Posted on 08/06/2005 1:39:55 PM PDT by kristinn
CRAWFORD, Texas, Aug 6 (Reuters) - About 70 anti-war protesters marched toward President George W. Bush's ranch on Saturday shouting "bring the troops home now" from Iraq, led by a California mother whose son was killed in combat in Baghdad.
The protest coincided with release of a Newsweek poll that said 61 percent of Americans disapproved of the way Bush was handling the situation in Iraq. The poll came after more than two dozen Americans were killed in the past week in Iraq.
Newsweek said it was Bush's lowest rating on Iraq and the first time it had dropped below 40 percent in its poll. Pentagon officials have said maintaining public support for the war is key to the troops' morale.
The group of protesters, including U.S. veterans from the Iraq and Vietnam wars, were loud yet peaceful and McLennan County sheriff's deputies, trying to avoid arrests, stopped them on a road about 5 miles (8 km) from Bush's ranch on a hot August day.
The march was led by Cindy Sheehan, 48, of Vacaville, California, who blames Bush for the death of her son, Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, 24, killed on April 4, 2004, in Sadr City, Baghdad.
"I want to ask the president, why did you kill my son? What did my son die for?" Sheehan, carrying a picture of her son, told reporters.
"W. killed her son! W. killed her son!" the crowd shouted. They also shouted "Bring the troops home now" and held up signs with slogans such as "Impeach the Chicken-Hawk-in-Chief."
The protesters, many who came from a peace rally in Dallas, first drove toward the ranch in a school bus painted red, white and blue. It was stopped at a police checkpoint and the protesters got out and walked.
Police allowed the group to walk on the side of the road for about a half mile but then stopped them when some in the group walked on the street itself.
After some protesters left, a small group led by Sheehan vowed to stage a vigil on the side of the road until someone representing the White House came out to talk to her.
While no one from the White House immediately emerged, White House officials were aware of the protest.
"We mourn the loss of every life and Americans deeply appreciate those who have made the supreme sacrifice. The way to honor that sacrifice is to complete the mission so that their lives were not lost in vain," said White House spokesman Trent Duffy.
"The president has met with hundreds of families of those fallen. He grieves with all those who have lost loved ones," he said.
UPBEAT ON ECONOMY
As Americans question his Iraq policy, Bush crowed about the strength of the U.S. economy on Saturday and credited his hotly debated tax cuts for the growth.
Bush was upbeat in his weekly radio address a day after the Labor Department reported the U.S. economy added 207,000 jobs last month, a stronger-than-expected gain.
"Recent economic reports show that our economy is growing faster than any other major industrialized nation," he said from his ranch.
Bush renewed his call for making permanent the tax cuts he pushed through Congress in his first term. Democrats believe the tax cuts have done little more than drain the U.S. budget and even some Republicans doubt the wisdom of extending them.
"The tax relief stimulated economic vitality and growth and it has helped increase revenues to the Treasury," Bush said, adding later, "We need to make the tax relief permanent."
Bush spoke at the end of the first week of his 33-day working vacation.
"when she eventually gets free from the democrat wolves, she'll remember this and probably never recover from what they've done to her"
If this poor tormented soul does break free, the first ones to rush to comfort her and defend her son's honor with her will be Casey's comrades in arms and their families. No doubt they have already tried to reach out to her and been rebuffed.
Useful Idiots.
THanks, btw, I just heard on Fox, that both the British and US teams are at the submarine site...and it is only a fishing net holding it down...
So maybe they will be able to cut it off and raise the sub soon...
back after I read the link you posted.
No quotes from Sheehan after the meeting...
kristinn, do you know if any of the MSM has covered ya'lls every Friday night vigil outside of Walter Reed Hospital?
The Left's War Against the Military At Home
By Rocco DiPippo
FrontPageMagazine.com | July 11, 2005
http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18720
They've never covered it. Code Pink got one article when they first started in April, but the local media has totally ignored this.
They just did a story from Crawford on Fox....it wasupposed to be about Pres. Bush's saturday radio address, in which he talked about how good the economy is doing...
