Camp Casey III: The Struggle Continues

Cindy Sheehan told me she bought a place last week. She said it is beautiful. It's a good thing for peace.

Enjoy your moments. Moments Casey and Alex and so many others no longer have.

May peace be inside all of us,
Cindy


Camp Casey III: The Struggle Continues
    By Cindy Sheehan
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective

    Thursday 27 July 2006

    Camp Casey is moving!

    The Camp Casey Peace Movement, and the peace movement in general, will be eternally grateful to the Mattlage family for allowing us to use their land near George's Crawford, Texas, ranch. They were extremely generous and courageous in allowing us to use their property when we were bursting at the seams at Camp Casey I this past August and we were also being threatened by shotgun blasts and drunken drivers plowing through our memorial. We also are grateful for being allowed to use the site for our two subsequent Camp Caseys, at Thanksgiving and at Easter, especially since the McClennan County Supervisors passed the ordinances suppressing our 1st Amendment rights to camp at Camp Casey I. We owe the Mattlage family a debt of gratitude that I don't know if we will ever be able to repay! I know that their comfort, as well as ours, will be when our troops come home from the illegal and immoral occupation of Iraq.

    However, we havenow grown out of Camp Casey II and we needed to move on to bigger property. During Camp Casey Easter, we housed a few hundred people that the site could barely contain. With our commitment to being in Crawford every time that George goes on vacation (even though he seems to be skipping out on us a lot lately) we decided to buy property in Crawford to use until George's resignation or impeachment - which we all hope is soon, for the sake of the world.

    Our new property is in town and literally right around the corner from the Peace House. It is a beautiful, wooded five acres of land that will be ideal for our expanding peace population and for hosting our growing family. We are looking forward to being good neighbors in Crawford whenever we are there and we are looking forward to having good neighbors, also.

    I think the people of Crawford are beginning to understand that we come in peace and love and that we just have an issue with just one resident: George Bush. Even though we don't agree politically with many of our neighbors, we hope to enjoy a cordial relationship with everyone.

    I never understood how George Bush could pick such a place as Crawford to have his home. When I first arrived and set up camp there last August 6th, I had even bigger misgivings ... but now after spending an entire year there in every season, I totally understand. I even get upset now when people put Crawford down in any way - but these are people who have never been there.

    Crawford is a beautiful place, and Camp Casey has made it even lovelier. I feel so at home there. When I am able to return, I feel a renewal and resurgence of energy and hope. The sunrises and sunsets and star-lit nights are breathtaking, and there is nothing like a cool (if rare) Crawford evening breeze to dry off the sweat and sweeten the soul.

    Dwight David Eisenhower said that when the people of the world finally want peace, the governments had better get out of their way. Well, we want peace, BushCo, so get out of our way. Come to Camp Casey and show George and the other governments of the world that you want peace and when you say you want peace, you mean it! It is so imperative today when violence is being born out of violence and the world is crumbling around us. With almost 2600 of our brave soldiers tragically dead for George's lies and greed and countless numbers of Iraqis dead because they had the audacity to live on top of Exxon's oil, how can we not gather together in peace and commitment to ending this travesty in Iraq and call for those in the Bush Regime who are truly responsible to be punished.

    We have been advertising that Camp Casey was going to begin on the 16th of August, so George is now going to his ranch in Crawford until the 14th. Since he didn't visit his ranch at Easter for the first time since he has been president, we are beginning to believe that he is frightened of us. It can't be because we are a physical threat to him: We have proven to be peaceful and non-violent - so it must be that he is afraid of the truth and too cowardly to, again, face grieving families and thousands of others who adamantly oppose his murderous policies. Consequently, we will begin Camp Casey on August 12th so we can at least share part of the summer with Georgie. We will still run Camp Casey until September 2nd. There is so much to do.

    Here's to Crawford. Here's to Camp Casey - but most of all, here's to peace and accountability.

    --------

    Donate to the operation of Camp Casey this summer. Thanks. All donations are tax-deductible.

    Camp Casey plans on running this year at its new site from August 13th to September 2nd. For more information, such as what to bring, etc., please go to the Gold Star Families for Peace web site. Cindy Sheehan is a co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace and the mother of Casey Sheehan, who was killed in Iraq.

Saying and feeling the same as Cindy Sheehan

I got to spend some time with Cindy and her sister, DeDe last Friday for a few hours. It was the first time I got to see her and DeDe but we were friends from the moment we hugged.

