Antiwar activists, Bush backers join vigil near ranch - Counter-rallies prompted by anti-war group

Miami Herald ^ | August 14, 2005 | Herald Wire Services

[Cincinatus' Wife]

CRAWFORD, Texas - Cindy Sheehan's antiwar protest entered its second week, gaining momentum and spurring counterrallies, as hundreds of people with conflicting opinions about the war in Iraq descended on a road leading to President George Bush's ranch.

More than 350 antiwar demonstrators gathered at a park near downtown Saturday, then moved the rally several miles away to the peace vigil's makeshift campsite along the road to Bush's ranch.

''Who knew that the beginning of the end of the occupation in Iraq was going to start last Saturday in Crawford, Texas?'' said Sheehan, of Vacaville, Calif., who started the protest Aug. 6 in memory of her 24-year-old son Casey, killed in Iraq last year. ``We're here to change the world.''

In the meantime, President Bush defended staying with his schedule.

`PART OF THE JOB'

Before leaving for a two-hour bike ride with some of his staff and journalists, Bush said he is aware of Sheehan's antiwar sentiments and those others who have joined her protest near his ranch.

''But whether it be here or in Washington or anywhere else, there's somebody who has got something to say to the president, that's part of the job,'' Bush said. ``And I think it's important for me to be thoughtful and sensitive to those who have got something to say. But I think it's also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life.''

Sheehan is seeking a justification for the war, as well as her son's death.

''I don't want comfort from him,'' she said Friday. ``I want answers. I want the truth.''

In addition to the bike ride, the president's schedule included an evening Little League Baseball playoff game, a lunch meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, some fishing and some reading. ''I think the people want the president to be in a position to make good, crisp decisions and to stay healthy,'' he said when asked about bike riding while Sheehan wanted to speak with him. ``And part of my being is to be outside exercising.''

''So I'm mindful of what goes on around me,'' Bush added. ``On the other hand, I'm also mindful that I've got a life to live and will do so.''

BUSH BACKERS

As about a dozen Bush supporters stood across the street holding signs, down from more than 250 who gathered there Saturday morning, one exchange became heated. A Bush supporter approached an antiwar veteran, and they stood chest to chest as deputies tried to separate them.

When the veteran shouted about his wartime experiences and yelled, ''I earned the right to be here!'' several of his fellow protesters subdued him, moving him away as he sobbed and his knees buckled.

Sheriff's deputies and Secret Service agents otherwise kept the groups on opposite sides of the road, and no one was arrested.

''I feel sorry for Cindy, but I think she went about this the wrong way,'' said Bill Garrett, a member of Protest Warrior, a group that holds counterprotests to antiwar rallies.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

........being a professional scold....

***.....If others could understand your truth, you would not think of yourself as a "vanguard." You would no longer inhabit the morally charmed world of an elite, whose members alone can see the light and whose mission is to lead the unenlightened towards it. If everybody could see the promised horizon and knew the path to reach it, the future would already have happened and there would be no need for the vanguard of the saints. ...

...It is this same idea that is found in the Social Gospel which impressed the youthful Hillary Clinton at the United Methodist Church in Park Ridge, Illinois. She later encountered the same idea in the New Left at Yale and in the Venceremos Brigade in Communist Cuba, and in the writings of the New Leftist who introduced her to the "politics of meaning" even after she had become America's First Lady. It is the idea that drives her comrades in the Children's Defense Fund, the National Organization for Women, the Al Sharpton House of Justice and the other progressive causes which for that reason still look to her as a political leader.

For these self-appointed social redeemers, the goal-"social justice"-is not about rectifying particular injustices, which would be practical and modest, and therefore conservative. Their crusade is about rectifying injustice in the very order of things. "Social Justice" for them is about a world reborn, a world in which prejudice and violence are absent, in which everyone is equal and equally advantaged and without fundamentally conflicting desires. It is a world that could only come into being through a re-structuring of human nature and of society itself. ...*** Source

[Reform4Bush]

Okay, I've searched thru about a dozen Cindy Sheehan threads, thru several pages of each, and I still haven't come across it now that I am looking for it.

Could somebody PLEASE direct me to/post that disgusting picture of Cindy getting a foot massage at the 'Peace House'?

I'd like to share it with others. >:-)

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Here is a picture of Mrs. Sheehan getting a foot massage from one of the Veterans for Peace who have joined her protest.

Source

[recoveringlurker]

"Lynne is my human Atticus Finch. He did what he knew was right, but wasn't popular. That is what Lynne is doing."


Spare me, Cindy.

[sport]

That probably wasn't all she got from him.

[Hardastarboard]

``We're here to change the world.''