Wendell Goler is the reporter in Crawford, and what does he show...the protestors...during a supposed story about the economy...
BTW, the report said that 61% of Americans are against the War in Iraq NOW...but it also said that the SAME amount of Americans think that the economy is doing badly also...
EVEN THOUGH ALL ECONOMIC INDICATORS BEING VERY GOOD!!!
At least Fox had the guts to mention that the bad numbers for the economy "could" have been because of the negativity for the war....blech!
What a low blow. I tell you one thing, there are a hell of a lot more enemies of America where you are in Washington then there are in central Texas.
438 North Skinker
St. Louis, MO
63130
Phone :314-725-6005
URL :
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/
Anti-war Non-Governmental Organization founded in 1985
In the 1980's, supported the Marxist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua
In 1992, sent a delegation to Cuba to meet with veterans of Cuba's war in Angola
In 2000, aided Saddam Hussein and condemned American-led U.N. sanctions against the Iraqi government
In 2001, held a "Korean War Tribunal," which condemned the U.S. for alleged atrocities against Korea
Veterans for Peace (VFP) was founded July 8, 1985 in Maine. It is "a non-profit 501(c)3 educational and humanitarian organization dedicated to the abolishment of war." The organization has permanent NGO (Non-governmental Organization) status at the United Nations.
"We, having dutifully served our nation," reads VFP's Statement of Purpose on its web site, "do hereby affirm our greater responsibility to serve the cause of world peace and justice."
This organization's avowed policy is to raise public awareness of the costs of war, "to restrain our government" from foreign wars, "to end the arms race and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons," and "to abolish war as an instrument of international policy."
The Maine founders of VFP are Jerry Genesio (U.S. Marine Corps, 1956-62), Judy Genesio, the Reverend Willard Bickett (U.S. Army, World War II), Doug Rawlings (U.S. Army, Vietnam) and Ken Perkins (U.S. Navy, Korea). They created VFP, its web site says, because they "were disturbed by the militancy of the United States and its violent intervention in the affairs of other nations."
A tree should be judged by its fruits, not by what label it chooses to wear. This organization's background and history, as written on its own web site, tells much about Veterans for Peace.
VFP's first action to gain publicity was to have members in 1986 stage "a 30-day vigil at the Boston Commons calling for an end to U.S. sponsored violence in Central America."
At the time President Ronald Reagan was opposing the Fidel Castro-aligned Marxist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, but the United States had not sent troops there for most of a century. Even so, VFP's opening act was to blame America for violence and to echo the propaganda line of the Sandinista-supporting global Left. VFP members were promptly invited on the Phil Donahue Show to share these views with the nation.
In 1987 VFP sent members on a "Fact-Finding" tour of Guatemala, Honduras and especially Nicaragua, producing thereafter a 38-page report to members of Congress.
In 1988 VFP endorsed a water purification project for Nicaragua and released a 28-minute video titled Soldiers of Peace "focusing exclusively on VFP's response to current U.S. policies in Central America." Featuring a title song by Graham Nash (of the popular group Crosby, Stills and Nash) and narration by "VFP member" (and Barbra Streisand close friend) Kris Kristofferson, the video is highly critical of U.S. policies. VFP also joined Soviet Union veterans in signing a joint statement "calling for an end to war."
In 1988 a group of VFP members started to take a convoy of "about ten trucks, filled with food, medical supplies and toys" to Nicaragua. But these humanitarians, VFP's web site tells, "were stopped by President Reagan at the border in El Paso."
In 1989 VFP "received [an] invitation," apparently from the Marxist Sandinista government, "to serve as Official Observers during the February 1990 Nicaraguan elections." The Sandinistas had reason to expect that the 50 election monitors from sympathetic VFP would lend legitimacy to their electoral victory by declaring the vote clean and honest.
But the Sandinistas lost the election. And, as its own written history makes clear, at the instant that this pro-Castro regime ceased to rule Nicaragua the VFP ended all assistance to the country.
VFP suddenly stopped sending water purification experts and truckloads of food, medicine and toys for the Nicaraguan poor - who were , after all, still in need. A cynic might conclude that VFP aid had been provided only to help the Marxist Sandinistas entrench and retain their power.
