War Is A Crime .org

August 15, 2005
By Amy Branham, Houston, TX, Mother of fallen hero Jeremy R. Smith

I went back out to Crawford this week to see for myself how things are going and what it’s like there now. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was just absolutely amazing.

I left in the wee hours of the morning Saturday to get there, in a caravan with members of MFSO from Houston. I think it was about 10 a.m. by the time we arrived at the Peace House. There were so many cars and people there that I had to drive to the stadium to park my car and catch a shuttle back to the Peace House. I was told there was going to be a rally at noon at the stadium and that I needed to be there.

Dailykos
by georgia10
Mon Aug 15th, 2005 at 18:35:06 PDT

Noticed what has happened lately?

We've been lucky to have Cindy Sheehan post updates here. And we've also had an influx of trolls flinging Linbaugh talking points. But let's take a step back.

I support Cindy Sheehan 100%. I think she has more courage in her little finger than the entire Democratic Party at this point. I stand in awe of her perseverence and ability to speak plainly, truthfully, and with integrity.

Having said that, I am a bit troubled by the way Kossacks (and Democrats as a whole) have responded to her cause.

Dailykos
by lightnessofbeing
Tue Aug 16th, 2005 at 02:07:43 PDT

There is a gap in the time that FoodNotBombs will be able to serve at Camp Casey because they also serve food to various homeless shelters in the area and need to take care of those people.

So anyone heading up is asked to bring some extra food with you. Maybe a sack of potatoes, some onions. And offer it to the Community Pantry. Someone will start cooking it up in no time.

Thanks everyone for responding to the protestors needs. FNB is heading up with 20 volunteers for Thursday night or Friday morning and a donation would be great.

Dailykos
by CindySheehan
Mon Aug 15th, 2005 at 22:08:04 PDT

We still have so many great things happening at Camp Casey. In spite of all the smears and lies, people are still coming.

The most amazing thing today was learning that Camp Caseys are opening and spreading all over the country. They have been set up in Boston, Portland, Seattle, and elsewhere. If you can't make it to Camp Casey, set up your own version. Camp Caseys are amazing places full of love and hope. I am so gratified that the movement is spreading.

CindySheehan's diary :: ::
There is a meeting tomorrow at the County Commissioner's meeting to vote on closing Prairie Chapel Road and then evicting us. We were all worried about that and planning on being arrested when we got the best news yet. The property owner who owns property near Bush's ranch and right across the street from Bush's church will let us move Camp Casey there!! He has property on both sides of the road...a full acre for us to camp! We are so excited!!! We can fit more people and we will be closer to the ranch. Miracles, miracles.

....Over the weekend, there's been a lot of activity in Crawford, Texas to tell you about. Today, Cindy Sheehan, the mother whose child died serving in Iraq, continued her protest, demanding another audience with President Bush. She's by no means alone out there. Antiwar protester and President Bush's supporters alike have descended on Crawford, along with reporters from around the world. CNN's Dana Bash joins us live with the latest -- Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Anderson. Well, as you said, over the weekend, there were hundreds of people here, both for and against what Cindy Sheehan is trying to do. But today, people seemed to go back to work. The crowds seemed to thin, but Cindy Sheehan is trying to keep the momentum going. She says so herself, and trying to basically come up with events. And one thing that she did today, which even a White House official conceded was quite clever, was ask the president to come pray with her on Friday at noon. Anderson, there's no indication that the president is actually going to do that.

ANTI-AMERICAN ASSHAT MOWS DOWN CROSSES AT CAMP CASEY
by patrioticliberal
DailyKos
Mon Aug 15th, 2005 at 20:38:11 PDT

Late Monday night, a man, described as being in his late forties or early fifties, decided to run over the over crosses at Camp Casey that serve as a memorial to the soldiers who have died in the war in Iraq.

