War Is A Crime .org

A little advice, Mr. President

BY WILLIAM MCKENZIE

The Dallas Morning News

(KRT) - Dear Mr. President:

As a columnist who has written about you since your first run for governor 11 years ago, I offer this advice: Pay attention to the voice of Cindy Sheehan. It isn't just hers.

She may have left Crawford for the moment, but if her message starts to resonate in the American mainstream, the spirit behind her will light a prairie fire that could engulf your presidency.

Yes, there's a flake element to some of what's going on outside your ranch gate. I spent an afternoon last week interviewing folks at Camp Casey and came across plenty of tattoos and stringy hair. Not exactly Main Street, Texas.

MSNBC.com
Debating Sheehan and the Iraq policy
FBI whistleblower and congress candidate faces off with talk show host

Cindy Sheehan's son was killed while serving in Iraq and she began an anti-war rally weeks ago in Crawford, Texas, that continues despite her departure due to her mother's stroke.

Coleen Rowley, the Minneapolis-based 9/11 FBI whistle-blower, went to Crawford recently to show her support for Sheehan. Now critics of Sheehan and the anti-war movement are mobilizing, too. Mark Williams is a radio talk show host and one of the organizers of an anti-Sheehan rally called "You Don't Speak For Me, Cindy," a caravan of war supporters leaving California today and arriving in Crawford Saturday.

By David Sirota

This is really incredible. A CBS television affiliate in Boise, Idaho is refusing to air an ad by critics of the Iraq War because, unlike the American public, it says "there is no proof" that President Bush lied about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction. No proof? I mean, really? No proof?

How about the CIA's October 2004 report, which CNN noted said:

"Saddam Hussein did not possess stockpiles of illicit weapons at the time of the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and had not begun any program to produce them...Iraq's WMD program was essentially destroyed in 1991 and Saddam ended Iraq's nuclear program after the 1991 Gulf War."

At this critical moment, it's time for newspapers -- many of which helped get us into this war -- to use their editorial pages as platforms to help get us out of it. So far, few have done much more than wring their hands. Now, it's literally do-or-die time.

By Greg Mitchell

(August 22, 2005) -- As the dog days of August wind down, the editorial pages of American newspapers face a moment of truth on the Iraq war. Over the next few weeks, with vacationers heading home, the president's popularity sinking, hearings planned in Congress, and major protests set, the case for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq -- sooner rather than later, as Al Neuharth has repeatedly put it -- will finally become a center of public and political debate.

Furor erupts over call for assassination
The Virginian-Pilot

Pat Robertson’s call for the assassination of Venezuela’s president set off a global media frenzy Tuesday, as religious and political leaders heaped scorn on the Virginia Beach-based Christian broadcaster. The Bush administration quickly distanced itself from Robertson’s remarks, but Venezuela’s vice president said Robertson should be investigated for his “terrorist statements.

Bush Says Activist Doesn't Speak for Kin of Casualties
By Sam Coates
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 24, 2005; Page A03

BOISE, Idaho, Aug. 23 -- President Bush, confronted by antiwar protesters on his travels, Tuesday renewed his refusal to meet with high-profile activist Cindy Sheehan, asserting that she does not speak for the majority of families who have lost relatives in combat.

Bush dismissed demands from Sheehan and others to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq. "I think immediate withdrawal from Iraq would be a mistake," he said. "I think those who advocate immediate withdrawal from not only Iraq but the Middle East are advocating a policy that would weaken the United States."

We Will Not Be Silenced

http://www.djpauledge.com/wewillnotbesilenced/

From Eric Blumrich

http://www.bushflash.com/vigil.html

Video here.

September 24-26: End the War on Iraq!

