Better barefoot and pregnant?

The Women who quit the clothesline for better work make better and braver leaders.

The Gold Star Mother that will not stop bothering President Bush just posted an open letter on the internet to his mother, Barbara Bush and it is a broadside from one woman to another.
To get a taste read on:

“You said this in 2003, a little over a year before my dear, sweet Casey was killed by your son's policies:

‘Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?’ (Good Morning America, March 18, 2003)

Now I have something to tell you, Barbara. I didn't want to hear about deaths or body bags either. On April 04, 2004, three Army officers came to my house to tell me that Casey was killed in Iraq. I fell on the floor screaming and begging the cruel Angel of Death to take me too. But the Angel of Death that took my son is your son.

Casey came home in a flag draped coffin on April 10th. I used to have a beautiful mind too. Now my mind is filled with images of seeing his beautiful body in his casket and memories of burying my brave and honest boy before his life really began. Casey's beautiful mind was ended by an insurgent's bullet to his brain, but your son might as well have pulled the trigger.”

And of course, Cindy Sheehan plans on going back to Bush’s pig farm (ranch) after she and 369 others were convicted for sitting on the sidewalk in front of the White House with petitions in hand. She apparently plans to arrive in Crawford sometime during the Thanksgiving holiday lay – off the government enjoys.

Another woman, berated and drummed out of the U. S. Army after demotion from her rank as a general has a new book out and the Ex-commander of Abu Ghraib Prison Says She Was a Scapegoat and has the French presses attention:

“In her newly released autobiography ‘One Woman's Army: The Commanding General of Abu Ghraib Tells Her Story,’ Janis Karpinski recounts her side of a scandal that led to her demotion and prompted international outrage over the mistreatment of Iraqi detainees at the US military-run prison.

While accepting her ‘share of the responsibility’ for some of what occurred when she presided over military police across Iraq, Karpinski says the abuses at Abu Ghraib ‘were not the work of a few wayward soldiers and their female leader.’

‘They were the result of conflicting orders and confused standards extending from the military commanders in Iraq all the way to the summit of civilian leadership in Washington,’ she writes.”

She may have it muddled, and her book may clarify what she knows about just exactly how the “conflicting orders and confused standards” were created.

I know that the recent PBS Frontline on torture and the documentation followed the paper trail right up to Donald Rumsfeld’s standing desk at the Pentagon. I guess he could be considered just another single "bad apple" like the rank and file soldiers rotting in Ft. Leavenworth, Ks. for their nocturnal tortures at Abu Gharib's cell blocks.

Meanwhile one Woman GI has decided to go public being denied her 18-month long application for conscientious objector status and has been ordered to combat deployment:

“Like many teenagers who leave their home for the first time, I went through a period of growth and soul searching....I started to reevaluate everything that I had been taught about war as a child. Because I believe so strongly in non-violence, I cannot perform any role in the military. Any person doing any job in the Army contributes in some way to the planning, preparation or implementation of war. Now I have come to the point where I am forced to choose between my obligation to the Army and my deepest moral values. I will not compromise my beliefs for any reason. I am prepared to accept the consequences of adhering to my beliefs.”

One can almost hear the blood thirsty “pro – lifers” in the “red states” yelling from their gas guzzling SUVs for chains and the military police from Ft. Leavenworth to come get her.