Cindy Sheehah

"Everybody wants to change the world, but nobody wants to help Mom with the dishes".

PJ O'Rourke

[msrngtp2002]

Perhaps one should check the validity of the "protester VETERAN" who claims to have earned the right to be there. Probably didn't even finish boot camp or was in the Air Force or Navy and never got close to combat. My guess is that these "veterans" are like the homeless vietnam vets who never were in the service.

[kcvl]

Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed while serving in Iraq, is comforted, top, by Bill Mitchell, the father of another fallen soldier, at a vigil near the president’s ranch in Crawford, Texas

[jmaroneps37]

When Sept comes this will be fun. The stupid slugs in the left and their buds in the ratmedia will bring this side show to Washington in an attempt to embarrass W. They won't. But they will embarrass loads of rats who will avoid them or join them and get f&*^ed either way.
Can't wait!!!!!

[Cincinatus' Wife]

http://www.americandaily.com/article/8724


[From the LINK above] ***...The media chose to ignore the objections of James H. Smith. The Freepers at Freerepublic.com have not. The story of James H. Smith reminds us all that media bias is not only real, but is determined to force its way into our lives. This link is a must-read.

(www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1462436/posts)....***

[kcvl]

Mother of slain soldier in Crawford draws international attention

By Thaddeus DeJesus, Tribune-Herald staff writer

Thursday, August 11, 2005

CRAWFORD – From 5 a.m. to midnight over the last few days, Cindy Sheehan has donned a headset amid the Central Texas prairie to speak to reporters from New York to New Zealand.

“We've got to find a way to stop them from calling,” she told an assistant after a Tuesday afternoon radio interview was interrupted by 16 calls. Sheehan later got up from her folding chair to talk to a CNN camera crew waiting nearby. They were among the countless other journalists waiting to interview the woman who has chosen to make a symbolic stand a few miles from the President Bush's ranch house.

snip

Although she has met with Bush's national security adviser and deputy chief of staff, Sheehan has vowed to stay on a roadside near the president's compound for the duration of the month until she meets with Bush.

snip

On Wednesday, the fifth day of her vigil, exhaustion began to affect Sheehan. A fever and a sore throat prompted her to scrap her Wednesday morning interviews, which were scheduled to begin before sunrise. After a brief rest, she resumed her media blitz and greeted well-wishers, some of whom came to Crawford from as far away as California and North Carolina.

“I'm not the sort of person that runs away from hardship,” Sheehan said. “I don't want pain and hardship, of course. I wish Casey wouldn't have died, but I'm the kind of person that wants to help other people. If my pain can help anybody else from going through the same kind of pain, then it's worth it. I can feel Casey's spirit urging me on.”

snip

Casey Sheehan surprised his family when he announced in May 2000 that he enlisted in the Army. Why he joined remains a subject of debate for the family, though the money to pay for education could have been a strong lure. Casey, who studied theater arts, wanted to be a teacher.

“I think they caught him at a vulnerable time,” said Dede Miller, Casey's aunt and Cindy's sister.

It was a TV spot produced by MoveOn.org, one of the anti-war groups that is currently giving financial support to Sheehan's latest stand, she said. Military Families Speak Out, Air America and wealthy individuals also are lending help, she said.

snip

Kristinn Taylor, co-leader of the Washington, D.C., chapter of the FreeRepublic.com, which has held pro-troop rallies, said Sheehan's actions are misguided and hurt troop morale.

"She has a political agenda that goes way beyond her son's death in combat," Taylor said.

snip

More...

[kcvl]

Michael Mitchell

Thursday, April 08 2004

snip

On Sunday afternoon in a neighborhood of Baghdad called Sadr City, American troops clashed with the private militia of a radical Shiite cleric. During the four-hour firefight, 40 U.S. soldiers were wounded, and eight killed. Among the dead-- 25-year old Sergeant Michael Mitchell, from the Army's 1st Armored Division based in Germany. Mitchell's family lives in Atascadero.

"I'm just going to miss him," says his mother, Cathy Baker. "He's a great soldier and he's my hero."

Mitchell joined the Army seven years ago, just after graduating from high school in Porterville. For the last few years, he was engaged to his fiance, Bianca, who lives in Germany. Mitchell was deployed to Baghdad for the last 11 months, and reinlisted just three weeks ago, against the wishes of his father.

"I may be more firmly convinced today that the war needs to be stopped," says Bill Mitchell. "I don't want anymore families to go through the pain and sorrow we're feeling."

snip

Last month, Bill Mitchell joined hundreds of people marching in a peace rally in San Luis Obispo, on the first anniversary of the war in Iraq.

"I said, 'Bring my son home now,'" says Mitchell. "I should have said, 'Bring my son home alive'."