According to TexasLady at DemocraticUnderground as well as Ernest Hancock from Air America affilliate KXXT, the man was soon caught and arrested by the Crawford police. Hancock stated on Air America Radio's "Mike Malloy" program, "He had some crosses in the undercarriage of his pickup truck, and he's been arrested". Hear Hancock's audio blog about this incident and stay tuned for other audio blogs from affilliate KXXT. Another audio blog message as of 10:02 p.m.. Dylan Garcia reported at DemocraticUnderground that 500 crosses had been damaged and 100 were beyond repair.

CINDY SHEEHAN, OTHER MILITARY MOMS TO HOLD PRESS BRIEFING, DISCUSS NATIONWIDE VIGILS, OTHER ACTIVITIES

News Briefing Tuesday 1 p.m. EDT
Candlelight Ceremonies to Take Place Wednesday Night

Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed last year in Iraq, will hold a telephone press conference tomorrow from Crawford, TX, with other mothers whose sons were killed in Iraq.

They will discuss the candlelight vigils that will take place across the country on Wednesday night, as well as the progress of their campaign to meet with President Bush and get questions about why their sons went to war.

by Arthur Ruger at DailyKos
Mon Aug 15th, 2005 at 20:35:50 PDT

... and not the same as when she left.

Reflections
(Coming home tomorrow night and expressing how things aren't the same as they were before she went down there.) Hilites for today were the Interfaith Service this morning that was excellent and beautiful. Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif) arrived and met with the reps from MFSO, VFP and Gold Star Families (the coalition) and this meeting was worth it.
She will fly home tomorrow, arriving in the evening in Portland and spend the night there at her son's home. Will be in Bay Center Tuesday night.

After-Crawford thoughts:
It's about our soldiers ... always was and always will be. The Interfaith Service this morning among other things emphasized the dignity of military service and being a soldier.

by coigue at DailyKos
Mon Aug 15th, 2005 at 20:41:53 PDT

Of course Cindy is not a saint, that is kind of a ridiculous to say. But we can be immensely grateful to her all the same. Why? Take a look at our culture. This is the culture that CAN NOT ---I MEAN IS SIMPLY NOT ABLE-- to look at the big picture. The biggest news stories that gain the most attention in the past few years (and beyond) have always been about one person. The runaway bride, the missing Aruba girl, Michael Jackson, Terry Shiavo. Do we really care about all of these people more than the thousands of kidnapped, abused kids, the deaths in the Sudan, the fate of all the terminally ill people? No, but when there is a single face to place with the larger issue people are more able to see themselves or their families in the same situation. They are more able to wrap their brains around an issue.

t r u t h o u t | One Mother's Stand
By Scott Galindez

Monday 15 August 2005
9:50 PM

Reality Hits Camp Casey

The last 10 minutes have been very difficult here. I am at the Peace House editing video. First came a phone call that someone drove their vehicle over the Arlington West Crosses at the camp. I will head out to the camp now to get more details.

Within minutes one of the volunteers logged on to a website and learned that her friend was killed in Iraq. She burst into tears, Cindy was sitting across the room and immediately moved over to comfort her. What a reality check.

UPDATE 1:15 a.m. EDT
From the AP report from Denton record Chronicle:
Late Monday, a pickup truck tore through rows of white crosses that stretched about two-tenths of a mile along the side of the road at the camp. The crosses bore the names of fallen U.S. soldiers. No one was hurt.

Audio Link to Air America report
Photos Available Here

LINK TO ORIGINAL for updates.

Published on Monday, August 15, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
By Danny Schechter

New York, August 14: When John and Yoko sang, "war is over," they added, "if you want it." It was a plea for peace, a call to "stop all the fighting." It was written in l972. That war did not end for three more years, and only then, when the Vietnamese gave the U.S. and its allies the boot.
Frank Rich wrote eloquently in Sunday's New York Times that this war, the one in Iraq, is also over,

"Like the Japanese soldier marooned on an island for years after V-J Day, President Bush may be the last person in the country to learn that for Americans, if not Iraqis, the war in Iraq is over. "We will stay the course," he insistently tells us from his Texas ranch. What do you mean we, white man?"

