Monday, July 31, 2006
JUICERS QUIT
Having bravely achieved absolutely nothing, both Saddam Hussein and Cindy Sheehan last week ended their Juice Diets for Justice. In fact, Cindy was tricked into eating by a whimsical embassy staffer guarding Iraqi PM Nuri al-Malikito during his Washington visit:
An embassy official told her he’d get her some face time with Al-Maliki if she moved away from the embassy and ended her hunger strike. “So we moved and ended our fast,” Sheehan told The News’ Ken Bazinet. “He never called back.”
Typical man! Saddam’s diet attempt ended amid widespread loathing, according to the New York Times; moreover, he has “tarnished the hunger strike’s idealistic image”:
Saddam Hussein ended his 19-day hunger strike last Wednesday with a meal of beef, rice and Coca-Cola, but he had little to show for his starvation. Iraqis in particular, living day-to-day with brutal sectarian violence, viewed Mr. Hussein’s self-sacrifice as an insult.
“Saddam’s hunger strike didn’t work because it came from someone who is finished in Iraq and has no political or personal value for the Iraqi people,” said Fauwzya al-Attiya, a sociologist at Baghdad University. “Most of us wish he was executed just to end this problem so we can face our other problems.”
But if Mr. Hussein tarnished the hunger strike’s idealistic image, his effort also reflected its declining strength as a political weapon. Fasting for a cause is less novel, what constitutes a fast is more loosely defined, and the technology of force-feeding has grown less barbarous, say historians and human rights activists. Consequently, the hunger strike has started to lose its power to command attention.
No kidding. At least Sheehan will now be able to enjoy life in Crawford, where locals are in a welcoming mood:
“I’d wish they’d go away and never come back,” Westerfield, a lifelong Crawford resident, said Friday while sitting on a bench outside a gas station on Main Street. “I wish she’d stay away. Crawford’s a Republican town, and she’s a dumb Democrat.”