WHAT THE.......
WASHINGTON (Sept. 26) - Cindy Sheehan, the California woman who has used her son's death in Iraq to spur the anti-war movement, was arrested Monday while protesting outside the White House. Sheehan and several dozen other protesters sat down on the sidewalk after marching along the pedestrian walkway on Pennsylvania Avenue. Police warned them three times that they were breaking the law by failing to move along, then began making arrests. Sheehan, 48, was the first taken into custody. She stood up and was handcuffed, then led to a police vehicle while protesters chanted, "The whole world is watching." Others who were arrested also cooperated with police. Sgt. Scott Fear, spokesman for the U.S. Park Police, said they would be charged with demonstrating without a permit, which is a misdemeanor. Park Police Sgt. L.J. McNally said Sheehan and the others would be taken to a processing center where they would be fingerprinted and photographed, then given a ticket and released. The process would take several hours, he said. Sheehan's 24-year-old son, Casey, was killed in an ambush in Sadr City, Iraq, last year. She attracted worldwide attention last month with her 26-day vigil outside President Bush's Texas ranch. Sheehan was among several hundred demonstrators who marched around the White House on Monday and then stopped in front and began singing and chanting "Stop the war now!" Organizers had said some planned to be arrested. The demonstration is part of a broader anti-war effort on Capitol Hill organized by United for Peace and Justice, an umbrella group. Representatives from anti-war groups were meeting Monday with members of Congress to urge them to work to end the war and bring home the troops. The protest following a massive demonstration Saturday on the National Mall that drew a crowd of 100,000 or more, the largest such gathering in the capital since the war began in March 2003. On Sunday, a rally supporting the war drew roughly 500 participants. Speakers included veterans of World War II and the war in Iraq, as well as family members of soldiers killed in Iraq. "I would like to say to Cindy Sheehan and her supporters don't be a group of unthinking lemmings. It's not pretty," said Mitzy Kenny of Ridgeley, W.Va., whose husband died in Iraq last year. The anti-war demonstrations "can affect the war in a really negative way. It gives the enemy hope."
posted by Liddia @ 1:17 PM
16 Comments:
I tried to write this on the front but I couldn't get it to work so I will put it here. I for one am sick of hearing about this woman. I cannot begin to understand the pain she is going through, losing her son. But, she said herself what a proud military man he was and how he believed in every aspect of this war. I heard her say that live on tv. So it just burns me to listen to her go on and on about how terrible this war is. I think she is disgracing her sons commitment to the military. I also think people like her need to realize how many other soldiers are over there and how behaving like this can affect them. I am sure it is no comfort to hear how so many people at home are not even supporting them. I realize a lot of people don't agree with the war, but the fact is we are there and it doesn't look like we are leaving any time soon. We need to show support and compassion for the people over there. I think Cindy needs to jump the first plane back to California and try grieving for her son.
I think she should respect her sons choice to be in the military and show more respect for what he believed in. Her daughters had left the country and went to Europe to get away from it and her marriage has been ruined. I also read that her sister I think is very angry with her, they all feel she is not honoring his memory. I can understand her being angry over his death, but I don't think the extreme she is going to is helping her or her family deal with the loss.
I would agree with that.
Excuse me what is this war about?
He went beause he had to because his commander in chief ordered him to go but we need to be able to belive that the commander in chief is not an incompetent fool and a liar. That was not the case in this situation. Every single thing that we were told was false.
What was her son killed for? What were the nearly 2000 others who've lost their lives killed for?
Being against the war does not mean being against "the troops". Get that straight. In fact I would go so far as to say that supporting this war is "not supporting the troops".
I've said it from the beginning that this war was wrong for many many many reasons. Now we're freaking stuck there and it is costing this country thousands of lives, tens of thousands of casualties, destroyed families, hundreds of billions of dollars, our credibility as a country has been destroyed - Iraq is spiraling into civil war and will most likely end up an islamic theocracy. This was the most idiotic move that any group of people in this country has ever made. History is not going to look back kindly on this period. I think Cindy Sheehan will come out the better for her actions. I thank God for people like her who have the courage of their convictions.