Published on Monday, August 15, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
by Norman Solomon

On Sunday, the New York Times published a piece by Frank Rich under the headline “Someone Tell the President the War Is Over.

Democrats.com
Bob Fertik's blog

I just had the enormous pleasure of spending a minute on the air with the Goddess of Radio, Randi Rhodes.

I was at the gym (working on my "balanced life") when I heard Randi offering a ringing personal defense of me against Sunday's attack on Meet the Press by Byron York of the rightwing National Review. So I ran home and called the show and they put me on the air to respond to York's attack.

Mr. York: ... the White House knows that the only person who can really damage her credibility is Cindy Sheehan herself. She took part in a conference call I think on Wednesday, which I listened to. It was moderated by Joe Trippi, the Democratic strategist, and another Democratic strategist, Bob Fertig [sic], of a Web site called...

The Problem With Howard Dean
By David Swanson

Question: How is Howard Dean like the Bible?

Answer: There is no position for which you cannot, with a little research, find both support and opposition in the pronouncements of Howard Dean.

Today DailyHowler.com exulted: "DEAN GETS IT! Hurrah! Hooray! A million kudos! Howard Dean says that Democrats have to start telling the truth!!!
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh081505.shtml

Quite an accomplishment, no doubt, but is that ALL that Dean said? And what did he say about the war?

Here's the section of Dean's recent interview with CBS that elicited such cheering:

Ode To Cindy Sheehan

http://www.madkane.com/notable01_05c.html#08_14_05 (text)

http://www.madkane.com/cindy_sheehan.mp3 (audio version)

Will Cindy Sheehan's Crawford encampment prove to be a tipping point? Will her Texas standoff with George Bush inspire an antiwar activism growth spurt? The answer to both questions is a definite maybe. But whatever happens, we owe Cindy Sheehan a debt of gratitude, and I owe her this Ode:

Ode To Cindy Sheehan
By Madeleine Begun Kane

The mother of a soldier dead
Has Dubya running scared.
Her very name fills Bush with dread.
Face Sheehan? Dub don't dare.

Next weekend, Lance Armstrong is scheduled to do a bike ride with noted
professional bike rider ($400,000/year) George Bush. This is the Lance
Armstrong who said on the day he won the Tour de France: "The biggest
downside to a war in Iraq is what you could do with that money. What does a
war in Iraq cost a week? A billion? Maybe a billion a day? The budget for
the National Cancer Institute is four billion. That has to change." The
Lance Armstrong who knows the meaning of death, having cheated it himself.
What a powerful message it would send, and what a powerful blow against the

Posted by LisaLynne on Democratic Underground

Well, I think we’ve met the new Repug/RW slogan. It’s been shouted at a Gold Star mother who is trying to turn the grief over the loss of her son into change. It’s been shouted here by disruptors against everything we say is wrong with this administration and where it’s taking our country and the world.

Hey, at least they’re finally being honest.

And, I hate to tell them, but they aren’t telling us anything we didn’t already know about them. We know they don’t care about the environment, because they love their SUVs and any mention of trying to curb our energy dependence on oil sends them into fits. We know they don’t care about the reputation of our country, because they support sending Bolton to the UN. They don’t care that there are people in our country without access to health care because they work for a company that doesn’t provide insurance, because that would cut into profits. They don’t care about the civilians in Iraq, because they think the “liberal media

York Daily Record (Pennsylvania)
Monday, August 15, 2005

Rep. Platts' concern about the possibility that baseball player Rafael Palmeiro lied to Congress was front-page news on Aug. 6. He said Congress has an obligation based on integrity to investigate whether Palmeiro knowingly lied.

