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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Cindy Sheehan: Gold Star Mother for Peace
Wednesday 07 February @ 15:15:02 |
 by ED FELIEN
Photo of Cindy Sheehan by Chante Wolf
Cindy Sheehan at Augsburg College Convocation, Tuesday, Jan. 30 at 11 a.m.:
She walked down the aisle to the podium very gently, like she was walking on feathers. She's tall and muscular, but she carries herself like she's wounded, a wound like the sacred heart of Jesus. She is a vessel carrying a vulnerability--without ego, without calculation--an innocent, with the willful naiveté of the Dalai Lama.
 When she speaks she is unself-conscious. She is not thinking of herself. She is remembering Casey and dreaming of a better world. For a moment she lets you see it, and she shames cynicism out of you. We have been so conditioned by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to regard every public statement as irony, as a lie, that when we hear Cindy Sheehan speak simply from her heart we are struck dumb with wonder.
Hers is the authentic voice we have hungered for. This is a voice that can lead us out of the wilderness of despair. Here is some of what she said:
“Some people ask if I'm a Marxist. I'm not. I'm speaking out to stop the killing. We need to make sure this never happens again. What happened on September 11, 2001 was a tragedy. Bush has turned it into an obscenity.
“When you kill innocent people, their loved ones are going to be pissed. This creates more Jihadism. What we are doing in Iraq is making more enemies, enemies for our grandchildren. What happened on 9/11 was a criminal act, it was not an act of war. We have not yet punished the criminals.
“My daughter wrote a poem for me that saved my life: 'Have you ever heard the sound of a mother crying for her son? Have you ever heard the sound of a nation being rocked to sleep?'
“I didn't think one person could make a difference. And maybe I can't, but then I'm going to die trying. All of you must take something outside of yourself to care about.
“We need to tell Congress we're going to stop the war. We're going to impeach the President! We demand accountability!
 “Democrats are not blameless in this. They should not be given a free ride. Judge them on their records, what they say and what they do. We can't any longer vote for the lesser of two evils. That would still be voting for evil. At this point Dennis Kucinich most reflects my values, but I think he should run as an Independent not as a Democrat.”
She starts to talk about her son and how he joined the Army to get enough money for college and, suddenly, there is the trace of the wound in her voice. She has to stop. She cries for a moment. The tears are quick and always close to the surface. It is just a moment, and then she is back.
She went to Iraq and she asked the Iraqi people what they wanted: “They want us out. We should help organize a peacekeeping mission made up of Arab nations, but they want our troops out of there.”
At a press conference after the speech she said:
“There is no military solution that will work for Iraq. There has to be a political and economic solution.
“The U.N. says there have been 1.2 million Iraqi casualties. The Iraqis believe the number is closer to 2 million.
“The non-binding resolution against the war proposed by Congress is not even a first step. It's more like treading water.
“All wars are fought for profit. Alliant Tech, right here in Minneapolis, building anti-personnel bombs, profits from this war.”
She went from Augsburg to St. Joan of Arc Church that evening and spoke to a sold-out audience of over 1,000. She can be reached and read at www.gsfp.org (it stands for gold star families for peace, but don't try to spell it out--all you get is gold bullion for sale and right-wing trash talk).
The movement for peace and justice lost another great voice last week. Molly Ivins died. Her wit and wisdom were unique. She was progressive politics with a Texas drawl. In her last columns she spoke about the need for all of us to be more active in opposing this war.
In a column dated Jan. 7, she said, “Bubba, we--yes, we--have to stop the war now. The President of the United States does not have the sense that God gave a duck--so it's up to us. You and me, Bubba.
“I don't know why George W. Bush is just standing there like a frozen rabbit, but it's time we found out. The fact is that WE have to do something about it. This country is being torn apart by an evil and unnecessary war, and it has to be stopped. NOW.
“This war is being prosecuted in our names, with our money, with our blood, against our will. Polls consistently show that less than 30 percent of the people want to maintain current troop levels. It is obscene and wrong for the president to go against the people in this fashion.
“What happened to the nation that never tortured? The nation that wasn't supposed to start wars of choice? The nation that respected human rights and life? A nation that from the beginning was against tyranny?
“Where have we gone? How did we let these people take us there? How did we let them fool us?”
In her last column, Jan. 26, the day before she died, she ended her column saying:
“We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we're for them and trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush's proposed surge. If you can, go to the peace march in Washington on January 27. [The next national peace march is March 18]. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, 'Stop it, now!'”
Beginning this week, the Twin Cities Peace Campaign--Focus on Iraq is organizing a local campaign of sustained nonviolent action to end the war on Iraq in solidarity with Occupation Project, an action initiated by Voices for Creative Nonviolence. See Katrina Plotz's article on the project in this issue.
