Posted on 11/22/2005 12:14:31 PM PST by Howlin
CRAWFORD, Texas -- War opponents say their protest near President Bush's ranch will resume this week although the fallen soldier's mother who led a 26-day vigil this summer will arrive later than planned.
Cindy Sheehan of Berkeley, Calif., has a family emergency and is scheduled to arrive Friday in time for the dedication of the Camp Casey Memorial Garden at the Crawford Peace House. It is named for her 24-year-old son who died in Iraq last year.
Other peace activists have been arriving in Crawford and plan to return Wednesday to the roadside where Sheehan set up camp in August. They say they expect to be arrested, because in September county commissioners enacted two ordinances banning roadside parking within a 7-mile radius of Bush's ranch and prohibiting camping in any county ditch.
On Monday, three protesters filed a federal lawsuit against McLennan County, claiming the ordinances limit their free speech rights.
The demonstrators say they are returning to protest the war with Iraq to coincide with Bush's Thanksgiving ranch visit and that the county ordinances will not stop them.
"Our holidays will never be the same, so we want him to remember that," Sheehan's sister Dede Miller, who has already arrived in Crawford, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Protesters will hold a Thanksgiving meal and other activities on the same private 1-acre lot that a sympathetic landowner let them use for several weeks of the August protest. An anti-war rally is planned for Saturday in a downtown Crawford park and an interfaith service is planned for Sunday.
Sheehan's summer protest drew thousands but also spurred counter-protests of Bush supporters who said she was hurting troop morale. Bill Johnson, who started a pro-Bush camp beside his downtown Crawford souvenir shop in August, said he will hold a pro-Bush rally at the same site Saturday.
"Our goal is to get our story out because she'll get her story out," Johnson said Tuesday. "We see things differently than she does."
Check out the new thread (I hope I did it right):
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1527489/posts
I started another thread in breaking news:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1527489/posts
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