Three Days of Peace & Justice Actions in Washington, D.C.

www.unitedforpeace.org/septmobe

Report Sent in By Phil Restino

I just wanted to thank you once again for putting together and posting on your website the afterdowningstreet.org "honor our dead" 20 x 30 sign kit ... i was able to print up a few of them in time for last Wednesday's national vigil to support cindy sheehan ... in daytona beach we had between 70 and 80 people protesting ... maybe more ... we got coverage in the daytona beach news-journal in the local section with both photos and text ... anyway, attached is one of the 11 photos i took from the daytona beach vigil ... it has a few of the "honor our dead" signs in it....

Phil Restino reports:

According to today’s telephone conversation (888) 225-5322 with the FCC, this threat needs to be reported in writing to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with the following details of when, where and offense and sent into the FCC’s Broadcast Complaint Office via Fax, Email and/or U.S. Mail.

FCC Broadcast Complaint Office
445 12th Street S.W.
Washington, DC 20554
Fax: (866) 418-0232
Email: fccinfo@fcc.gov
________

Pat Robertson calls for Assassination of Foreign Leader

When: Monday, August 22, 2005 at 6:30 PM and 11:00 PM EST

Where: Christian Broadcast Network “The 700 Club

Here's a new photo gallery.

Three are photos of crosses at Camp Casey sent in by Carly Miller.

Four are photos of a candlelight vigil in New York sent in by Julie Peny along with this report:
Here are some of the pictures I took. I made a lot of extra posters, brought extra candles, and flags. (We always have to remember to bring flags so the right doesn't outpatriot us). Our vigil was in Water Mill, Long Island, NY. I did a head count: 230 of us but I knowI missed some. We had the press there: Newsday, & the local press: The Southampton Press, The East Hampton Star, The Independent, (but TV didn't show) The Sag Harbor Express will carry a photo I took. Our "East End Vets" were there. They put up the crosses. The Vets spoke, and a nun just back from Iraq. Even the model Christie Brinkly (it is the "Hamptons" afterall) read an essay on truth telling and compassion. We lined up along the Montauk Hwy and the summer traffic--a captive audience--drove by us slowly waving, giving us peace-signs, tooting their horns. The best was when truckers would go by and blast their air-horns in solidarity with us.

Evangelist tells 7m TV viewers: US should kill Venezuela's president
Julian Borger in Washington and Duncan Campbell
Wednesday August 24, 2005
The Guardian (UK)

America's leading televangelist appeared to take Christian fundamentalism into uncharted territory yesterday when he called for the assassination of Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez.

Speaking on his own channel, the Christian Broadcasting Network, Pat Robertson said President Chávez should be targeted because he was a "terrific danger" whose country, a big supplier of oil to the US, was "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Islamic extremism all over the country".

http://crawfordupdate.blogspot.com/

We definitely do more than sit in ditches around here, and tomorrow's main event is proof positive: at 11 a.m. we'll be caravaning from the Crawford Peace House to the VA hospital in Waco to protest its imminent closure. Texas has the nation's third-largest population of veterans, and the hospital in Waco provides what is considered the best post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and blind rehabilitation facilities in the country. Over 250,000 veterans entered the VA health care system this fiscal year; 40% of them are from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a figure that highlights the decreasing average age of vets. Yet Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson says it needs to go, along with 17 other VA hospitals around the country. As many Vietnam and Iraq vets here at Camp Casey have asked, "Is this how we treat our veterans?" Think of us tomorrow, and even better, find out about the fate of VA hospitals in your area. After all, when we send our soldiers to war, we'd better make sure we take care of them properly when they return.

http://crawfordupdate.blogspot.com/

This upcoming weekend (27th and 28th) is going to be HUGE at Camp Casey! It's the last weekend we will spend in Crawford before heading to D.C., and we want to lots of people here to experience the wonder of Camp Casey.

Saturday we will be having a fabulous Texas-style BBQ at Casey II, to which we have invited the President and First Lady (though I suspect the food will be more authentically Texan than they are).