But in 1990 VFP did have the money to send representatives to the 45th Anniversary of World War II Victory Day in the Soviet Union. VFP that year was given a permanent NGO seat at the United Nations.
In 1991 VFP members organized university teach-ins. In 1992 VFP sent a delegation to Cuba to meet with "veterans of Cuba's war in Angola. While not showing support for Castro's government," the group's history reads, "they do denounce the U.S.-led embargo of Cuba." VFP has endorsed Project USA/Cuba-InfoMed, which seeks to "increase awareness about health achievements in Cuba and the impact of U.S. policies on the health of the Cuban people," and "to build opposition to the U.S. embargo of Cuba."
In 2000 VFP aided Saddam Hussein as it did the Sandinistas, providing assistance by way of water-treatment facilities to remedy a problem its web site says was caused by American-led "sanctions" against the Iraqi government. That same year VFP members joined Leftists in Puerto Rico who were using aggressive protest to shut down the U.S. Navy facility at Vieques. And VFP Korean War veteran (and in 2004 the Executive Director of its St. Louis headquarters) Wilson "Woody" Powell "visit[ed] [the] Kokan-ri massacre site in Korea, and [made] an apology to the massacre's sole survivor."
In 2001 VFP co-sponsored, along with the International Action Center that has ties to the Communist front group International ANSWER, the "Korean War Tribunal" held in New York. This "tribunal" was a political show trial designed to produce anti-American propaganda for the world's Leftist media. "Mr. Powell was also a juror for the event," says VFP's web site, "wherein witnesses of U.S. atrocities from 50 years ago are flown in from Korea to testify."
VFP had moved its headquarters to Washington, D.C. in 1997 "to cooperate more with other NGOs and to coordinate programs more effectively." But in 2001 this National Office was moved to its present location in St. Louis, Missouri, with Powell as its National Administrator.
And so VFP goes on, its gatherings having featured such Leftist speakers as the late Senator Paul Wellstone (D.-Minnesota), and Congressional Progressive Caucus members Dennis Kucinich (D- Ohio) and James McDermott (D - Washington). This caucus, of course, is an almost-openly-socialist entity. The VFP web site names no moderate or conservative military veteran officeholder who has ever been a featured speaker at one of its meetings.
At a 2003 International ANSWER-sponsored anti-war rally in San Francisco, local VFP leader Jim Long spoke. As reported by Greg Yardley of FrontPageMagazine.com, Long described being at a rally in Cuba and observing "how Castro was loved by his people, in contrast to President Bush, who had to be protected from protestors in a 'quasi-military' operation." [In Cuba, of course, anyone who dared protest against Fidel could face prison, torture, or a firing squad.]
Jim Long, wrote Yardley, then claimed that "it's hard for me to determine where the police state is and where the free state is." Long told the cheering anti-war crowd that "every November 11th he goes to Cuba to take part in a special commemorative ceremony to honor Cuba veterans."
The President of Veterans for Peace is David Cline. He is a decorated, disabled veteran of the Vietnam War. In 1970 he joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), one of whose leaders was John Kerry. In 2004 Cline was also the still-existing VVAW organization's National Coordinator. VFP and VVAW, therefore, have intertwined leadership as well as ideology.
VFP is a member organization of the Win Without War, United for Peace and Justice, and Abolition 2000 anti-war coalitions.
"About 70 anti-war protesters marched toward President George W. Bush's ranch on Saturday shouting "bring the troops home now" from Iraq,"
The pathetic number is probably less than the number of tourists and reporters hanging around the local crossroads hoping for a glimpse of the Pres. It always amuses me to go to various left webistes like Code Pinko. They rarely use group shots because of the small numbers of people they are able to get. I am sure that this bunch will inflate the numbers if they mention it at all.
We GSFP members will not leave until we get answers from George Bush. We deserve and expect him to welcome us with answers to as why our loved ones are dead.Apparently your threats didn't work as you were neither jailed nor satisfied. Although not being jailed indicates to me that you didn't work at it very hard. Another broken promise.
...