Does Mr. Platts feel the same obligation to investigate the statements President Bush and his administration made to Congress that led to our invasion of Iraq? The recently released Downing Street memos (www.afterdowningstreet.org) add even more credibility to the idea that the president lied to take our country to war.

Public Opinion, Chambersburg, PA

Events have been occurring all across our country that the news media have not been reporting or are only beginning to report. On July 23, "hundreds were turned away as capacity crowds packed public forums to discuss the Downing Street Memo and related evidence that President Bush lied about the reasons for war. Halls were filled to capacity and beyond in Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle, Detroit, Northampton, N.Y., and elsewhere, for events led by congress members" (from a memo by David Swanson, AfterDowningStreet.org).

Crowds of people in both red and blue states were chanting "Impeach Bush" at some of these events. And recently a veterans group, Veterans for Peace, issued a Declaration for Impeachment of President George W. Bush. The interesting feature of this indictment is that the words that Thomas Jefferson used in the Declaration of Independence indicting King George were used verbatim to charge President Bush of dereliction of duty. The only change that was made was to insert President Bush's name at certain places to make the charges that Jefferson made against King George justifying our independence from the British empire apply to George Bush.

by Thom Hartmann
From CommonDreams.org

Nationally, it was clearly a phenomenon when several truckers called into a radio show on Sirius Satellite to say that they were interrupting trips through central parts of the USA to head to Crawford, Texas. One even reported live as he experienced a (friendly) reception by the local sheriff, who helped him find a place to park his rig. Locally here in Oregon, it's not unusual to see cars with signs taped to their rear windows - printed in inch-high letters on an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of paper - that say variations on: "We're With Cindy!" or "Answer Her Questions!" Ambassador Joe Wilson represented a political threat to Bush by credibly exposing part of Bush's lie and its methodology, and so Wilson had to be taken out by destroying his wife's career. Cindy Sheehan now represents a similar political threat, and for this job right-wing hate radio, Drudge, and extremist bloggers have zeroed in on her. Meanwhile, thousands of patriotic Americans, tired of being lied to by the Bush regime, are heading to Crawford, or visiting www.meetwithcindy.com or www.crawfordpeacehouse.org.

Bush Gets Look At Protesters Near His Ranch
By Tony Peyser

A grieving Mom wants to know
Why her son had to die
A black Surburban kicks up dust
As it quickly passes her by.

Cindy Sheehan sweats in the sun
To give hope to me and you
Vacationing Bush raised millions
At a neighbor’s barbecue.

The windows in Bush's motorcade
Have all have been darkly tinted
Perhaps that's why he's unaware
A new Rosa Parks has been minted.

It wasn't wise from day one
For the president to ignore
A Mom who's now a folk hero
To millions who are anti-war.

Tony Peyser provides daily poems and weekly cartoons for BuzzFlash and also writes the new BuzzFlash column, "Blue State Jukebox." He was a daily cartoonist for the L.A. Times from 1994 to 1997. You can contact Tony via email at tonypeyser@yahoo.com.

Bush's priorities - talk to Phil Mickelson but not to Cindy
by Friar [Subscribe]
Mon Aug 15th, 2005 at 10:53:55 PDT
Priorities, priorities, priorities...

Bush doesn't have 5 minutes to meet a grieving mother who lost a son in a war based on lies but he has plenty of time to talk to a winner of a golf tournment?

It's a hard job you know...
LINK TO ORIGINAL

Radio Left is recoding voice messages to Cindy (300 so far!) and will put them on a CD. Leave yours here:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/1393

Arianna Huffington: Russert Watch: Running from Sheehan and the Truth Arianna Huffington
Mon Aug 15,11:27 AM ET
HuffingtonPost

Today Andrea Mitchell was sitting in for Tim Russert -- once again, no mention of that on the Meet the Press web site. If there were any more proof needed of how ensconced this show is inside the D.C. establishment, here is how Mitchell brought up Cindy Sheehan in her interview of Joe Biden: "There is a mother of a soldier who died in Iraq who is protesting down in Crawford and has now been joined by organized anti-war protesters. Do you agree with Cindy Sheehan? Should we withdraw immediately?"

