Posted on 08/25/2005 12:06:14 PM PDT by Sam Hill
Since Mother Sheehan® is forever nattering on about the questions she would ask President Bush, it seems only fair that we should try to come up with some questions to pose to her. (You know the media will never ask her anything that might expose her true agenda.)
To kick things off:
• Like just about every national and international expert and leader, President Bush was mistaken as to the extent of Iraq's WMD program. But that was only one of his many reasons for going to war. Can you cite one specific lie George Bush ever told about the Iraq war?
• You have stated that there has never been a good excuse for war. Do you believe there was no valid reason for military participation in Rawanda? WWII? Our Civil War?
• Why do you call the terrorists in Iraq, many from other countries, "freedom fighters"? Our elected leaders, "terrorists"?
• Do you still contend that Israel's presence in Palestine is the root of the US's problems with terrorism? If you got your wish and Israel were to leave Palestine, where should the Israelis go?
• Did you meet with John Kerry shortly after your son's death? Did he convince you to campaign for him? Had you been pro-Bush and supported the Iraqi war prior to that meeting?
• Did the John Kerry campaign or any of its extensions (such as RealVoices.org, MoveOn.org or Fenton Communications) ever pay you, or provide your expenses, for your year and half long PR campaign?
• Has your organization, Gold Star Families For Peace, received tax-exempt (501c3) status from the IRS? If not, why do you claim you have, and that donations to you are tax-deductible?
• You have said in interviews your group, GSFP, has lobbied and campaigned against Bush. You and other GSFP members did ads for RealVoices.org against Bush. Do you realize tax exempt charities (501c3s) are prohibited from lobbying and campaigning for candidates?
• In your view America isn’t worth dying for. Can you tell us what countries are worth dying for? And what would make America worth dying for?
Please feel free to add any questions you'd like to ask our Mother Of Perpetual Sorrows (PMS). I will update the list for her, in case she drops by.
(But please try to keep them respectful. She is a grieving mother, after all.)
Oh, Mother Sheehan® doesn't answer questions.
She just filibusters.
When called on it, she assumes the Victim Position: "Why don't you let me finish?"
It might make sense to put together a number of questions for Cindy--on the rare chance someone outside of the one party media ever gets a chance to talk with her.
Maybe the Move Forward folks could hold a press conference and ask them of Mother Sheehan.
Great questions that will never be asked (and wouldn't get a straight answer). Another question that should be thrown in: If you hate America and think it is such a horrible place why do you stay here?
Cindy, do you support the on-going protests at Walter Reed Army Hospital that target wounded Veterans?
Do you support those protesters when they display caskets in front of the Hospital?
Oh and one more-would Casey support what you are doing in his name?
Oh, that would be a good idea.
I'll start:
When did John Kerry's campaign contact you and what did they say?
How much did Kerry's campaign pay you?
Your husband says that Casey was proud to be a soldier; why do you think differently.
"Cindy, do you support the on-going protests at Walter Reed Army Hospital that target wounded Veterans?
Do you support those protesters when they display caskets in front of the Hospital?"
Good one. And I actually saw someone ask this question, which is the very thing that inspired me to try to start a list for posterity.
Of course it's almost a certainly she does support those shameful antics. Since she is very tied into Code Pink and Medea (ha) Benjamin.
I suspect if she wasn't so busy stalking in Crawford, she'd be stalking out in front of Walter Reed.
She'll probably end up there when Bush de-camps back to DC. (That is, when she isn't parading in front of the White House.)
Will you, Mother Sheehan please tell the loved ones of Flight 93 that your son's death was a complete waste for the fight on terror?
Oh, would I love to see and hear her if she is ever asked one of these questions.
I wonder if Melanie Morgan can get an interview with her. Wouldn't that be one we would all want to tape?
When you call Syrian Iranian and Saudi terrorists 'freedom fighters', exactly whose freedom is it for whom they are fighting?
"Oh, would I love to see and hear her if she is ever asked one of these questions. I wonder if Melanie Morgan can get an interview with her. Wouldn't that be one we would all want to tape?"
I'd be amazed if Mother Sheehan ever talked with anyone who hasn't been thoroughly vetted to make she they are sympathetic to her cause.
But should a miracle happen, and someone slip through her handlers, it would be great if they had a nice list of questions handy. After all, none of us has the time to think up all things that need asking. Nor the capacity to remember them all.
Failing a miracle, I really do think it would be a great opportunity for the caravan folks to hold a press conference and put these questions to Cindy. It might be edgy enough to even attract some reporters.
But at least the questions would be put out there.
One of my questions for Cindy: Cindy, you have said that the US has engaged in a nuclear war in Iraq and that Iraq will be contaminated for eternity. What is your evidence to support this claim?