Sunday is a National Day of Prayer for the troops; regardless of your political persuasion or position on the war, this is a day for you and your community to pray for/meditate on the troops' well-being in Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://crawfordupdate.blogspot.com/

Adele Kubein's daughter probably never should have been deployed to Iraq in the first place. Following a civilian accident several years ago, her leg was held together by an 8-inch metal plate and 9 steel screws-- an injury that could have allowed her to opt out of service. But instead she "felt she had a duty to her nation," according to her mother, and went into battle anyway.

The following is the story of Adele's daughter as told to me yesterday evening at Camp Casey. Adele cannot use her daughter's name as she is still active duty military. She speaks of her daughter's deployment to Iraq, injury in a helicopter crash, and the long process of physical and psychological recovery. For it is not just the families of killed soldiers who suffer; according to the website Iraq Coalition Casualty report, the wounded now number 13,877 and counting, meaning 13,877 American families must care for their loved ones returning from Iraq with missing limbs, burned skin, and other tragic physical disabilities.

Boise Network Affiliates Reject Cindy Sheehan TV Spot

CBS, FOX Refuse to Air Cindy's Plea to President

BOISE, ID--A television ad in which Cindy Sheehan asks President Bush questions about the Iraq war has been rejected by Boise affiliates CBS and FOX. The same ad began airing in Salt Lake City on Monday on NBC CBS and FOX affiliates.

The timing of the ads coincides with the President's visit to nearby Donnelly, Idaho where the President will be staying through Wednesday.

Representatives for the two stations expressed different responses for their rejection of the ad. The Vice President of sales at Fisher Broadcasting Inc., which owns KBCI (CBS) said: "In the spot, Ms. Sheehan accuses the President of the United States of being a liar. She claims the President lied about, among other things, the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There is no proof that we are aware of regarding the truthfulness of her claim. We require proof of claims such as this. Until that is provided, our station will not carry this ad."

August 22nd, 2005

The Bush White House and its right wing allies are responding to Cindy Sheehan and the military families’ vigil in Central Texas in the same way that they always respond to bad news –by unleashing personal attacks and smears against her.

This White House never wants an open public discussion, and it certainly never wants to be told that it is wrong. It always tries to change the message by attacking the messenger.

They did it with former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill when he wrote a book that suggested that the White House used 9/11 as an excuse to invade Iraq.

Date: Tuesday, August 23, 2005
By: Monica Lewis, BlackAmericaWeb.com

Camp Casey, the ever-growing anti-war protest set up outside of President George W. Bush’s Texas ranch, has been compared to a mini-Woodstock, with folk singers like Joan Baez and former movie star Margot Kidder stopping by to make a political statement.

As polls indicate more and more blacks disapproving of the conflict in Iraq, some black politicians are making a point to visit the protest site in Crawford, Texas, a tiny town of roughly 700 people 18 miles outside of Waco.

Earlier this week, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee stopped by to show her support of Cindy Sheehan, the woman whose 24-year-old son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, was killed in Iraq last year. Sheehan, who began a sit-in near Bush’s vacation home on Aug. 6, was also visited by Rep. Maxine Waters, who, like Jackson Lee, is among a number of politicos echoing Sheehan’s plea to Bush to withdraw American troops.

Watch this animation.

Tomgram: Appy on Vietnam and Iraq, the Heartland Experience

This post can be found here.

On the April day in 2003 when American troops first entered Baghdad, historian Marilyn Young suggested that Operation Iraqi Freedom was "Vietnam on crack cocaine." She wrote presciently at the time:

"In less then two weeks a 30 year old vocabulary is back: credibility gap, seek and destroy, hard to tell friend from foe, civilian interference in military affairs, the dominance of domestic politics, winning, or more often, losing hearts and minds."

Sheehan Magnifies Fissures on Iraq
By David Greene
NPR.org, August 23, 2005

If Cindy Sheehan's peace vigil outside President Bush's ranch has demonstrated nothing else, it has shown that the politics of war can be treacherous. And it doesn't matter which side you're on.

For the president, Sheehan has been a daily reminder that he can no longer take for granted backing from a crucial constituency -- military communities. It has also underscored the weakening of support for the war effort among Democrats and Republicans alike.