Bring water and hats...we plan on staying until we are arrested or satisfied with the answers. (I am betting on jail).
Also, what happened to all your buds from Veteran's for Peace (VFP), Military Families Speak Out (MFSO), Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), Code Pink, and Crawford Peace House that you promised would show up? The report on your hissy fit made no mention of them.
It appears to me, Cindy, that after a lot of bluster and noise, your dinky protest accomplished little.
Perhaps Mz. Sheehan would prefer her son be killed in combat in Vacaville?
The President of Veterans for Peace is David Cline. He is a decorated, disabled veteran of the Vietnam War. In 1970 he joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), one of whose leaders was John Kerry. In 2004 Cline was also the still-existing VVAW organization's National Coordinator. VFP and VVAW, therefore, have intertwined leadership as well as ideology.
Score one for the anti-American left.
Score one for Freedom of Speech????????
Veterans for Peace supported the Communist Sandinistas in Nicaragua, gave propaganda support to both the Soviet Union and to Cuba’s Marxist dictator Fidel Castro, and in 2001 co-sponsored (along with the front group of the explicitly Communist organization International ANSWER, which is aligned with the North Korean regime)a political tribunal accusing the U.S. of war crimes in Korea.
Thanks for the info.
As for the poll numbers on the economy, it's most likely because of gasoline prices.
DAVID CLINE
President of Veterans for Peace
National Coordinator for Vietnam Veterans Against the War
Anti-war, pro-Marxism activist
David Cline is President of Veterans for Peace (VFP) and National Coordinator for Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW).
Cline served in Vietnam in 1967 as a rifleman in the U.S. Army's 25th Infantry Division. Disabled by wounds, he was awarded three Purple Hearts, the Bronze Star, and other honors.
In 1970 he joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), one of whose leaders was John Kerry. In 2004 Cline was also the still-existing VVAW organization's National Coordinator. VFP and VVAW, therefore, have intertwined leadership….and intertwined ideology.
In 2004 Cline told CyberNewsService (CNS) that he had been aware of Communist infiltration of VVAW during the early 1970s but dismissed their importance. "Mainly," CNS quotes him as saying, "I thought they were just people just trying to sell their papers."
Cline is a former officer of Transport Workers Union Local 1400 in New Jersey.
Veterans for Peace (VFP) was founded July 8, 1985 in Maine. It is "a non-profit 501(c)3 educational and humanitarian organization dedicated to the abolishment of war." The organization has permanent NGO (Non-governmental Organization) status at the United Nations.
"We, having dutifully served our nation," reads VFP's Statement of Purpose on its web site, "do hereby affirm our greater responsibility to serve the cause of world peace and justice."
This organization's avowed policy is to raise public awareness of the costs of war, "to restrain our government" from foreign wars, "to end the arms race and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons," and "to abolish war as an instrument of international policy."
The Maine founders of VFP are Jerry Genesio (U.S. Marine Corps, 1956-62), Judy Genesio, the Reverend Willard Bickett (U.S. Army, World War II), Doug Rawlings (U.S. Army, Vietnam) and Ken Perkins (U.S. Navy, Korea). They created VFP, its web site says, because they "were disturbed by the militancy of the United States and its violent intervention in the affairs of other nations."
A tree should be judged by its fruits, not by what label it chooses to wear. This organization's background and history, as written on its own web site, tells much about Veterans for Peace.
VFP's first action to gain publicity was to have members in 1986 stage "a 30-day vigil at the Boston Commons calling for an end to U.S. sponsored violence in Central America."
At the time President Ronald Reagan was opposing the Fidel Castro-aligned Marxist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, but the United States had not sent troops there for most of a century. Even so, VFP's opening act was to blame America for violence and to echo the propaganda line of the Sandinista-supporting global Left. VFP members were promptly invited on the Phil Donahue Show to share these views with the nation.
In 1987 VFP sent members on a "Fact-Finding" tour of Guatemala, Honduras and especially Nicaragua, producing thereafter a 38-page report to members of Congress.