If you want to go to the Washington march to stop the war, contact the Anti-War Committee at 612-379-3899 or Veterans for Peace at 612-821-9141 or Women Against Military Madness at 612-827-5364. There will be a local demonstration Sunday, March 18 at 1 p.m. at Hennepin and Lagoon avenues in Uptown. At 1:30 the group will march to downtown Minneapolis, and there will be a rally near Loring Park.
There will be a firsthand account of the war and occupation by Sami Rasouli on Thursday, March 8 at 7 p.m. at St. Joan of Arc Church, 4537 3rd Ave. S., Mpls., sponsored by Twin Cities Peace Campaign--Focus on Iraq and Women Against Military Madness. Sami Rasouli lived in the Twin Cities for more than 17 years and owned Sinbad's Deli on Nicollet Avenue. He was born in the Iraqi city of Najaf. He left 30 years ago and has now returned to the town of his birth to help rebuild his country. He will share his day-to-day experiences in Iraq and his insights about the role of the U.S. military, the resistance, the political climate, social conditions and the aspirations, hopes and dreams of ordinary Iraqi people.
The U.S. Congress has been slow to react to President Bush's surge of new troops for Iraq. The House did pass within its first 100 hours a non-binding resolution to stop a further buildup and begin the process of withdrawing U.S. troops. The Republicans in the Senate have blocked debate on even an alternative resolution authored by Republican Senator John Warner that would have allowed new troops to be sent to the western province of Anwar but not to Baghdad. This is, of course, an obvious ploy to give the President the troops he wants, and, as commander in chief, once the money is authorized, he can deploy them wherever he chooses. The Democrats are wary of pushing the House proposal because there are Democrats like Joe Lieberman who would not support a stronger resolution. With a one-vote margin, the Democrats seem paralyzed like a deer in the headlights. This is a curious irony because so many Democratic senators have already announced they are running for President in 2008, and they want to look like they're strongly against the war, but they don't want to seem unpatriotic.
Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin has said he will introduce a much stronger resolution to end all financing for the military after six months. This would call for all troops to be withdrawn before the six-month deadline. Bush and Cheney believe such a direct threat to their power would fail because it would be seen as cutting off funds to troops in the field, which would seem like political suicide. This fear of being seen as not supporting the troops is the kryptonite that has paralyzed the Democratic resolve, but even Republican Senator Arlen Specter acknowledged that only 35 percent of the troops in Iraq approve of Bush's handling of the war. So, the troops realize we're not really supporting them by continuing to push them into the middle of an Iraqi civil war. But most observers agree Feingold's resolution stands little chance of passage, but they also agree it would be good to get senators actually on record as either supporting or opposing the war.
Both the Democratic House and Senate have said impeachment of the President is off the table. This is unfortunate, but it is understandable that Congress would want to try to get along with the President rather than repeat the gridlock of the last Congress. They feel they want to get things done, and they don't want the President to block their agenda.
There are excellent arguments for impeachment by Attorney General Ramsey Clark's on the website: www.ImpeachBush.org, but even if we cannot get articles of impeachment out of the House Judiciary Committee, we should demand that John Conyers and Keith Ellison's committee investigate the illegal and unconstitutional actions of this President.
Certainly, one of the most obscene crimes of this administration has been its flagrant conflict of interest in awarding military contracts to a company in which both Cheney and Bush have a substantial financial interest. The best summary I have seen of the relationship between the Bush family and war profiteering is Kevin Phillips' “American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush.”
In the Nov. 16, 2005 Pulse cover story, “Covered in Oil,” I wrote how Cheney bought out the Bush business for Halliburton in a deal where the mouse probably swallowed the cat (where Bush's Dresser Company probably ended up owning Halliburton). The Bush family sold Dresser Oil to Halliburton when Cheney was CEO for $8 billion, when Halliburton was only worth about $8 billion, so, conventional wisdom would conclude, Dresser owns at least half of Halliburton. Halliburton has been the scandalous recipient of multi-billion dollar no-bid contracts for the war in Iraq. Surely, this is a conflict of interest. And it raises the question: “Are we investing our children and their blood so that Bush and Cheney can get even more rich than they already are?”
Isn't this the final and most compelling reason why Bush is wrong to pursue the war in Iraq and why his criminal acts constitute high crimes and misdemeanors and why his impeachment is justified? Don't these questions deserve answers?
Demand answers from Congress!
Demand an investigation of Bush's conflict of interest!
Demand an end to the war in Iraq, NOW! ||
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