I don't have a question for Cindy...but I do have a rather long repost to her claim that Iraq was never a terrorist threat:
Iraq didn't just become a terrorist state as a result of the Iraq war; it already was. In fact, the war in Afghanistan...all by itself, pretty much guranteed that Iraq would become an even greater threat, regardless of what we did to Saddam. What many liberals ignore is that even "before" 9/11, Al Qaeda and Al-Zarqawi were courting the Arabs and Kurds in N. Iraq in an effort to create AQs new affilate...Ansar Al-Islam.
As the Afghanistan War wore on, it wasn't a conicidence that many remnants from the Taliban and AQ were finding themselves within this newly created "affiliate" in N. Iraq. Heck, after Zarqawi was injured in Afghanistan...and even before the war in Iraq began, he found himself being treated in a Baghdad hospital owned by one of Saddam's son...only to later leave with his Egyptian Islamic Jihad brothers and meet up with Ansar.
Evidence suggests that the very creation of this organization may have been as a secondary base of operation should America succeed in ousting the Taliban and AQ. And this is important because after the destruction of the terrorists camps in Afghanistan, the sancturaries for these terrorists were running thin. In fact, over the last decade, AQ and their more radical elements had been getting kicked out of their own homelands and host countries.
From Saudi Arabia to Egypt to Lebanon to Jordan...and even terrorists supporters like Syria and Libya, these countries no longer wanted these groups operating from within their borders. With Sudan offering up UBL and even Musharif in Pakistan joining the WOT, there were little places left for AQ to coalesce, especially after 9/11 and the retribution America was seeking. Know one wanted these groups for fear the US would make their state the next target in the WOT. Even Iran supposedly expelled Zarqawi after it was learned he may hiding there....which is when he made his way to Baghdad.
The simple fact is the war in Afghanistan made Iraq a natural choice for these terrorist groups to setup shop. Saddam already had the propencity for harboring wanted terrorists; he had already offered safe-havens to both Abu Abass and Abu Nidal...two of the world's most wanted terrorists. A brief history of Nidal shows that he and his group were responsible for the killings of over 900 people in over 20 countries. Nidal was a leader in the PLO...and after leaving them, formed his own group, the Abu Nidal Organization, which operated at an even more violent level. Nidal was once America's most wanted terrorist. A 1989 State Department report called his organization the most dangerous terrorist group in the world.
In a headline from Jan. 8, 1999, Reuters reported that the "Guerrilla Abu Nidal Flees to Iraq" (notice-Reuters won't even call him a terrorist). This wasn't necessarily a secret since intelligence had reported that Nidal may have entered Iraq 10 days before Bill Clinton's Dec 16, 1998 bombing of Iraq. Since the 9/11 attack, it was learned that two of the hijackers...Mohamed Atta and Ziad Jarrah, had very close relations with Nidal. Nidal is to be believed to have met with several of these radicals in helping them to draw up plans against American interests...which also may explain his untimely death.
Further confirmation of these alliances may be found in the fact that after the first 1993 WTC attack, it was Ramsey Yousif who found himself back in Iraq under the protection of Saddam. Coincidence? Not if you believe what others have said about Yousif being a former Iraqi Intelligence officer. Even 9/11 Commissioner Lehman explained that documents uncovered in Baghdad, "indicate that there is at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al-Qaida...one striking bit of new evidence is that the name Ahmed Hikmat Shakir appears on three captured rosters of officers in Saddam Fedayeen, the elite paramilitary group run by Saddam's son Uday and entrusted with doing much of the regime's dirty work."
The same was also true for Abu Abass. This convicted Palestinian terrorist...and the mastermind behind the Achille Lauro hijacking, had been calling Baghdad his home since 1994...under Saddam's personal protection. Abbas was the leader of another Palestinian terror organization (PLF) that, after leaving Tunisia, set up shop in Iraq. These alliances with both Abu's were very convenient, as Saddam became one of the largest providers of finanical and material support to Palestinian suicide bombers, offering up to $25,000 to the families of these killers.
In Iraq, Abbas became an intermediary between Saddam and the Palestinians, were both financal and material support flowed directly from Saddam to the blood-filled streets of Israel...with the PLF setting up terrorist training camps right in Iraq. Between the two Abu's...and the material support flowing between them from Saddam...and Hamas and Hezbullah, Iraq was already one of the largest terrorist havens in the world, complete with a terrorist training center at Salman Pak.
For those who truly seek peace in the ME...especially between Israel and the Palestinians (Ms. Sheehan), that peace would've never had a chance with Saddam in power financing these organizations. This reason alone, makes the ouster of Saddam a legitimate cause, especially since Saddam's harboring of any terrorists was prohibited by the Gulf War Cease Fire and following UN resolutions.