We talked about how this all has to stop. Someone has to draw the line in the sand and say "I'm not going to be a part of this killing". I told Cindy, It comes down to if you were being attacked by someone how far would you go to destroy that person for yourself? For me, I couldn't kill another human. I would take what they did to me but I could never lower myself down to their level of ending another precious life. Now, I ask myself if my children were involved what would I do? I would protect my children but still I could not take away precious life given to someone.

But with that, we all have life lessons to learn. The lessons will only repeat themselves to us until we learn the lesson being taught. How many times will we allow the lesson to repeat itself?

May peace be inside all of us
Cindy F.

Helplessly Hoping

Day 21
Troops Home Fast
By Cindy Sheehan

I have been in such a blue funk of depression and worry since Israel's over-reaction---or "over action" in Lebanon in what seems to be insanity escalating out of control. What our media and some world leaders seem to expediently forget is that Israel massacred an entire family on a beach in Lebanon with a rocket and kidnapped two Palestinian citizens before Hezbollah and Hamas kidnapped some Israeli soldiers. Who started the cycle of violence in those countries? Who knows? Who cares! The important question is: who is going to be the courageous one(s) with integrity, wisdom and compassion that is going to at long last stop the absurdity?

As hard as I may try, I cannot wrap my mind around the fanatical rhetoric coming out of DC and from all over the world and the mindless and seemingly overwhelming support of Israel's right to "defend itself." What Israel is doing in Lebanon by killing hundreds of innocent civilians in a relatively short period of time is like the US defending itself from the tens of thousands of innocent babies, women and children in Iraq. It is morally reprehensible and just an extension of BushCo's campaign to enrich the voracious war profiteers.

I read yesterday that our State Department approved a new shipment of bombs and rockets to Israel. With the thousands upon thousands of US made bombs and rockets being dropped on Lebanon by the IDF it makes one wonder if the expiration dates on the bombs were nearing and the war machine needed to sell and ship more bombs so that the CEO's could fill their Hummers, limos, and jets with gas. Naively, I always presumed that the State Department was there to prevent the use of military force not support it by authorizing more weapons for more efficient killing! Don't we have a War Department for more killing? I feel like I am living in Bizarro World.

I have been watching a lot of cable news networks and have heard such one-sided phrases as: "Over 50 civilians killed in Lebanon today, but the real story is in the Israeli city of Nazareth, where two Hezbollah rockets landed." Why is that the real story Tucker Carlson? It is an immensely tragic story because two harmless children were killed in Nazareth, but how does it trump over 50 civilians being killed in Lebanon? Oh yeah, I forgot! John Bolton said that there is no " moral equivalency" between innocent Arabs being killed and innocent Israelis being killed. It's not immoral for Israel to kill innocent civilians because they are fighting terror with more terror: it's the American Way!

One day I heard another perfectly coiffed and composed talking head say while the fancy war graphics rolled across the TV screen in my hotel room: "This is day 12 of fighting in the Middle East." Day 12! Try selling that idiotic sound bite to the people of Iraq and who are dying by the dozens still everyday in increasing violence. Try telling our soldiers who keep on dying over there that this is "Day 12"…It is more like 2567 on day 1200 plus of fighting in Iraq. The war crimes in Israel and Lebanon have so conveniently knocked Iraq completely off the radar screen which is probably a thing of beauty and a welcome development to the White House and Pentagon.

We are being told that a few hundred people have been killed in Lebanon when we were shown a mass grave on CNN in the ancient city of Tyre that had almost 90 coffins in it being presided over by a distraught mayor telling us that at least two or three hundred more of his city's residents were buried in the rubble of the barbaric Israeli attacks. Tyre is one city and we viewed the mass grave days ago. Tyre and the rest of the country are being relentlessly bombed for the sins of a few which is a crime against humanity.

It seems like we are arm chair witnesses to Armageddon and ashamed witnesses to our fool of a President at the G-8: groping women; talking, eating, and swearing with his mouth full; drooling over slicing a pig and generally acting like a drunken and amorous frat boy at a toga party. I would like to ask George Bush a few more questions besides, "What noble cause?" Like: "What the hell is so humorous you jester in a tailored suit? You told us that you were making the world a safer place because of your War of Terror, and you are decidedly not!" I would also like to ask him if he is proud of himself for the way things are going on the 1200 th plus day of fighting in the Middle East. Of course it is not about pride---it is about profit and the Project for a New American Century.

