MySanAntonioThe angry mother of a fallen U.S. soldier staged a protest near President Bush's ranch on Saturday, demanding an accounting from the president of how he has conducted the war in Iraq.
Supported by more than 50 shouting demonstrators, Cindy Sheehan, 48, told reporters, "I want to ask George Bush: Why did my son die?"
Sheehan arrived in Crawford aboard a bus painted red, white and blue and emblazoned with the words, "Impeachment Tour."
Her son, Casey, 24, was killed in Sadr City, Iraq, on April 4, 2004. He was an Army specialist, a Humvee mechanic.
Sheehan, from Vacaville, Calif., had been attending a Veterans for Peace Convention in Dallas. She vowed she would camp out as close as she could get to the president's ranch until Bush comes out and talks to her.
Local law enforcement officials were keeping Sheehan four to five miles away from the ranch's entrance.
"If they won't cooperate, we won't," Capt. Kenneth Vanek of the McLennan County Sheriff's Department, said of the marchers.
He said the group was stopped because some marchers ignored instructions to walk in the ditch beside the road, not on the road.
Sheehan said she decided to come to Crawford a few days ago after Bush said that fallen U.S. troops had died for a noble cause and that the mission must be completed.
"I don't want him to use my son's name or my family name to justify any more killing," she said.
Sheehan said Bush administration officials "don't have a mission and they don't even ever plan on completing it." She said she fears that the United States plans to keep a U.S. military presence in Iraq indefinitely.
The White House responded to the protest, saying the president wants to bring the troops home.
"Many of the hundreds of families the president has met with know their loved one died for a noble cause and that the best way to honor their sacrifice is to complete the mission," White House spokesman Trent Duffy said Saturday. "It is a message the president has heard time and again from those he has met with and comforted. Like all Americans, he wants the troops home as soon as soon as possible."
Sheehan's bus pulled up at a house run by peace activists a few hundred feet from the town's only stoplight. There, she met up with other demonstrators and then led a caravan of about 20 vehicles down a winding road toward Bush's ranch.
The group stopped along the way and sheriff's deputies advised them that if they wanted to go farther toward the ranch, they would have to walk in a ditch along the road.
The marchers walked about half a mile until the deputies stopped them, saying that they had violated their instructions by walking on the road itself instead of staying in the adjacent ditch.
Sheehan protested, saying she had not walked on the road. The deputies refused to let her go farther.
The protesters then began chanting, "W killed her son."
more...
Iconoclast"In the name of 1,828 soldiers that should be alive, I'm going to see the president," said Cindy Sheehan, co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace (center, left). "He killed my son." An hour of so later, two of Bush's aides met with her for 45 minutes; however, Sheehan vowed to stay in Crawford Saturday until she met face-to-face with the president.
Break out the popcorn and have a seat. This could turn into a circus very fast. War protestors from around the country are said to be converging on tiny Crawford Texas.
I don't think it will amount to anything. "This is just a greeving mother who is looking for someone to blame. We understand her grief and will do everything in our power to assuage the pain her loss has 'caused her" or so will the official statement go. Then things will continue as planned
This just in...US military service is voluntary.
IF you are not willing to die for your country...then don't join the military.
IF you do not want your son or daughter to die in service to their country...then don't let them join the military.
If you join the military...there is always a very strong chance that you will be called into service and sent into a war.
It's not just something you sign up for to do a lot of exersize and wear silly looking clothes.
Why do you post propaganda Dan?
Last edited by whottt; 08-07-2005 at 09:12 AM.
Dying for your country for a just cause and dying for it for some other reason aren't the same thing.
Yeah Whottt, like you could really stop your child from joining the military. You can't.
And who defines "just cause"?
The mother of a slain child? In that case even old age isn't a just cause.
The entire reason that freeing the female voice is so valuable in Western civilization is why their definition of "just cause" isn't exactly the objective one on this subject. Most women are non-violent in nature, to the extreme and freeing their voice within a society makes it less warlike and violent....that doesn't mean they are always right, they are just part of the balance....because you can't go through life being a total pussy.
Her son joining the military does not give her the right to define just cause...
When her son signed his life away to the US Military...he was giving them the right to define "just cause"...IE it's whatever the government determines is just cause.