In 1988 VFP endorsed a water purification project for Nicaragua and released a 28-minute video titled Soldiers of Peace "focusing exclusively on VFP's response to current U.S. policies in Central America." Featuring a title song by Graham Nash (of popular group Crosby, Stills and Nash) and narration by "VFP member" (and Barbra Streisand close friend) Kris Kristofferson, the video is highly critical of U.S. policies. VFP also joined Soviet Union veterans in signing a joint statement "calling for an end to war."
In 1988 a group of VFP members started to take a convoy of "about ten trucks, filled with food, medical supplies and toys" to Nicaragua. But these humanitarians, VFP's web site tells, "were stopped by President Reagan at the border in El Paso."
In 1989 VFP "received [an] invitation," apparently from the Marxist Sandinista government, "to serve as Official Observers during the February 1990 Nicaraguan elections." The Sandinistas had reason to expect that the 50 election monitors from sympathetic VFP would lend legitimacy to their electoral victory by declaring the vote clean and honest.
But the Sandinistas lost the election. And, as its own written history makes clear, at the instant that this pro-Castro regime ceased to rule Nicaragua the VFP ended all assistance to the country.
VFP suddenly stopped sending water purification experts and truckloads of food, medicine and toys for the Nicaraguan poor - who were, after all, still in need. A cynic might conclude that VFP aid had been provided only to help the Marxist Sandinistas entrench and retain their power.
But in 1990 VFP did have the money to send representatives to the 45th Anniversary of World War II Victory Day in the Soviet Union. VFP that year was given a permanent NGO seat at the United Nations.
In 1991 VFP members organized university teach-ins. In 1992 VFP sent a delegation to Cuba to meet with "veterans of Cuba's war in Angola. While not showing support for Castro's government," the group's history reads, "they do denounce the U.S.-led embargo of Cuba." VFP will in coming years send more friendly missions to Fidel Castro's tropical Gulag, one in 2000 bringing an American Little League baseball team to Havana to play against Cuban youngsters.
In 2000 VFP aided Saddam Hussein as it did the Sandinistas, providing assistance by way of water-treatment facilities to remedy a problem its web site says was caused by American-led "sanctions" against the Iraqi government. That same year VFP members join Leftists in Puerto Rico who were using aggressive protest to shut down the U.S. Navy facility at Vieques.
And VFP Korean War veteran (and in 2004 the Executive Director of its St. Louis headquarters) Woody Powell "visits Kokan-ri massacre site in Korea, and makes an apology to the massacre's sole survivor."
In 2001 VFP co-sponsored, along with the International Action Center with ties to the communist front group International ANSWER, the "Korean War Tribunal" held in New York. This "tribunal" was a political show trial designed to produce anti-American propaganda for the world's Leftist media. "Mr. Powell was also a juror for the event," says VFP's web site, "wherein witnesses of US atrocities from 50 years ago are flown in from Korea to testify."
VFP had moved its headquarters to Washington, D.C. in 1997 "to cooperate more with other NGOs and to coordinate programs more effectively. But in 2001 this National Office was moved to its present location in St. Louis, Missouri, with Korean War veteran apologist Wilson (Woody) Powell as its National Administrator.
And so VFP goes on, its gatherings having featured such Leftist speakers as the late Senator Paul Wellstone (D.-Minnesota) and Congressmen Dennis Kucinich (D.-Ohio), James McDermott (D.-Washington State), members of the almost-openly-socialist Congressional Progressive Caucus. The VFP web site names no moderate or conservative military veteran officeholder who has ever been a featured speaker at one of its meetings.
At a 2003 International ANSWER-sponsored anti-war rally in San Francisco, local VFP leader Jim Long spoke. As reported by Greg Yardley of FrontPage Magazine, Long described being at a rally in Cuba and observing "how Castro was loved by his people, in contrast to President Bush, who had to be protected from protestors in a 'quasi-military' operation." [In Cuba, of course, anyone who dared protest against Fidel could face prison, torture or a firing squad.]
Jim Long, wrote Yardley, then claimed that "it's hard for me to determine where the police state is and where the free state is." Long told the cheering anti-war crowd that "every November 11th he goes to Cuba to take part in a special commemorative ceremony to honor Cuba veterans."
http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=854
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