[kcvl]

Paul Rockwell: How did Mike die in Iraq?

Bill Mitchell: He was killed in combat in Sadr City, a suburb of Baghdad. It was April 4th during the first day of the Shiite riots. My son was only days from coming home. He was a tank mechanic. Someone came up and said, "There's a platoon of soldiers from Fort Hood caught in an ambush in Sadr City." My son raised a hand. One of his buddies said, "Why don't you stay here." Mike said, "If my buddies are going, I'm going with them." My son was too damn cocky. He thought he was a superman.

snip

Bill Mitchell: I refuse to let my son die quietly for an unjust war. I was against the war before it began. I was semi-politically active. Now Mike's memory pushes me. I have raised the level of my activism. Now that my son will never come home, I am more firmly against the war than ever. A fire has been lit within me and unfortunately, the path of my life has been altered. I feel that I must put myself out there and do whatever I can to see that no other parent learns of the pain that comes with losing a child to war. I want to go to Washington, I want to stand on people's desks, if that's what it takes. You saw that guy Berg, whose son was beheaded? He blames Bush and Rumsfeld. I want to meet him. I want to stop this insanity.

[KosmicKitty]

Wow, nice tent she's in!!

[kcvl]

Bill Mitchell founded Gold Star Families for Peace with Cindy Sheehan.


I'm here in Crawford, Texas today to support my friend, Cindy Sheehan. I appreciate what she's doing. I was against the war beforehand. I wish I could sit here and tell you how much you should appreciate my son for your liberty and freedom, but, you know, I didn't believe that before the war, and when my son died I surely couldn't grab that and cherish that feeling, because I know it's lies that got us there.

[Neever]

Drudge has reported some of her latest off-the-wall comments. The Limbaugh approach is probably the best approach. "Just let 'em talk." If Sheehan starts spewing this ultra-left liberalism, conspiracy theories, and black helicopter stuff, the media will soon turn their attention elsewhere.

[kcvl]

Cindy Sheehan (R), of Vacaville, California, President of Gold Star Families for Peace and mother who lost her son, U.S. Army Specialist Casey Austin Sheehan who was serving in Iraq, is comforted by Bill Mitchell, whose son Mike also was killed in Iraq, during their vigil near the ranch owned by U.S. President George W. Bush in Crawford, Texas August 10, 2005. About 70 anti-war protesters have set up camp near the president's ranch, calling for the withdrawl of U.S. troops from Iraq. Reuters/JASON REED

[kcvl]

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX AUG 14, 2005 08:02:39 ET XXXXX

BUSH PROTESTING MOM CALLS FOR 'ISRAEL OUT OF PALESTINE'; VOWS NOT TO PAY TAXES

Anti-war protestor Cindy Sheehan, whose soldier son Casey was killed in Iraq, is calling for Bush's "impeachment," and for Israel to get out of Palestine!

"You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you'll stop the terrorism," Sheehan declares.

Sheehan, who is asking for a second meeting with President Bush, says defiantly: "My son was killed in 2004. I am not paying my taxes for 2004. You killed my son, George Bush, and I don't owe you a penny...you give my son back and I'll pay my taxes. Come after me (for back taxes) and we'll put this war on trial."

"And now I'm going to use another 'I' word - impeachment - because we cannot have these people pardoned. They need to be tried on war crimes and go to jail."

The 48-year-old California mom remains tented up in a ditch along the one-lane road that leads to Bush's Texas ranch.

As her protest entered its second week, hundreds of people with conflicting opinions about the war in Iraq descended on the area.

Developing...

[kcvl]

Sunday, August 14, 2005

The rest of the story about Cindy Sheehan

By Peter Bronson
Enquirer staff writer

The Associated Press

Cindy Sheehan of Vacaville, Calif., stands in front of her tent that was set up last week on the side of the road that leads to President Bush's ranch outside Crawford, Texas.

You can't swing a peace poster in Crawford, Texas, without hitting a herd of reporters and anti-war protesters, who are camped out to tell us about Cindy Sheehan, the "Heartbroken Mom of a Hero Killed in Iraq."

But they're not telling the whole story. And anyone who dares to try is attacked as "right-wing Bush lackeys who smear the Heartbroken Mom."

"Dead soldier's mom wants answers," the headlines say - but they don't ask tough questions.

"Bush refuses to meet with mother of dead soldier," they say - without mentioning that he already met with her.

Newspaper headlines and TV reports all week told us how she accuses Bush of killing her son. But none reported that she told a very different story when she met with Bush two months after her son Casey was killed.

More...

[fatrat]

"or was in the Air Force or Navy and never got close to combat"

Hey clueless, there a many Navy people intimately involved in combat.