Current war-protesters have all the intellectual prowess of a bird flying north for the winter and their moronic fumbling illustrates how they just don’t make anti-war activists like they used to. Rallying behind Cindy Sheehan as the face of today’s anti-war movement demonstrates a myopic strategy of cataclysmic proportions. Lesson one when choosing a figurehead for any cause is first to ensure that she’s not currently engaged in a separate and easily defined act of perfidy against a professed loved one – in this case, her killed son on whose behalf she supposedly speaks. In short, she’s using her son’s death to advance the very cause against which he stood.

Casey Sheehan re-enlisted five months into the Iraqi War and eventually chose to participate in the very battle that would take his irreplaceable life because he believed in the effort. It would have been equally disrespectful for her to use him as a prop to support the war had he died on the battlefield not believing in the effort. It’s not so much a question of “pro-war vs. anti-war” as it is a question of whether or not anyone has the moral right to defile a son’s legacy by using his name in opposition to that legacy – whatever it might be. To the anti-war movement I would advise the following, choose another leader, this lady just makes you want to take a shower.

Recently Cindy Sheehan, with the help of multiple war-opponent groups, coordinated over 1600 vigils across the nation to give further attention to the protest she began August 6th outside President Bush’s residence in Crawford, Texas. As one who protested the Vietnam War, and is still proud of that participation, I find it laughable that these protesters, and the anti-war movement as a whole, continue choosing the oddest tactics. Why embrace such easily impeachable spokespersons as Sheehan, Michael Moore, and groups like ANSWER (Act Now To Stop War and End Racism) - the Stalinist organization that defended the Tiananmen Square Massacre and supports the government of Kim Jong Il.

These choices represent none of the righteousness that could be associated with the anti-war campaigns during Vietnam. We protesters at that time recognized that it was just a useless ground-acquisition game - an extension of The Cold War for which we had other tools available besides violence because violence wasn’t being used against us. Unlike Iraq, the Vietnamese hadn’t violated any terms of surrender from a previous war as had Saddam when he failed to comply with the terms of surrender as set forth at Safwan Airbase in March of 1991. Unlike what would be the case for Al-Qaeda, Ho Chi Minh had no desire to pursue us after a withdrawal because he couldn’t afford to win any more wars in which every battle is lost. Al-Qaeda however did declare war on us, adopted our original conflict with Iraq as their most important battle front and most certainly would pursue us even if we did withdrawal. We know this because they continue saying it through their video releases and websites.

As a Centrist, like many Americans, I will embrace and reject positions from both sides of the isle as well as arrive at conclusions that both seem to miss – neither side has a corner market on righteousness. However on the issue of this particular war, the Left seems to be in conflict with its own principles by espousing policies that provide greater comfort to the very enemy who would, given the opportunity, strip away from the Left the very rights they purport to champion.

Whether or not you believed that there was enough of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda to justify our attack (if that was ever the measure), this war nonetheless has Al Qaeda participating in it. Accordingly, if you cut and run from the battlefield of Iraq, you’re surrendering a front to Al Qaeda - you know, the terrorist-Muslim group who wants to marginalize women to the status of furniture, deprive all the right to vote, deprive all the right to choose their own religious or non-religious path, deprive all the right to dissent, and deprive all the right to be free of maniacs who feel they have the authority to use their religion, ethnicity and culture as licenses for mass rape, mass torture, ethnic cleansing and genocide.

And so many of these Lefties suffering the aforementioned internal conflict attended the Cindy Sheehan-driven vigils held throughout the United States. The crowds were comprised of everyday folks as well as celebrities like actor Richard Dreyfuss. They were shouting “give us peace - bring our troops home” and “stop killing the innocent – choose peace” Others were holding up signs with messages like “This is not a just war,” “Peace Not War” and “give peace a chance.” What they were unpardonably forgetting is something fundamentally basic: The absence of war does not equal peace if that absence perpetuates the ongoing butchery of an enslaved people. Saddam was guilty of that, and Al Qaeda still is.