Now you may not like that...and she may not like that...and I probably wouldn't like it either if my child died...but that doesn't change the facts. No one put a gun to his head and forced him to join the military and serve his country.
That was a choice he made.
She isn't the one determining US policy...she doesn't get to determine just cause....she is not the commander in chief...and the people leading this country have bigger responsibilities than making sure her son is returned to her alive after he has agreed to go and die if necessary in the name of his country.
If you don't want to die in a war...then don't join the military...because signing your name to the do ent takes away your choice to choose.
And idiots need to stop comparing this to viet nam because everyone currently serving in the US military volunteered to do so. They volunteered their lives for their country...as best their country sees fit.
The honor his memory and don't demean it and politicize it.Yeah Whottt, like you could really stop your child from joining the military. You can't.
No one forced him to join the military...he knew the stakes when he joined. He did it.
It's not the US Military's job to mother her child and make sure he makes non-violent decisions that extend his life...it's her job to do it...and she failed at it. And she embarrases his memory by skewing the lines between her political views and her mothering instincts.
She's using his death...and it's being used by those around her. And it is a sickening practice.
With every war, there are those who believe it is unjust and shouldn't be fought. That includes WWII, where there was a sizable minority (such as we have now) who were opposed to military action in Europe and the Pacific.
300,000 Americans died in both major theaters of that war and, I'm equally certain, there were mothers such as this one who held the Commander in Chief accountable for their sons' deaths.
But, with the condemnation of those who lost loved ones in the prosecution of war, comes the gra ude of those who are the recipients of the security such a cost provides.
President Truman is frequently villified for his decision to use the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing -- or condemning to a cruel, painful, and swift death -- almost 300,000 Japanese, in a matter of seconds. Nevermind that the firebombing raids over Tokyo, Dresden, and other cities, claimed just as many lives and caused just as much destruction.
But, equally, he should be honored for his resolute decision to save tens of thousands of American lives at the expense of innocent Japanese -- simply because their government would not yield in the face of overwhelming force and they would not demand it.
We won WWII because we kept focused on the goal the war, to end Nazi atrocities in Europe and Japanese Imperialism in the Pacific. But, we also won because we countered the negative voices of dissent with just as much vigor as we prosecuted the war abroad -- as if it were a third front, so to speak.
We lost Vietnam because we lost that war. Not because we lost militarily in Vietnam.
In this war, we need to develop our forces at home to fight those of you, among us, who would have brought our troops home after D-Day or, who would have capitulated to the Japanese on December 8, 1941; or, those of you who sit before congressional committees and lie your asses off about made up atrocities committed by fellow soldiers.
You're just as much an enemy as the Islamo-fascists.
War is and people die. Very simple.
I'm sorry for her loss, and though I wouldn't fault her for doing whatever she needs to do to work through her grief, objectively, she doesn't have much of an argument. Anyone who chooses to join the military (and their parents), does so knowing that they might end up in war, which could get them killed, and they also know full well that they don't get to choose or vote on which war they'd like to attend. Every single war or military action the U.S. has been in has been called "immoral" or "unjust" by sizable minorities. The only "popular" war we've had was probably The Persian Gulf War, but even that had lots of protestors in the U.S. Even WWII and WWI had large groups of people protesting and calling for the U.S. to stay out. For someone joining today, they don't even have to look that far back to see the U.S. has engaged in military action that many people found objectionable (Korea, Viet Nam, Somalia, and a slew of campaigns in Central America and the Carribean). I remember all these pundits ing on TV about the unjust invasion of Panama.
The point is, if you're going to join the U.S. military, do so knowing that not one single war we've been involved in (since 1812) has had anything to do with the direct homeland defense of the United States. Every military person today knows that if they are sent to war it will not be to defend against an invading force, but will be to fight in some remote place with reasons that might be ambiguous to some and unjustifiable to many. It's fine to be a peacenik and protest this war...there are good reasons to be against it, but people need to remember that we do have a voluntary force. And that sign that someone's holding up calling Iraq another Viet Nam is a joke. The guy doesn't know his history very well. I'm not going to plug in the figures, but our casualties have been roughly 750 a year in Iraq. In Viet Nam, we were losing 400, sometimes 500, people EVERY WEEK! And that WASN'T a voluntary force! In fact, despite the current hysteria going on in the media, our casualty rate in Iraq is among the lowest ever suffered by any nation in any war.
btw- our Revolutionary War was only supported by 1/3 of Americans. 1/3 were loyal to the crown and 1/3 were apathetic.