I mourn for the murders of the Israeli people, which are just as tragic (but not more tragic) and done just as barbarically (but not more barbarically) as the murders that Israel is commiting in this needless violence, as much as I mourn the deaths of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and the innocents in all Arab countries who are trapped in this insane spiral of bedlam. When is the world going to realize that bloodshed cannot be stopped, cured or even alleviated by shedding more blood? Killing is a cancer that spreads the more it is fed. This disease is spreading around the world and instead of passing resolutions to condone the punishment of an innocent civilian population; Congress should be passing resolutions condemning ALL types of violence and should be supporting Rep. Dennis Kucinich's (D-Oh) ( H.Con.Res 450) call for a truce so a diplomatic solution can be sought---one that brings ALL sides to the table and one that ALL sides can feel comfortable and safer with. The only way to a "lasting cease fire" that the weapons broker, Condi, keeps talking about is a negotiated settlement that includes and insists on peaceful co-existence in the region.

Martin Luther King, Jr said it is either; "Peaceful co-existence or mutual co-annihilation." Our planet is headed on a path of annihilation if we don't all stop and take a deep breath, relax and realize that our brothers and sisters are being killed in the Middle East so that more bombs and rockets can be rushed there (on all sides) and so that our oil companies can have total control of the world's oil resources.

I have felt so helpless in the face of such unwarranted carnage, calamity, and sorrow. I have felt hopeless that anything I do can even alleviate the suffering of one person. I am helplessly hoping that the people of the world will join me and rise up to say a collective: "In God's (Allah's---whatever's) name: enough is more than enough, already!"

One last quote: Dwight David Eisenhower said that: "I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it." I believe that we the people of Earth should demand that our governments get out of our way and stop be beholden to the war machine and allow us to have peace. Selfishly, I would love to have a world that my surviving children and their children can peacefully co-exist with peoples of other nations in.

I recognize Israel's right to defend itself as I recognize the US's right to defend ourselves as I recognize Lebanon's and Iraq's right to defend themselves---but I donot, cannot, and will not recognize anyone's right to commit wholesale slaughter on babies and children. I refuse to recognize that right no matter who does it---terrorists or state-sanctioned wars of terror---I refuse to recognize the right to slaughter and, whether it makes a difference, or not, I refuse to be silent about it.

It must stop: For my children, your children and their children.

They are all our children.

Troops Home Fast: Day 6

By Cindy Sheehan

I find traveling out of the country very challenging being on a fast. When I was on a layover in Madrid on my way to Venice, Italy yesterday, the closest thing I could find to a smoothie to get a little protein was a coffee with vanilla ice cream in it. Traveling for 22 hours is very taxing under normal circumstances--but then again, when have we had normal circumstances since the 2000 and 2004 successful coup attempts that have brought BushCo into power?

I traveled from Venice to the frontier of Italy to the province of Udine which is right at the foot of the pre-Alps. I am here for a huge youth festival which includes many elements of social justice and peace work. It is beautiful and the air feels different from other places that I have travelled. It is strangely soft and gentle as is the natural light. However, there is not a Jamba Juice on every corner, so blended juice drinks with protein powder are impossible to find.

I have also received so many emails from worried, wonderful, and well-meaning friends and supporters in the US who are concerned about me and all of the others who are fasting. I don't like being on this fast, trust me, but 3 Marines were killed in Iraq today---3 unsuspecting families are about to head into a tailspin of senseless grief and we won't ever get an accurate count of the Iraqis who were killed today. It is going to be 112 degrees in Baghdad tomorrow. The occupiers and the occupied are suffering terribly.

It is important to keep our focus on saving the people of Iraq and our soldiers.

It is important to keep our focus on ending the war crime in Iraq.

The Troops Home Fast is a moral response to an immoral act. We can, and must be, morally strong so we can feast on the day that the last troop is brought home from the war crime in Iraq.

Then our focus can change to holding BushCo responsible for the war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace and focus on never allowing this to happen again.

Come to Camp Casey.
August 16 to September 2nd

Announcing Camp Democracy

You want to end this war? Get yourself to DC and let  OUR Government of the people know you want them to stop the invasion. We have to pressure them into doing this people. You can see they won't do it on their own because their making too much damn money from it. Our Money, Our Government - DO SOMETHING! Bring masses to Crawford in August and then to DC in September until this thing ends.

