Activists link Katrina crisis, Iraq war
By Frederick Cusick / Philadelphia Inquirer
Antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan yesterday laid some of the blame for the death and destruction associated with Hurricane Katrina on President Bush's Iraq war.
Sheehan, a Californian who became an international figure when she camped out next to Bush's vacation ranch in Crawford, Texas, last month, said Katrina was not only a natural disaster, but "a man-made tragedy and a criminal negligence disaster."
The hurricane's victims, she said, are "collateral damage of George Bush's insane and moronic policies in Iraq."
"Katrina has proven categorically that he has made our country more vulnerable by his insane policy," she told a crowd of about 250 at a rally on Independence Mall yesterday afternoon.
Sheehan, whose soldier son, Casey, died in Iraq, is in the middle of a 51-city tour to rally opposition to the war. The effort - dubbed the Bring Them Home Now Tour - is scheduled to end with an antiwar rally in Washington next Saturday.
Bush has taken a tumble in the opinion polls as a result of what some Americans see as his inept and incompetent handling of the Katrina crisis. His opponents at the rally were quick to link what they see as Bush's failures in Iraq with his failures in handling Katrina.
Thomas Paine Cronin, head of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 47, the union that represents the city's white-collar employees, told the crowd that if there had been no war, 3,000 Louisiana National Guard troops now on duty abroad might have been available to rescue people trapped by the flood.
Also at the rally was former City Councilman Angel Ortiz.
"We have a person in the White House that thinks he's an emperor, a man who believes that the role of the United States is an imperial one," Ortiz said.
Ortiz got a big round of applause when he said: "It's time to impeach the man."
He then proceeded to lead the crowd in chants of "Impeach George Bush."
The two-hour rally included songs and speeches by others who have worked against the war, including some who had lost loved ones in Iraq.
"We will not be quiet, we will not be quiet... . We will tell the truth. This war is a disaster," said Celeste Zappala, a Mount Airy peace activist whose foster son, Army Sgt. Sherwood Baker, was killed in Iraq last year.
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In Cambridge, crowd cheers on Sheehan Mother of soldier killed in Iraq touring nationCAMBRIDGE -- Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a slain soldier whose vigil outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, helped galvanize antiwar sentiment last month, told 200 cheering, chanting supporters in Cambridge yesterday that Americans should never again be led into what she called an illegal and unjust war.
''We remembered something that we as Americans had forgotten after almost five years of being under a virtual dictatorship," she said on Cambridge Common. ''We have the power. We Americans are the ones with the power."
It was Sheehan's first stop in the Boston area since her vigil helped draw nationwide attention to the movement to remove US troops from Iraq, and she received a rapturous welcome in this famously liberal city.
Her supporters, including several military veterans, parents with young children, and local activists, cheered and waved peace flags on the green where George Washington once mustered his troops. A few people sang the traditional song with the lyrics, ''We ain't gonna study war no more," while others hoisted a banner that asked, ''How many more?" Another banner declared, ''Peace and social justice thrive in Cambridge." When the first busload of military families arrived, people chanted, ''Welcome," and then burst into applause as Sheehan took the makeshift stage adorned with a red tarp backdrop.
''George Bush wouldn't meet with me," Sheehan said. ''But I went over his head. I went to the people of America."
The rally was part of a nationwide tour that Sheehan launched after she failed in her immediate goal to meet with the president to ask him why her son, 24-year-old Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, had to die.
Casey Sheehan was killed in April 2004 after insurgents ambushed his unit in the Sadr City section of Baghdad.
''It's going to be us that makes this war end," said Cambridge City Councilor Denise Simmons, to the cheers of the audience. ''It's going to be all of us."
Sheehan's supporters had set up tents on the grass yesterday and hung a placard reading, ''Welcome to Camp Alex," in honor of Alex S. Arredondo, a 20-year-old Marine lance corporal from Randolph who died in August 2004. He was shot by insurgents while storming a building in Najaf. His father, Carlos Arredondo of Roslindale, later made national headlines when he set himself on fire inside a van that the Marines had used to bring him the news of his son's death. He survived, but suffered burns on 26 percent of his body.
''I hope armed forces families won't go through what my family is going through," Arredondo said in an interview at the rally yesterday, describing his battle with post-traumatic stress disorder. ''Because it's one year gone by, and it's still very difficult, and people are telling me it's a far road ahead."
When Arredondo took the stage with his mother and his wife by his side, he hoisted over his head a picture of his son in full dress uniform.
''He was proud of what he was doing for his country. And I am proud of that," Carlos Arredondo said. ''But the effects that come with that are very high, very high for the family."
He added, ''I want peace," and repeated the phrase again.
At the rally, activists rallied support for a petition that would try to force the state government to withdraw the Massachusetts National Guard from Iraq. As a first step, supporters need to collect 100,000 signatures. Activists, including Sheehan, also asked those in attendance to turn out for an antiwar rally planned for Sept. 24-26 in Washington, D.C., Supporters are trying to draw hundreds of thousands of people in what they hope will be the largest antiwar demonstration since the US invaded Iraq last year.
''Our life here in America is being threatened. It's being sold out," said Anne Sapp. Her husband, Andrew, is a teacher at Concord-Carlisle High School and a staff sergeant in the Massachusetts National Guard currently serving in Iraq, she said. Every night, she said, she worries about him and the increasingly anxious e-mails he sends home. He is due back in the United States in October, she said, but she is not certain the date will hold.
''Each step of the way, when you have a loved one in Iraq, there is a new type of pain, a new type of fear," Anne Sapp said, as the crowd fell silent to listen. Her husband, she said, ''should be here now, serving his community."
After the rally, Sheehan was scheduled to speak at Boston University Law School. She is then due to visit New Haven, Conn., Providence, New York City, Newark, N.J., and Baltimore.
Since she left her encampment outside the president's ranch in Texas, Sheehan said, she has been encouraged but not surprised by the crowds she meets across America.
''I was sensing that America was ready for a change, that America was saying, 'Enough is enough,' " she said.
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Admit mistakes and then get us out of IraqWASHINGTON NEEDS to listen to the many voices of the Women for Peace March that will be held in Washington on Sept. 24. I do not have a son or daughter in Iraq. I am fortunate that my children are older and my grandchildren are very young. But I plan to be at the march.
It is clear to me that some of the media and/or Bush supporters are attempting to label Cindy Sheehan as the leader of the peace movement, and I think this is a mistake. Those of us who participate in the march next weekend will have different reasons for being there. We all don't agree with Sheehan on every single issue.However, we all want answers to her questions. My main purpose in marching is to send President Bush a message: Your administration has lied to us, dragged our sons and daughters to war, and you have not taken responsibility for the situation that has resulted. You owe it to this country and to the families of the American troops in Iraq to admit your mistakes, accept responsibility, and then have a dialogue with the country to develop a solution to how to get out of this mess.
Bush is a lame-duck president. He has nothing to lose and everything to gain by doing this. He should stop listening to his adviser Karl Rove and the others who are totally politically oriented. He must use his remaining years in Washington to fix the mess, so that the next person in the Oval Office will have a head start in continuing the good work that needs to be so desperately started right now.
He can start this country on a new and realistic path by bringing the country together to get our troops home as quickly as possible without causing a civil war in Iraq and without causing a civil war in the United States.It is Bush's duty to be forthright and do whatever it takes to heal both Iraq and the United States.
BARBARA DAVIS
Boston
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