Mixed Emotions About Sheehan

I am not sure what to think about Cindy Sheehan.

She's the mother of a fallen Iraqi soldier who has been camping out down in Texas near W's ranch.

First of all, there's the irony.

You know, of course, that our First Amendment guarantees her the right to express herself freely, which is precisely what she is doing.

She enjoys that freedom and many others, as we all do, by virtue of the fact that many Americans - just like her son - were willing to fight and die for their country.

I fully understand that she must be very upset over the loss of her son. Who wouldn't be? It's just not natural for your children to die before you. That's not how it's supposed to work. No parent wants to suffer that type of loss.

I also fully understand how many people believeÊthe war in Iraq was unnecessary - now.

The number of people opposed to the war grows as the war lingers on.

I recall at first, there was widespread support for the war. Now, there is widespread opposition.

I absolutely do not begrudge Sheehan her protest, but sometimes it seems a bit exploitative to me.

Her son chose to be in the military. There is no draft. All the members of the military these days are volunteers.

Everyone who joins the military - whether during war or times of peace - knows that there is chance they might have to fight for their country.

Frankly, I know a couple people who joined the military because they wanted to fight for their country.

One person I know was disappointed that he never saw any action.

I also know that most of the troops have a great sense of pride in what they do. I have seen lots of stories about soldiers who were wounded and could have been sent home, yet chose to rejoin their unit on the front lines.

I also know that the majority of soldiers support their commander in chief.

I don't know what kind of soldier her son was, but I am sure he had valid reasons for joining the military, and I am also pretty sure he was aware of the risks.

And while I do not doubt or question Sheehan's sincerity - I wonder at times how this all came together.

I mean, in the span of two weeks, two "Camp Caseys" (that's the protesters' headquarters, named for Sheehan's son) have sprung up near W's ranch.

The camps feature huge tents for shelter, caterers, an orientation tent, a medic tent with EMTs and a chapel.

There's a stage with performances by James McMurtry, Steve Early and Joan Baez.

There's a memorial called "Arlington West" where, eventually, 1,850 white crosses will be displayed - one for each soldier killed in Iraq. There are about 1,000 crosses there so far.

The whole thing just seems a little too staged, organized or media oriented for me, but you know what, that's OK.

Anytime people are seeking peace, it's a good thing.

The only thing that concerns me is that it seems to give encouragement to the insurgents in Iraq.

And I think pulling all the troops out of Iraq would plunge that country into a civil war.

After the civil war, I could easily foresee another Taliban-like regime that would truly be a haven for terrorists. A base of operations for all manner of extremists.

So I believe it's imperative that we succeed in Iraq and I'm not sure Sheehan's protest helps much in that regard.

Having said all that, now I must say this.

I voted for W and I am disappointed. Aside from the big deficits and big government programs he's given us - which, as a conservative, incenses me - I really do think he purposely misled us.

On that point, Sheehan and I are in agreement.

I used to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I thought he got bad intelligence. After all, the whole world Germany, Russia, France - everybody - thought Saddam had WMD.

But later, when the intelligence assessments came out, one could see that the whole case for WMDs and al-Qaieda was exaggerated.

I know that Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and others were itching to run Saddam out of Iraq. They wanted W's dad to do it in 1991. W's dad opted to follow the U.N. declaration and only liberate Kuwait.

They wanted Bill Clinton to do it in 1998. Clinton opted to lob a few missiles at a chemical weapons plant or a baby milk factory, depending on who you talk to.

(And in 1998, John Kerry was out front on the issue of attacking Iraq, so he wasn't much of an option in the 2004 election.)

But W was quite compliant when the hawkish types came calling. And they built a case on some pretty dubious intelligence.

So even though we were misled, I think it's too late now to abandon the cause. We can't pull the troops out before there is a stable government, army and police force in place in Iraq. I believe our national interest depends on that.

That's where Sheehan and I disagree.

But if it wasn't about WMDs and it wasn't about a link to al-Qaieda, why invade Iraq?

I think more than anything, it was about economics. The more I read about it, the more I feel it had more to do with dollars and euros than terror and WMD.

Here's an interesting quote from Dick Cheney in 1990: "Whoever controls the flow of Persian Gulf oil has a stranglehold not only on our economy but also on the other countries of the world as well."

I think Saddam signed his own pink slip when in November 2000 he started selling oil for euros, threatening to unseat the dollar as the dominant currency in the world.

Saddam (and Iran, threatening to do the same) hoped to create a stampede from the dollar which would weaken the dollar and destabilize the U.S. economy.

Hmm, Iran. They've got nukes, don't they? Can't have that, can we?

I can say with utmost certainty that if W's policies have driven a guy like me to write a column like this, his poll numbers - at an all-time low of 40 percent this week - haven't bottomed out yet.