This administration is not going to get anything right over there. They've fucked it up royally from day one and don't have a god damned clue how to get us out. How many people are going to die before someone with a lick of sense takes over the reigns from this homicidal president and begins to do the right thing over there?
It's great she has the freedom to speak out against Bush, to bad those in Iraq would have been killed or raped or both for that sort of thing.
He might not have had a choice about going, but he did make a choice when he joined the military. She is angry because her son died, she wasn't angry at him being sent to Iraq or she would have been out there before his death. He never said he disagreed with the war..the rest of his family seems to think he was proud to be there, from everything I have read in the past.
Ok, so we didn't find any wmd, but that country is much better off now that sadaam is gone. The people over there need to realize that we came over there and helped them. They are just continuing to fight us because that is how sadaam trained them to be. If they would just wake up and realize how much we have helped them and stop fighting us I am sure we would leave.
Do you have any idea how many innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed since the start of this war? Some estimates are as high as 100,000. That's onehundredthousand innocent lives.
I hope you know that many of the same people who lied to get us into this quagmire were Hussein's supporters back when he was "gassing his own people" as so many war lovers enjoy parroting. Have you seen the picture of Rumsfeld shaking Hussein's hand? Did you know that after the Kurds were gassed that The Republicans in power at the time sent emissarys to Baghdad to assure Hussein that even though the U.S. congress had voted to condemn the killings that they wouldn't allow a little thing like "gassing his own people" to get in the way of business as usual? Hussein is their monster. They created him, supplied him with deadly weapons and propped him up and we are paying for their greed as usual.
You do know that as CEO of Halliburton Dick Cheney illegally sold millions of dollars worth of equipment to Hussein while Bill Clinton was President and we we had him successfully boxed in?
You do know that Iraq had nothing at all to do with 9/11 right? You do know that Bush illegally diverted money and resources from Afghanistan (when we had Osama Bin Laden cornered in Tora Bora) to Iraq in preparation for the little war he was planning in Iraq. You know that that allowed Bin Laden to escape.
When a soldier enlists he takes an oath to uphold the constitution which is a good and noble deed. He has no choice but to follow the orders of the commander in chief when he sends him into battle. What he hopes is that that same commander in chief will do everything in his power to make sure that he is not putting his soldiers lives in danger for anything other than a just cause and not after exhausting all other options. That was far from the case in this circumstance. Our military and every citizen of this country and the world has been lied to and made less safe by the actions of this President and the incompetents in his administration. Are you familiar with "The Downing Street Memo"? You should look it up on one of the internets. I can understand taking the President's word before the war, they managed to bamboozle a lot of people at the time. But to support him and this war after knowing what we know now is nothing but willful ignorance.
Liddia - the people of Iraq are not better off now. Their country has been destroyed, they are quickly devolving into civil war, the country has been turned into a terrorist training ground, their infrastructure has been destroyed. They have no clean water or electiricity. They are likely to become a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy, allied with Iran. Other than Hussein being gone tell me specifically, how you think they're better off? Saying "they're better off now" is nothing more than a right-wing talking point that has no basis in reality.
It baffles me how someone could take issue with a woman who is doing her duty as an American by dissenting to an illegal war that has proved devestating to our country on a national and a personal level while supporting the criminal regime that has caused the mess. And I do mean criminal. I predict that before this man's term is up you will see a lot of people associated with him either indicted or behind bars.
I agree and disagree with everyone. She can protest, but I do believe it's a grieving mother speaking, not a concerned citizen.
And as for soldiers, and I say this with first hand knowledge, they believe in what they are doing in Iraq. They do think this is a just cause, I'm sure not all of them agree but all I've spoken to do. Paul volunteered because he felt very strongly about it. There are men who are going back again, after having been there once, to continue what they started. And the soldiers see all the little things that happen every day, the good things. Paul's unit is going to build, not bomb. And they are one of many who are doing those jobs.
I don't believe you have to be right wing to think the Iraqi people are better off. I would much rather have no water than no voice. And as for civil war, some things are worth fighting for. If they weren't we'd all be sitting down for tea and crumpets.
That said, Bush isn't doing things well anywhere, and Iraq isn't the exception. I do believe he forced the issue with the war and I do believe that we, as a country, were given bad info on purpose about a lot of things. I also think you are right about us being stuck there. There are enough experts in their culture to have predicted that things would not be as cut and dried as our government would have had us believe. There is much more to be done to prepare for leaving than there was to prepare for going in.
No WMD found, sure, but I don't believe that made Hussein any less dangerous to the world. Sure he didn't have anything to do with 9/11 but I feel a little better knowing my children grow up in a world where he has no power.
Part of the issue is that at this point it's too late to go back and undo what has been done no matter what your opinions on it. The issues now should be how to make it work; for us, for the Iraqis and for the rest of the world. Maybe there are things to learn from this mess.
Do you realize how the poeple of iraq lived under sadaam? They had no freedom at all. He monitored everything the said, everything they did, everything they watched. How can you say that the people of iraq are not better off? They lived in a country where you would be killed for saying you didn't like sadaam. Now they don't have to live like that. If these brainwashed people in iraq would see how we have given them their freedom and stop the fighting there would be so many lives spared. I do not believe we would just continue to attack them without it being provoked. These people could have a great country and we are trying to help them have that, they just do nt understand that.
And as far as cindy shehan goes, I still believe she is a disgrace to her son. He knew when he signed up for the service that he could be called to go to war at any moment. He might have been remebered as a war hero, but now that is mother has gone mad, he will just be remembered as that soldier who died whose mother went crazy and stalked the president.
I don't think the issue with those fighting our troops is that they need to wake up or that they are brainwashed, well, not in the true sense of what brainwashing is. I think they want power, to rule their country the way they want and they take issue with our being there, and our lifestyle in general, and with pretty much anything that doesn't fit their small mold of what the world should be like (hmmm, sounds like many americans I know). And many aren't from Iraq and just want to hurt the U.S. in any way they can for much the same reasons.
The biggest problem is that as the country devolves more and more into civil war what they will end up with is most likely an Islamic fundamentalist theocracy on the order of and allied with Iran and against the U.S. which is not at all a good thing. You've got Sunnis and Shiites killing each other and Kurds up north who are likely to declare themselves independent and try to take ownership of all the resources up there which would bring Turkey into the mess and God only knows what will happen then. There is no way you can compare this to the American Revolution unless what you mean is that they want the people who are occupying their country (us) out. What we've got in Iraq right now is worse than any of the worst case scenarios that even Bush's harshest critics predicted before the war. Nobody predicted he would screw it up this badly but as he said himself: we "misunderestimated him".
I don't doubt that many of the soldiers feel they are helping and that in many ways they are, but overall things have gotten much worse for the citizens there. Right now most Iraqis just want to feel safe enough to go outside into the street. And if you don't have clean water to drink and no electricity during 120 degree summers you die - forget about having a voice. If the current constitution holds up, which it probably won't, women, who were doctors and scientists and ran businesses while sadaam was in power will be walking behind their husbands and not allowed to even drive a car let alone run a business. Please don't misconstrue that statement as pro-Sadaam - I hated the man years ago when Reagan and Bush loved him. But if we aren't able to get past this politically correct crap and have an honest discussion about the situation we're not going to get anywhere.
Yes Hussein was horrible and yes he was created by many of the very people who instigated the war. The problem is that there are horrid dictators all over the globe. It is not our place to go around knocking them off unilaterally and indiscriminately. Hussein was boxed in under Clinton and Bush the first's policy of regime change through containment and isoliation. Eventually he would have been gone. He was not a threat to anyone when we invaded. Not only were there no WMD but there was barely an army. He had been castrated over the years through weapons inspections and sanctions.
You are very right that we are stuck there. I'm afraid that just pulling up stakes and leaving would really screw things up even more. Unfortunately I have no faith that the current administration is capable of doing anything right.
What we have over there right now I wouldn't even call controlled chaos. And what I fear will happen is that before Bush's term is up he will pull up stakes, declare victory and leave the place a total hell hole.
Wes Clark has a real level headed plan for working things out in Iraq but you know damn well that Bush hasn't even ever read it. If you're interested you can find it at this address http://securingamerica.com/issues/iraqplan
As things stand now I have much more sympathy for the people who protest the war than for this administration who I view as at best criminally incompetent.
The most important lesson we need to learn from this is that the lions share of the responsibility for the way a democracy is run falls to its citizens and we totally dropped the ball on this. For a democracy to remain healthy it requires an informated electorate. It's our responsibility to hold our elected officials accountable when they blow it. We have to hold up our end of the stick or whatever, or else what's left of this democracy, which is really more of a corporatocracy these days, will be a quaint memory - pretty poetic huh :)
I wasn't comparing to the American Revolution, just pointing out that while all war is bad some wars are fought for a good reason. The people of Iraq have a choice, first time in a long time, and even if they don't make the one we want THEY should make the choice.
And I really do think we should get out of Iraq as soon as possible. I think countries should make their own laws and that doesn't mean that they have to duplicate ours.
Flip side: I also believe that it IS our place to step in and try to stop attrocities if at all possible. I actually think Hussein should have been taken care of long ago. I don't think that turning a blind eye to other countries' problems will ever work. Do I want to be the world's policeman? Not really, but haven't we been put in that position by most of the world? Every time some earthquake, monsoon, disease or god knows what else, comes along there are 50 delegates stumping for money and arms and help from us. We spend more money fixing the rest of the world than we do ourselves. I would love the good old USA to begin inside the borders of our country and when we get all our problems worked out (and there are many) THEN volunteer to help the rest of the world. But that's not going to happen.
I also agree that those making decisions on our behalf should be held accountable. We give them power to make good decisions and when they abuse it, there should be consequences. I also believe that uninformed people would serve us better by not voting at all. But that's never going to happen. Either of them, unfortunately.
And as long as politics is a profitable business in this country we aren't going to get any better than we've had, for any office.
Actually we give much less as a percentage of gnp in foreign aid than any other idustrialized nation. In fact I posted a thing about this to Sue on my blog a while back with the stats.
The reason we have such a bad rap is we've been very willing to stick our noses into other countries problems when it has resources that our corporations covet even if it means propping up violent dictators and smiting democratically elected leaders. It's happened over and over and over. Whenever you hear politicians talk about "America's interest" beware. It's almost never the interest of the the American citizen they're talking about but American based multinational corporations.
We don't stick our noses in at all when there are situations of genocide if the country involved doesn't have any oil or other valuable resource. That's what's happening in The Darfur region of Sudan at this very moment.
Your last bit about "as long as politics remains a profitable business" is very important. That's why we need real serious campaign finance reform including lobbying reform and election reform. That's the main reason I posted that thing about the "reform ohio now" movement. It's a grassroots movement to do exactly what you propose. Also, keep an eye out for what's happening with Jack Abramoff and his "lobbying" business. There could be a real shit-storm brewing.
I'll have to beg off on any more political opinions for a while. While writing my last comment Alek took an entire pack of pork chops out on the deck, opened them up and lined them up on the picnic table. I found them in the sun. Fly food. Parenting, it's not just a job, it's a really annoying job.
Okay. I had to leave and go to a job myself after that last long-ass comment. I'm back home now and too tired to comment about anything really.
I'm really looking forward to those kinds of porkchops rotting in the sun moments in the future :)
Yeah, I was thinking of you and Emily, actually, right after I came in and threw our dinner in the garbage. There are no parenting manuals that tell you to lock up your pork chops. Probably cause it would scare people if they knew just how nutty kids really are.
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