Sheehan came to the scene with a compelling story -- her son paid the ultimate price in Iraq -- and lots of political savvy.

Link to article, video, photos.

by DeWayne Wickham
USAToday

C'mon George Bush, meet with Cindy Sheehan.

As president and commander in chief, you should find some time during your month-long "working vacation" in Crawford, Texas, to look this mother in the eye and say why you sent her son into harm's way in Iraq.

I know it's got to be harder for you to talk one-on-one with a loved one of the servicemen and women who have been killed in Iraq than it is to meet with a group of grieving relatives. Still, you ought to extend such a small courtesy to Sheehan, whose son gave what Abraham Lincoln called "the last full measure of devotion" to his country.

Associated Press

President says he won't meet with Sheehan

By Glen Warchol

DONNELLY, Idaho - President Bush charged today that anti-war protesters such as Cindy Sheehan, who want the troops brought home immediately, are "advocating a policy that would weaken the United States."

In remarks to reporters outside an exclusive resort where he is vacationing, Bush gave no indication that he would change his mind and meet with Sheehan, who lost a son in Iraq and has emerged as a harsh critic of the war there, when he returns to his Texas ranch Wednesday evening.
Sheehan has been maintaining a vigil outside Bush's ranch, a demonstration that has attracted other anti-war protesters.

Published on Tuesday, August 23, 2005 by the Salt Lake Tribune
By Glen Warchol

A confrontation in front of the Salt Palace Convention Center Monday between pro-Bush veterans and war protesters started out with jeers and competing chants, only to end with both groups singing "God Bless America."

The incident, in the conservative bastion of Utah, supported activists' claim that a new and stronger anti-Iraq war movement has begun. This peace movement has made patriotism, flag-waving and support for the troops part of its rhetoric.

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, who called for demonstrations against President Bush when he visited the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention, picked up the theme, both in his welcoming speech to the veterans and to peace activists two blocks away in Pioneer Park.

By Dave Zirin

"...you could, like me, be unfortunate enough to stumble on a silent war. The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There's no innocence."
- Arundhati Roy

"The Tour de Crawford." The words blared from a red, white, and blue piece of spandex that George W. Bush presented to Lance Armstrong at his Crawford, Texas ranch. The gifting followed a 17-mile bike ride where they gazed at the landscape that Bush calls "my slice of heaven." Armstrong gushed about Bush's riding prowess afterward, saying to ABC News, "That old boy can go ... I didn't think he would punish himself that much, but he did." By the way, the war and occupation of Iraq "never came up."

A BRAD SHOW via RAW RADIO EXCLUSIVE!
Coverage Begins at Tonight (Tuesday) at 9pm ET!
'Operation Noble Cause' Continues...Deep in the Heart of Texas...

After five hours of LIVE broadcasting from Camp Casey (as we now do every day on The BRAD SHOW via RAW RADIO's special "Operation Noble Cause" coverage) We've just been given the go ahead for exclusive coverage of tonight's Joan Baez performance LIVE from Camp Casey in Crawford Texas!

Jump to www.BradShow.com for special LIVE coverage at 9pm ET (8pm CT, 7pm MT, 6pm PT) SHARP.

To be anchored by your friendly citizen blogger, Brad Friedman. Spread the word...

By Cynthia Bogard

Camp Casey II, Crawford, Texas

Camp Casey II, less than a mile from the Western White House sits on scorching Texas prairie. It's mostly grassland dotted with purple thistle and morning glories here, with an occasional scrubby tree or two. Not quite flat but the hills are low and gradual, offering a view for miles around of grazing cattle, harvested corn stalks blackening in the heat and an occasional modest ranch house and outbuildings. From our acre-sized white-peaked revival tent we can almost see the Bush ranch. We are camped out literally right next to the Secret Service checkpoint with its red barricades stenciled with "100% identification check required" and its ever-present police car.