Sheehan Demands US Leave New Orleans!

Cindy Sheehan, grieving mother of a son killed in Iraq, continues to confirm her lefty moonbat credentials by demanding that the US military not only pull out of Iraq but out of New Orleans as well, calling it "occupied New Orleans." She has chased the headlines to the Algiers section of New Orleans to regain her place in the spotlights. Cindy writes of her experience:

"One thing that truly troubled me about my visit to Louisiana was the level of the military presence there. I imagined before that if the military had to be used in a CONUS (Continental US) operations that they would be there to help the citizens: Clothe them, feed them, shelter them, and protect them. But what I saw was a city that is occupied. I saw soldiers walking around in patrols of 7 with their weapons slung on their backs. I wanted to ask one of them what it would take for one of them to shoot me."

I will pause briefly at this point to allow the reader to write his own punchline.

Sheehan is a bit confused. It is not the job of the military to clothe, feed, and shelter disaster victims, though it can do it in a pinch. Their job is to secure the disaster scene so that the civilians, like the Red Cross and Salvation Army, can clothe, feed, and shelter the storm-tossed.

Sheehan does get it right when she expects the military to protect citizens but she objects to them actually doing it. She objects to them carrying guns around. With what exactly does Cindy Sheehan think the army protects people, withering stares and cutting remarks?

"Sand bags were removed from private property to make machine gun nests."

I imagine those private property owners will be glad that our soldiers are there to stop their homes from being looted and burned.

"The vast majority of people who were looting in New Orleans were doing so to feed their families or to get resources to get their families out of there. If I had a store with an inventory of insured belongings, and a tragedy happened, I would fling my doors open and tell everyone to take what they need: it is only stuff."

All the stores were looted. Only a fraction of them were grocery stores. You can't feed your family a looted plasma TV. You can't transport them out of town on a stolen DVD player. If you are the owner of a liquor or gun store, it is madness to fling your doors open to the mob and tell them to steal you blind. When thugs broke into the liquor in the Superdome, the rest of the people had to hide from their drunken rage. When gangsters armed themselves with looted firearms, they shot at rescue workers and police.

However, a greater danger presented itself in the form of organized gangs of armed looters who came from as far away as Dallas and Memphis, bringing their own boats and communications gear. There are some reports that the total number of looters numbered some three thousand, of whom these opportunistic gangs formed a considerable portion. Flinging the doors of businesses open to them encourages them to do their worst, which they did. Even worse, encouraging looting, a la Sheehan, promotes a state of anarchy where the most violent thugs reign.

"When our fellow citizens are told to "shoot to kill" other fellow citizens because they want to stay alive, that is military and governmental fascism gone out of control. What I saw today in Algiers lifted up my spirits, but what I also saw today in Algiers frightened me terribly."

Spreading wild rumors that the military is shooting to kill American citizens should be more frightening. It inflames the panic in a desperate situation with great uncertainty. It's destructive. The only gunmen rampaging through the streets of New Orleans, shooting people at random, were gang-bangers, not police nor soldiers sent by a fascist dictatorship. Sheehan is on the wrong side of this fight.

It now comes to light that many of the bodies found in New Orleans did not die due to the natural catastrophe of Katrina. They were beaten and shot to death in the confusion of the catastrophe. Some were probably murdered in robberies. Others appear to have been murdered for sport. But it is the soldiers whose presence puts a stop to such casual murders to which Cindy Sheehan objects.

"If George Bush truly listened to God and read the words of the Christ, Iraq and the devastation in New Orleans would have never happened."

Crazed nonsense. Hurricane Katrina would have devastated New Orleans no matter how many Bibles Bush read.

"George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power."

Our troops are not "occupying" New Orleans but protecting it from further harm. The US military did not invade New Orleans and lay waste to it, no matter what barking mad lefties like Cindy Sheehan claim. The presence of our troops guarding New Orleans suppresses the criminals who would otherwise make it too dangerous for the relief workers to restore New Orleans. Sheehan is on the side of chaos and anarchy.

This is very nearly a classic of the lefty moonbat style: An inpenetrable ignorance of events combined with an unbounded self-righteous arrogance to produce a strident protest to adopt a course of action that would compound the catastrophe tenfold. There is an enormous appetite on the Left for such moonbattery, yet Sheehan remains wrong about New Orleans for the same reasons she is wrong about Iraq. By supporting Sheehan's current "No Blood For Gumbo" campaign, the Left descends by degrees into madness.