Niagara Falls Reporter

The President of the United States, who lacked the courage to serve his country during the Vietnam War, has once again shown his cowardice. Scores of brave American soldiers have given their lives since he went on vacation a couple of weeks ago. And yet, when the mother of one of our war dead -- Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed awhile back in Sadr City -- showed up at his Texas ranch asking to speak to him, he didn't even have the cojones to ask her in for a cup of coffee.

Instead, he had Karl Rove contact the Drudge Report and other sleazy news outlets across the land with a couple of comments Mrs. Sheehan made to her hometown paper in Vacaville, Calif., shortly after her son's death. Taken out of context, the quotes make her look like she spoke in favor of Bush and his dirty little war. On reading the full interview, however, it is clear that, from the beginning, she thought her son had died for nothing and was -- as we all might in such a situation -- just trying to be polite to the president.

Political Affairs Magazine
By Marjorie Cohn
8-15-05,1:10pm

For seven days, Cindy Sheehan has been camped down the road from George Bush's Crawford ranch where the President is on a five-week vacation. Cindy says she will never enjoy a vacation again. Her heart is broken. Her precious son Casey was murdered in George Bush's war on Iraq.

Cindy Sheehan is a patient woman. She will wait until Bush comes out and talks to her. She will wait until the man who ordered the invasion of a country that posed no threat to us explains why Casey did not die in vain.

Her skin parched by the blazing sun, her throat inflamed from the intermittent rains and the 200 interviews she has given, Cindy will wait.

feminist wire | daily newsbriefs
August 15, 2005

Cindy Sheehan, activist and founder of the antiwar organization Gold Star Families for Peace, along with a growing crowd of supporters, has held a vigil outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas for over a week. Sheehan has vowed to continue the protest until President Bush agrees to meet with her to talk about her opposition to the US-led war in Iraq or until his vacation ends on August 31. She founded Gold Star Families for Peace and first began her campaign against the war over a year ago after her son was killed while serving in Baghdad, according to the Washington Post.

NewsHounds

John Kasich covered the Sheehan story respectfully on Heartland, 8/13/05 which was an extremely refreshing change after most everyone on Fox News found a way to discredit her. The debate guests were Dolores Kesterman and Alex Blekensmith who also had no trouble discussing their differences calmly.

Dolores Kesterman appeared on The Factor last week and really stood up to O'Reilly. Another grieviving Mom, Kesterman has no problem standing up for herself and Cindy Sheehan. She told Kasich that it was time for the Iraqis to show how much their freedom means to them by taking the responsibility so our troops can come home.

(CBS) This column was written by CBS News Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So what do you think? Should President Bush take an hour out of his vacation to sit down for a chat with Cindy Sheehan?

Sheehan is the mom whose son was killed in Iraq and has chosen a roadside in Crawford, Texas as a platform for her protest. Sheehan says she just wants to ask the president some questions. She wants to know why her son died?

Is she entitled to an audience? The president has visited plenty of parents. He’s visited with many wounded. But, does a woman whose politics is not aligned with his, whose view of the war is in direct opposition, does she deserve a hearing?

Cindy Sheehan, Military Moms to Announce Nationwide Vigils, Friday Moment of Prayer for Troops in Iraq and Mothers of Fallen Soldiers

8/15/2005 12:12:00 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To: Assignment Desk, Daybook Editor

Contact: Michelle Mulkey (in Crawford), 415-987-7377 or Steve Smith (in Washington), 202-822-5200

News Advisory:

Mothers to invite President Bush to pray for the troops with them at camp this Friday.

On Monday, the moms who are camping outside of President Bush's Crawford ranch demanding answers to why their sons died in Iraq, and the Iraq war veterans who've joined them, will announce their plan to keep the pressure on President Bush to meet with them.