclear materials from Zaire.

On the other hand, we do know that he sits on one of the world's largest supplies of oil. We do know that he attempted to take Bush Sr.'s life. We know that Cheney's old company has received billions of dollars of contract work from rebuilding the oil fields. And we do know that Bush's former campaign manager presides over billions of dollars of consulting projects for Iraq. And that military contractors who build up Bush's war chest, have never found a war they didn't like.

But none of those are reasons to go to war. And none of those justify sending the flower of our youth to be wounded and killed. So before we start blaming Sheehan for not supporting the War, let's get serious and start finding serious answers as to why we are in Iraq in the first place and ask ourselves whether they are worth the lives of all of those young people.

And just in case you ask, I am a veteran who served most of his time in the Army as an Adviser in Asia; I am a supporter of Veterans rights; and I am a founder of the Purple Ribbon Society and served as Kerry's Vet coordinator in Southern Delaware.

Thank you for printing this letter.

Les Aaron