SUDDENLY, THIS SUMMER...

By Sheila Samples

"The United States is not nearly so concerned that its acts be kept secret from its intended victims as it is that the American people not know of them." –U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark

Folks who watch the fair-and-balanced coverage of Fox News or perhaps CNN, the most "trusted name in news," might think Camp Casey is a neat new name for the Gaza Strip in Palestine or even a teenage hideout in Aruba. They would probably be surprised to learn the camp is at President George Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, and is named after 24-year-old Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, who was killed in Iraq on April 4, 2004.

Casey's mother, Cindy Sheehan, has been living in a tent on George Bush's doorstep since Aug. 6 -- three days after Bush assured a group of Texas lawmakers in Grapevine that the slaughter of 20 Ohio Marines from one battalion in a single week would not shake his will, because, by God, "we are at war." Bush crowed, "Our men and women who've lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan and in this war on terror have died in a noble cause and a selfless cause."

That did it. Cindy Sheehan says she decided at that moment to go to the Crawford ranch and ask Bush one question -- just one. "What was the noble cause that my son died for?"

Now, it would not be unreasonable for the president of the United States to come out and answer one question from a grief-stricken mother whose child was sacrificed in what Bush so giddily proclaims a "noble" cause. But that's not how this president does things. No one calls the shots for Bush; he does not make mistakes, and he says the great thing about being president is that he doesn't owe anybody an explanation. About anything. Especially about his war, a noble cause which has settled gloriously around his shoulders like a Cicerian ruff.

Bush steadfastly refuses to hear the voice of "the people" or to even acknowledge they have a voice at all. The only call Bush hears comes directly from God -- not from the street rabble comprising the cannon fodder required for his legacy, nor from their keening mothers who are beginning to buzz around his head like pesky mosquitoes at a Texas all day singing and dinner on the grounds.

Parents shouldn't have to bury their children. Ever. It disrupts the "natural order" of things. Unfortunately, most of the world is in agreement that nobody is better at disrupting order than George W. Bush. Thanks to his callousness and cruelty, the "one-question" meeting with Sheehan that Bush could have resolved in less than an hour while racking up some badly needed positive PR evolved instead into a movement that is gaining both attention and velocity. It is assuming a life of its own, and is sweeping non-stop across the nation. Cindy Sheehan is emboldening Americans awakening to a nightmare of murder, genocide, torture, abuse, assassination, rendition -- lies piled upon grisly lies -- to break through the yellow ribbons encircling the patriotic detention camp their nation has become.

Suddenly, this summer. Free at last.

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