Today we have seen the media taking the Cindy Sheehan antipode - Gary Qualls - and turning his opinion of the war into what seems to be an official "rebuttal" to the anti-war protests in D.C.
In a three-page story in the Washington Post, Mr. Qualls is quoted as saying:
"If you bring them home now, who's going to be responsible for all the atrocities that are fixing to happen over there?" he asked. "Cindy Sheehan?
This same quote is also served up by CNN.com in their story about the day of protest.
Gary Qualls is a bereaved parent. A single father from Temple, Texas, he lost his oldest son in Al Anbar province in November of 2004. This is his short and painful story:
Gary Qualls, a retired soldier who raised Louis and younger son David as a single parent, worried a lot after his boy was deployed to Iraq. He and a friend went hunting in northeast Texas last week to get his mind off the war, and when he got home a letter from Louis was waiting.
The young Marine wrote about the Fallujah offensive, that it was expected to include some of the fiercest battles of the war, and that his unit was in the thick of it.
"I think I'm truly scared because not just knowing I'm going to be in a fight, but I fear it's a fight for my life," Louis wrote. "Dad, I need your prayers and advice more than ever. I know you've always been there for me, and I know you always will be."
About an hour after Gary Qualls read those anguished words, there was a knock on the door.
"David answered it and he came back and said, 'Three Marines are on the front porch that want to talk to you," he said. "I told him, 'No, don't tell me that.' He knew that was my greatest fear.
"I started to cry and I went ahead and opened the door for them and said, 'Don't tell me it's about Louis,' and they nodded their heads," Qualls continued. "It was the first time in my life that my knees totally collapsed."
The above from the Tyler Morning Telegraph.
His story is horrible. No parent should have to go through what he endured, which is, I think, Cindy Sheehan's point.
But as we are all human and senseless loss is truly difficult to rationalize, we look for answers and try to make round pegs fit into square holes. Mr. Qualls fortified himself by believing that his son died for freedom, as he stated today in his counter-protest speech. I think that's just fine, for his own personal needs, especially as he faces the prospect of losing another, younger son in the same conflict.
Qualls, however, has taken his personal justification for death - perhaps it was not him, perhaps it was the media - and become a face of jingoistic persistence. And it was his question, so poignant that it was soundbited by the major news organs covering the protest, that perhaps could help a man like him come around to a more pacifistic way of thinking.
Who will be responsible for the death in Iraq if we pull out? Who will be responsible? Could it be Cindy Sheehan's fault?
Now could the media please try to answer this question instead of leveling it as a sort of metaphysical accusation against the protesters? Mr. Qualls asked a question - Mr. Reporter, if you please, could you answer it? Would you be allowed to answer it if you wanted to?
It seems to me that the obvious answer is that many people will be responsible for the atrocities that may happen in Iraq if the American military leaves (or stays, as hasn't been discussed here, either). Mr. Qualls, there will be Iraqis responsible for violence, there may be Saudis responsible, and there will be an undeniable responsibility here in the United States.
Ontologically we could argue that the violence today, and by extension tomorrow, and in any day that we depart, come back to our dismantling of the State apparatus in Iraq. Cindy Sheehan certainly wasn't responsible for that.
Mr. Qualls, who was responsible for that?
If you can answer this question - who is responsible for removing the state security apparatus - you will answer your question.