:::nostress::: ...(please?)

Mother of Peace
Editorial

Nothing is more emblematic of American democracy than the idea of one person standing up for his beliefs and in the process becoming the catalyst for a national debate. In the arena of civil rights, Rosa Parks' refusal to sit in the back of a Montgomery, Ala., bus was such an act. During the Vietnam War, Daniel Ellsberg's decision to give the media the Pentagon Papers detailing the secret history of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia was another.

Now Californian Cindy Sheehan's August vigil on a sweltering roadway near President Bush's Crawford ranch has given a human voice and face to the revulsion of the carnage in Iraq. Sheehan, the mother of a 24-year-old Army specialist killed in Iraq last year, wants a face to face meeting with Bush to ask him what mission was worth her son Casey's life.

In a previous meeting a few months after his death, Sheehan says, the president seemed unaware of who her son was, addressed her as "mom" during the encounter and acted almost lighthearted. Now she wants a deadly serious discussion of why America invaded Iraq and how long the bloodshed will continue.

Mother of Peace

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