????
no ing
post of the century?
how is she embarrasing his memory?
This reminds me of when a father of one of the 18 Rangers killed in Somalia in 1993 met up with Clinton on a receiving line, spit in the then-president's face and blamed the president for his son's death.
Of course, the president was a Democrat so it didn't matter. This thread is ing stupid.
Clinton chickened out and pulled out of Somalia and didn't finish the job...he deserved to be spat on.
how dare you say that about our former leader !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!
He died for somebody else's country.
The president can do whatever he wants, he's the president. We elected him, no matter what we do, he won in a democratic process, simple as that.Clinton chickened out and pulled out of Somalia and didn't finish the job...he deserved to be spat on.
By politicizing it...she's basically rendering her sons death meaningless and making a mockery of it.
And if she's advocating that we pull out of Iraq she's really rendering it meaningless.
What is her point? To hurt Bush in the next election?
If not for her sons noble sacrifice I'd advocate that she...like all the ambivalent anti war people...get dropped smack dab into the heart of the middle east where the can experience some sensual and gentle muzzie love.
You know it's not a crime to rape a woman in the middle east...unless she's not married...and if she's not married when it happens they'll execute her...either by legal indifference or by tribal law.
Not a just cause indeed....
You know what's wrong with the middle east, and what makes it a just cause?
She's not there.
Last edited by whottt; 08-08-2005 at 12:57 AM.
Or she could be trying to prevent this pain from happening to anybodyelse's mother. That's a good spin right there.
What about those people who lost children who don't feel the cause was unjust?
How much pain do you think her actions are causing them?
What's she doing is grieving...but no one forced her son to join.
It's her right as Americans to peaceful assembly. If it hurts them as much as she has been hurt they should speak out against her, like she is doing about the war. I hope that what she wants is an honest answer as to why her son died and this is not some publicity stunt for a book deal or something. If the woman needs colsure and this is the only way it can be achieved whether or not she talks to Bush, (she prob. won't) all the power to her. It's her right.
And every terrorist that stays on just a little while longer...to shoot another bullet, and kill another soldier...because they see her and think they are closer to winning, if they can just hold on long enough...
What do you say to those parents?
It's her cons utional right to say what she wants as long as she soes it peacefully she is doing what the Cos ution has guaranteed her. Aren't those rights what we are fighting for.
Not according to her we aren't.
trainwrecks right
i think its inappropriate to talk about one family you dont know and say shes embarrassing him
she loved her son- im sure
Bush didnt kill her son but he sent him to fight a bull war
now we can argue over and over again why the war is bull .
Maybe I missed something. If she is next of kin I think it is her right to say whether ot not to use her son's legacy in a way she sees as wrong.Sheehan said she decided to come to Crawford a few days ago after Bush said that fallen U.S. troops had died for a noble cause and that the mission must be completed.
"I don't want him to use my son's name or my family name to justify any more killing," she said.
I don't agree with her saying "W killed my son" becuase he swore to follow the president of the united states. But I do agree with her right to say it.
I do know him...he was a man who gave his life for his country. Voluntarily. A hero.
She's not using his death to honor what he died for and what he believed...she's using it to pursue her own political agenda. Her own beliefs. But she's not the one who died for her beliefs. He is. And they are the exact opposite of hers.
That is a political group she is with. They think they know what's best for this country and they are not respecting the will of the US people illustrated when they re-elected W.
It's their right to be anti-war...it's their right to protest, especially since they are a veterans group. But she is dishonoring his memory and minimalizing the cause in which he gave his life. And she's renting his death out to those with a political agenda.
What gives her the right to speak for her dead son?
If she spoke for her son then what was he doing in the military? He wasn't drafted.
His actions indicate he stood for something totally different than she does.
im guessing she would have rather her son died for a good reason/or not at all
this all goes back to why are we at war
neverending debate...
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