May peace be inside all of us,

Cindy

Announcing Camp Democracy

Cindy Sheehan to Move Camp to National Mall

Cindy Sheehan and activists in the growing peace movement plan to move Camp Casey to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., September 8 - 21. The camp on the Mall will carry the name Camp Democracy at Fort Fed Up. Organizers intend the camp to bring together peace activists with activists for social justice, united in demanding a shift of public resources from war to the needs of people. Participants will lobby Congress to end all funding of the occupation of Iraq, and will demand that Congress hold the Bush Administration accountable for the falsehoods that launched the war and the abuses of power here at home that have accompanied it. Camp Democracy is launching an outreach effort to include organizations in the planning of the camp's activities, which are all in the initial stages. Organizations already on board are listed on the website:
http://campdemocracy.org

Participating organizations and guest experts and celebrities will provide workshops and training sessions on a wide range of issues, as well as on communications, voter registration, nonviolent civil disobedience, lobbying, organizing, media production, and performance arts. Congress Members and congressional candidates will take part. Local elected officials will instruct attendees on participation in local government. Musicians will perform concerts. New films will be shown on a large screen. Participants will acquire useful skills while demanding fundamental change.

Individuals can sign up and plan to come:
http://campdemocracy.org/user/2

And volunteer to help:
http://campdemocracy.org/about

Organizations, large and small, can sign up to participate:
http://campdemocracy.org/node/3

Organizations, trainers, speakers, educators, and performers should propose activities that they believe would benefit thousands of citizens who want to work for change:
http://campdemocracy.org/node/4

Internet activists, and anyone with a blog or a website, can help by posting this information and link to the website using this link:

http://www.campdemocracy.org

READ PRESS RELEASE:
http://campdemocracy.org/release

Bombs Bursting in Air

By Cindy Sheehan

The rockets red glare,
Bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night
That our flag was still there.

Oh, say does that
Star spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free,
And the home of the brave.

The star spangled banner has been in the news quite a lot lately. Some "courageous" Senators, including one of my own, Dianne Feinstein and everyone's favorite left-wing liberal, Hillary Clinton, bravely stuck their necks out to support an amendment that would make it illegal to burn the flag of the USA under certain circumstances.

Heaven forbid one of these pussillanimous public servants introduce, or even support a bill, that would call for an immediate end to the occupation of Iraq…or to even require that the President set a timeline for the withdrawal of our troops from a deadly quagmire of an occupation while they are handing him more money to wage the war crime in Iraq. As our nation's children are trying to only survive in the worst of circumstances, and by surviving are committing reprehensible atrocities on an innocent population which (especially in Ramadi right now) is having bombs burst in air all around them, that our Senate would even consider taking away first amendment rights from Americans is wretchedly ironic. Call me naïve, but I always thought that we elected our representatives to protect our rights, not take them away from us.

When I look at the star spangled banner I think of my son who began wearing a uniform with the flag on it from the time he went into scouting at the age of 6. I also think of one of the last pictures taken of Casey when he was awaiting deployment to Iraq from Kuwait. He was standing in a tent holding a bottle of water, wearing his desert cammies with an American flag patch on the chest. When we buried him a few weeks after that picture was taken, I was handed a folded flag which reminded me of the swaddling blanket that I wrapped him in to bring him home from the hospital almost 25 years before.

The star-spangled banner, which I can now see whipping in the wind outside of an airport terminal where I am writing this from does not fill me with pride: it fills me with shame and that flag symbolizes sorrow and corruption to me right now. The flag represents so much lying, fixed elections, profiting by the war machine, high gas prices, spying on Americans, rapid erosion of our freedoms while BushCo literally gets away with murder, torture and extreme rendition, contaminating the world with depleted uranium, and illegal and immoral wars that are responsible for killing so many. A symbol which used to represent hope to so many around the world now fills so many with disgust.

When I look at that rectangular piece of cloth that has red and white stripes and white stars on a blue field, I wonder what the Iraqi people think when they see American tanks and other vehicles rumbling through their streets carrying doom with that symbol emblazoned upon them. Or, what could our flag possibly represent to them when their women are being raped and burned to conceal crimes and entire families are being killed by soldiers whose uniforms carry that symbol? I am sure that the flag symbolizes death and destruction to them which I hope they are not confusing with freedom and democracy.

I often get told that I should "love America, or leave it." This is ridiculous logic and empty rhetoric. I love the country that I was born in and I love Americans…I am an American and so are my children. