War Is A Crime .org

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Move America Forward ( the Hate crowd ) was outed today by Keith Olbermann as having been launched by a Sacramento P.R. firm which has strong ties to the Republican party. Later in the segment Dana Milbank said that they were part of the Orin Hatch for President campaign. lol That's grassroots for you. This diary at Kos was the first one that I found which uncovered the scam.

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The Swift boating of Cindy is led by Sal Russo and Mr. Puke himself Mark Williams. These people are bottom feeding scum suckers of the lowest kind. Their Creepy Caravan is nothing more than Republican operatives trying to combat a powerful message by Sheehan in the only way they know how to respond. S-M-E-A-R. Here's much more information about MAF's antics from the Center for Media and Democracy.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Following Joan Baez' performance, Cindy Sheehan made her first public statements since returning to Camp Casey in Crawford, TX.She spoke about the media attacks on her, and at length about Casey. Both moving and at times, funny.As broadcast LIVE Exclusively on The BRAD SHOW via RAW RADIO's Special Edition of "Operation Noble Cause". Here's the MP3...(Thanks David Edwards and Otie Maclay for the sound, Jeff Patterson of NotInOurName.net for the picture and DreamFactoryINK.com for getting out the word!)

link to JussPress slideshow

Vermont Poet for Peace David Budbill says, "We are going to begin sending postcards daily to Cindy Sheehan with notes of support. The goal is to have thousands of postcards arrive daily. Spread the word. Tell a friend, tell 10 friends and send a postcard today. If you send a postcard every day from now until September 1st, it'll cost you $3.91." Send post cards to:

Cindy Sheehan
Crawford Peace House
9142 East 5th Street
Crawford, TX 76638-3037
USA

DAY FOUR
SEAN PENN IN IRAN
Sean Penn, Special to The Chronicle
Thursday, August 25, 2005

During his visit to Iran in June, Sean Penn had the chance to witness a rare demonstration in support of women's rights.

The demonstration was to begin at 5 p.m. I wanted to refresh a bit, so I took a shower at the hotel and began to dress when, at about 4:30 p.m., my companions Reese Erlich, Norman Solomon and Babak knocked on my door. They'd gotten an update. What had been anticipated as likely violence the evening before was now considered certain. This is a guilty admission, but when you have come to a place that is unfamiliar, with the intention of gaining a familiarity, absolutely nothing is more seductive than to see its darkest sides. I am an optimist. I can always look up. But to see down is to be down. We headed down to the demonstration.

CNN's AMERICAN MORNING 7:00 AM EST
Thursday, August 25, 2005

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: The war of words over Iraq escalates on the home front. Cindy Sheehan made an emotional return to Crawford, Texas, on Wednesday to resume her protest at "Camp Casey." President Bush also sent out a message Wednesday, meeting with military families in Idaho and enlisting the support of a military mother of his own. Are we seeing a new battle emerge, that of military moms?

Mike Allen of "The Washington Post" is just back from Crawford, Texas. He joins us now in our Washington bureau.

Aptos family decides to vacation at Camp Casey
Grieving mom’s ‘bravery’ was driving force to join protest in Texas
By BRIAN SEALS
SENTINEL STAFF WRITER

Pat Manning of Aptos is not a typical anti-war protester.

"I don’t go out and protest war in general," she said.

But the war in Iraq and the saga of grieving Vacaville mother Cindy Sheehan has changed that.

This is summer vacation for Pat and husband Ed of Aptos: a trek to Texas, daughter and two grandsons in tow, to join with so many others who are gathering near President Bush’s ranch.

"The thought of somebody being brave enough to stand up to the president, to take a stand, I feel like I wanted to go stand beside her," Pat said by cell phone Wednesday while at the "Crawford Peace House."

By Cindy Sheehan
HuffingtonPost.com

I got up really early today to head back to Camp Casey. On the way, I had some amazing conversations with people. In one of those conversations, I was talking to Tyler who was sitting next to me on one of the planes.

We were not talking about me and what I have been doing. Randomly, he told me he had just been in Texas about an hour north of Crawford. I said: "Wow that's where I am going and that's where I have been all month." He said: "I know I own a television." I thought that was pretty cute.

I got to Camp Casey and I arrived with a mom whose son, John, was killed on January 26, 2005, and his wife and baby, who never met his dad. We arrived in Waco at about 4:30 to the local press. The White House Press Corps was still with the president.

By ANGELA K. BROWN
The Associated Press
Thursday, August 25, 2005; 7:21 AM

CRAWFORD, Texas -- Even when she was in California taking care of her mother, Cindy Sheehan said part of her remained at the protest campsite she had set up outside President Bush's ranch. On Wednesday, Sheehan returned to "Camp Casey," named after her 24-year-old son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, who was killed last year in Iraq.

"This is where I belong, until Aug. 31, like I told the president," Sheehan said at the Waco airport before driving about 20 miles to the Crawford site.

When Sheehan arrived at the campsite, she saw a large banner depicting her son's face. She sobbed and said she felt ill. Supporters brought her water and cold towels, and she recovered about 20 minutes later.

By Larry C. Johnson

Sometimes in life there are no good options. It is part of our nature to always assume that we can fix a problem. But in life there are many problems or situations where there is no pleasant solution. If you were at the Windows on the World Restaurant in the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 9 am on September 11, 2001 you had no good options. You could choose to jump or to burn to death. Some choice.

A hard, clear-eyed look at the current situation in Iraq reveals that we are confronted with equally bad choices. If we stay we are facilitating the creation of an Islamic state that will be a client of Iran. If we pull out we are likely to leave the various ethnic groups of Iraq to escalate the civil war already underway. In my judgment we have no alternative but to pull our forces out of Iraq. Like it or not, such a move will be viewed as a defeat of the United States and will create some very serious foreign policy and security problems for us for years to come. However, we are unwilling to make the sacrifices required to achieve something approximating victory. And, what would victory look like? At a minimum we should expect a secular society where the average Iraqi can move around the country without fear of being killed or kidnapped. That is not the case nor is it on the horizon.

PLUS: BRAD SHOW via RAW RADIO Goes LIVE Again Tonight with Exclusive Coverage from Camp Casey!

Joan Baez Peformance and Cindy Sheehan Speaks to Supporters

Coverage Begins at Tonight (Wednesday) at 10pm ET!

'Operation Noble Cause' Continues...Deep in the Heart of Texas...

Join us tonight at www.BradShow.com for LIVE uninterrupted coverage of tonight's Joan Baez performance in Camp Casey. Publicly, the word is that Sheehan will not speak publicly until tomorrow at 10:30am CT tomorrow, however The BRAD BLOG has been told that she will likely speak at tonight's Baez performance, at least briefly. We will be there to cover it LIVE...Hopefully.

By CHRISTOPHER SMITH
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

NAMPA, Idaho -- A day after she put her 20-year-old Marine son on a plane for his second tour in Iraq, Brenda Mansell came to Nampa for her first anti-war demonstration.

"This has to stop," the Boise mother said Wednesday, holding a photo of her son, Scott, and a sign calling for his return home. "Maybe if it starts with the mothers, the rest of the world will follow."

Mansell joined Laura McCarthy of Eagle - whose 21-year-old son Gavin has been serving with the Idaho Army National Guard in Kirkuk, Iraq, since December - in a designated "peace pen" just outside the Idaho Center sports arena as part of about 150 people who protested President Bush's speech on the war on terror.

I almost fell down on the floor laughing in 7-11 when I saw the cover of the New York Daily News with W doing his best tough-guy imitation and Cindy Sheehan in her hat. The headline was something like "You're on, Cindy!" and the subhead: Bush Goes on Offensive Against Protest Mom.

This is what machismo has come to?

Can anybody find and post the lyrics to Tom Paxton's "Daily News"?

By the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

SUBJECT: Recommendation: Try a Circle of "Wise Women"

By way of re-introduction, we begin with a brief reminder of the analyses we provided you before the attack on Iraq. On the afternoon of February 5, 2003, following Colin Powell’s speech before the UN Security Council that morning, we sent you our critique of his attempt to make the case for war. (You may recall that we gave him an “A

By LANCE GAY
Scripps Howard News Service
August 24, 2005

- Cindy Sheehan says she's tried to keep the focus of her protest on the immorality of the war in Iraq, but she's found this month that it's difficult to keep the spotlight off herself.

"I am not the issue," she said on her Web blog. "The issue is a disastrous war that's killing our sons and daughters and making our country less secure. They attack me because they can no longer defend this war."

The 48-year-old housewife and former youth minister at St. Mary's Catholic Church in quiet and conservative Vacaville, Calif., isn't new to the fight. Three months after son Casey, her first-born, was killed in an ambush in Baghdad on April 4, 2004, Sheehan was transformed into a militant grieving mother demanding answers.

http://spidel.net/blog/?p=63

By Michael Smith
RAW STORY

Details 'chill factor' imposed around Iraq intelligence; Putting Downing Street docs in perspective

LINK

By Gary Hart
The Washington Post
Wednesday 24 August 2005

"Waist deep in the Big Muddy and the big fool said to push on," warned an anti-Vietnam war song those many years ago. The McGovern presidential campaign, in those days, which I know something about, is widely viewed as a cause for the decline of the Democratic Party, a gateway through which a new conservative era entered.

Like the cat that jumped on a hot stove and thereafter wouldn't jump on any stove, hot or cold, today's Democratic leaders didn't want to make that mistake again. Many supported the Iraq war resolution and -- as the Big Muddy is rising yet again -- now find themselves tongue-tied or trying to trump a war president by calling for deployment of more troops. Thus does good money follow bad and bad politics get even worse.

Camp Qualls, the pro-Bush camp in Crawford, Texas
http://lefti.blogspot.com

This picture is straight from the web page of the National Review Online touting the existing of "Camp Qualls", about which we are told: "Granted, the site is much smaller than the anti-Bush crowd, but it’s growing each day."

I guess the crowd is still in the process of amassing! For the record, there are three pictures on the web page. None of them shows a single human being!

http://lefti.blogspot.com

July 19, 2005
Senator John McCain
241 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-0303

Re: Your letter on Iraq in response to my contact

Dear Senator McCain:

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my contact and express your position on Iraq.

I find your letter very disturbing because of its gross oversimplifications and your total avoidance of the realities of President Bush's policies on Iraq and on the war on terrorism.

I am not proud that this nation was sent to war on a pack of lies - and you should not be proud of this either. I knew the lies were coming the moment I learned we were to undertake a WW II style invasion to counter a non-geographically based, amorphous enemy who was not in Iraq - and you should have known this too. I knew the lies were coming when I read in the Los Angeles Times in the Fall of 2002 that the intelligence community was coming under intense pressure from Cheney and the Bush administration, to "re-examine" their intelligence analyses - and you should have known this too. I knew the lies were coming when Bush prevented the U.N. inspectors from finishing their inspections and attacked instead - and you should have known this too.

Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
By Tom Maertens

The Bush administration is facing a major dilemma in Iraq. Sen. Chuck Hagel expressed it unambiguously: "The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."

The United States doesn't have enough troops on the ground to suppress the insurgency and has no real prospect of getting enough troops. No allies are about to commit more forces to this quagmire, and the U.S. military is stretched so badly that, as Gen. Barry McCaffrey expressed it, the wheels are coming off.

A draft could provide more troops, but that is only a theoretical possibility. Opinion polls show that a majority of Americans believes that invading Iraq was a mistake and that more than half the people no longer trust this president. Any serious effort to revive the draft would meet with a firestorm of opposition.

By Jeff Norman
U.S. Tour of Duty
August 24, 2005

Joan Baez has been embedded with the military families at Camp Casey since Sunday. Last night she performed and told stories for the third consecutive night. Joan clearly recognizes that the time is now for the peace movement. "I waited for the appropriate moment to show up," she told the audience.

The mixture of storytelling (detailed accounts of her activism) and music is a format that Joan should bring on the road, at least occasionally. She not only entertains and inspires, but provides a context that helps everyone understand the significance of this moment in history.

By Cindy Sheehan
Huffington Post

I'm coming back to Crawford for my son. As long as the president, who sent him to die in a senseless war, is in Crawford, that is where I belong. I came here two and a half weeks ago for one reason, to try and see the president and get an answer to a very simple question: What is the noble cause that he says my son died for?
The answer to that question will not bring my son back. But it may stop more meaningless deaths. Because every death is now a meaningless one. And the vast majority of our country knows this. So why do more young men and women have to die? And why do more parents have to lose their children and live the rest of their lives with this unbearable grief?

August 24, 2005
KWTX Channel 10 Central Texas

After spending nearly in week in California after her mother suffered a stroke, anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan returns to Central Texas Wednesday afternoon to resume her vigil near the President’s ranch.

Sheehan is the Vacaville, Calif. woman who is demanding a meeting with the President about the death of her 24-year-old son Casey, a 1st Cavalry Division soldier who was killed in Iraq in 2004.

Sheehan’s protest has attracted international attention and has sparked both local and national controversy.

She began her vigil on Aug. 6, but interrupted it late last week after learning of her mother’s stroke.

By Norman Solomon, AlterNet

The Bush administration may ratchet up the Iraq war.

That might seem unlikely, even farfetched. After all, the president is facing an upsurge of domestic opposition to the war. Under such circumstances, why would he escalate it?

A big ongoing factor is that George W. Bush and his top aides seem to believe in red-white-and-blue violence with a fervor akin to religiosity. For them, the Pentagon's capacity to destroy is some kind of sacrament. And even if more troops aren't readily available for duty in Iraq, huge supplies of aircraft and missiles are available to step up the killing from the air.

SEAN PENN IN IRAN
San Francisco Chronicle
- Sean Penn, Special to The Chronicle
Wednesday, August 24, 2005

DAY THREE

After a series of mysterious phone calls, arrangements are made to transport Sean Penn to a compound in the foothills of Tehran to meet with Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini. Penn visited Iran in June, in the days before the national elections.

We rendezvoused with the Siths at 2:45 p.m. in the hills over Tehran. We were waiting for another car full of them to join us. A police station to our left, the armed sentry paced, nervous about our growing convoy across the street. The third car joined us, and we snaked up the road, like a cruise into the Oakland hills. We came to a guard station, our arrival was announced, the traffic bar raised and we were allowed on to the estate.

By Bob Ray Sanders
Fort Worth Star-Telegram Staff Writer

Last week's column about Cindy Sheehan's protest near President Bush's ranch in Crawford generated so much reaction that I could not respond to all of you personally.

After directly replying to more than 50 e-mail messages, I finally had to create a "form letter" explaining my dilemma and promising to print some of your comments in a future column, which I will do Friday. My apologies to those of you who received that sincere but canned response.

The reaction was about evenly divided between people who support Sheehan, who lost her 24-year-old son in Iraq last year, and those who despise her for what she is doing and saying. A few people said they felt sorry for Sheehan but thought she was misguided to bring her complaint to the president's "doorstep" and demand a meeting with him.

By Joel Wendland
Political Affairs

Opposition to Bush's war on Iraq continues to grow. An important sign of this fact is the growing dissension in the Republican Party as some GOP leaders are beginning to regard support for the war as an electoral liability in 2006. While others like Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, who recently compared the Iraq quagmire with the Vietnam war, might see the war issue as part of a presidential bid in 2008.

Republican opportunism doesn't overshadow the wide national support for Cindy Sheehan's two week long "occupation" of Crawford, Texas or a 2,000 person anti-war demonstration in Salt Lake City, a bastion of conservatism at which Bush gave a weak defense of his war effort over the weekend. Read more about Cindy Sheehan here.

Congressman Jim Leach (R, Iowa) has informed Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D, California) that he will co-sponsor her Resolution of Inquiry into Bush Administration communications with the U.K. about Iraq at the time of the Downing Street Memos. Leach is the first Republican member of Congress to publicly support a demand for an inquiry into the Bush Administration's pre-war claims. The 131 congress members who have signed Congressman John Conyers' letter to the President about the Downing Street Memo are all Democrats. The 11 Senators who have asked the Senate Intelligence Committee to do the investigation it committed to in February 2004 but never did are all Democrats.

New York Times
By MAUREEN DOWD

W. vacationed so hard in Texas he got bushed. He needed a vacation from his vacation.

The most rested president in American history headed West yesterday to get away from his Western getaway - and the mushrooming Crawford Woodstock - and spend a couple of days at the Tamarack Resort in the rural Idaho mountains.

"I'm kind of hangin' loose, as they say," he told reporters.

As The Financial Times noted, Mr. Bush is acting positively French in his love of le loafing, with 339 days at his ranch since he took office - nearly a year out of his five. Most Americans, on the other hand, take fewer vacations than anyone else in the developed world (even the Japanese), averaging only 13 to 16 days off a year.