----
What's most disgusting about events taking place in America today, are those people...especially in the media, who are attempting to disprove any connection between Saddam and terrorism, claiming Iraq was never a threat (Cindy Sheehan). These are people, who less than 5 years ago, made these very same connections in their own newspapers and networks when it fit the agenda of a Democrat president and his attacks on Iraq.
Newsweek magazine ran an article in its January 11, 1999, issue headed, "Saddam + Bin Laden?" "Here's what is known so far:"
"Saddam Hussein, who has a long record of supporting terrorism, is trying to rebuild his intelligence network overseas--assets that would allow him to establish a terrorism network. U.S. sources say he is reaching out to Islamic terrorists, including some who may be linked to Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi exile accused of masterminding the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa last summer." On January 15, 1999, ABC News reported that three intelligence agencies believed that Saddam had offered asylum to bin Laden:
"Intelligence sources say bin Laden's long relationship with the Iraqis began as he helped Sudan's fundamentalist government in their efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. ABC News has learned that in December, an Iraqi intelligence chief named Faruq Hijazi, now Iraq's ambassador to Turkey, made a secret trip to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden. Three intelligence agencies tell ABC News they cannot be certain what was discussed, but almost certainly, they say, bin Laden has been told he would be welcome in Baghdad."
NPR reporter Mike Shuster interviewed Vincent Cannistraro, former head of the CIA's counterterrorism center, and offered this report:
"Iraq's contacts with bin Laden go back some years, to at least 1994, when, according to one U.S. government source, Hijazi met him when bin Laden lived in Sudan." According to Cannistraro, Iraq invited bin Laden to live in Baghdad to be nearer to potential targets of terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
By mid-February 1999, journalists did not even feel the need to qualify these claims of an Iraq-al Qaeda relationship. An Associated Press dispatch that ran in the Washington Post ended this way:
"The Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden, who openly supports Iraq against Western powers."
Where did journalists get the idea that Saddam and bin Laden might be coordinating efforts? Among other places, from high-ranking Clinton administration officials. In the spring of 1998--well before the U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa--the Clinton administration indicted Osama bin Laden. The indictment, unsealed a few months later, prominently cited al Qaeda's agreement to collaborate with Iraq and Saddam on weapons of mass destruction..."
Heck, it was just days after Bush's 2001 Inauguration that the NY Times, with the help of William Cohen (Clinton's Sec. of Defense) were writing stories "warning" the Bush administration of the danger we faced from Saddam. Under the 1/22/01 headlines, the NYT's reported that "Iraq Resumes WMD Activities" and "Iraq Rebuilt Weapons Factories." These stories concluded that:
"While officials have previously disclosed that Iraq had rebuilt missile plants destroyed in the 1998 strikes, the Jan. 10 report released by Mr. Cohen was the first public acknowledgment of the resumption of work at suspected chemical and biological plants."
"Some of Iraq's facilities could be converted fairly quickly to production of chemical weapons," the report said at one point. It went on to warn, "Iraq retains the expertise, once a decision is made, to resume chemical agent production within a few weeks or months, depending on the type of agent."
These are just a few of the numerous comments and stories that our media reported on when national security was more important than politics. It's just simply amazing how a media that once made its "own" case for concern between Saddam and AQ/terrorists, has now, not only buried its own stories...but has the nerve to say just the opposite and actually accuse Bush of being the liar. If Cindy Sheehan and her cabal were truly concerned about the so-called lies being told, they would be protesting in front of ABCNNBCBS, the NYT, Washington Post...and those Democrats who helped "create" and perpetuate this lie throughout 1990's.
The bottom line for me is this simple fact: With our roundly supported war in Afghanistan, Iraq became a necessary target. Saddam had already established alliances within AQ and other terrorists regimes well before 9/11. The war in Afghanistan would've naturally made these aliiances stronger as Taliban/AQ members were finding their way into Iraq as a result of that war. Iraq didn't just become a terrorist haven...it already was, even before Afghanistan.
I cannot find that "Gold Star Families for Peace" is a 501c3. My question is, What is their tax id?
You're going to have to wait about six weeks to have these questions answered because the responses have to be written by some looney lib first. cindy is an idiot and couldn't answer these questions if she tried.
If you have so many questions for president Bush, why didn't you ask them the first time you met with Him? Seemed like a good opportunity!!!
"I cannot find that "Gold Star Families for Peace" is a 501c3. My question is, What is their tax id?"
This has been discussed on several threads here and at S&L.
Cindy Sheehan's Group Violates 501c3 Status
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1463334/posts
There is no record yet that the GSFP have been granted tax exempt status.
Since they are partnering with and funneling their donations through DemocracyInAction.org, it is possible that they are also piggy-backing on DIA.org's 501(c)3 status. That is allowed, but it doesn't allow GSFP to conduct political protests.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.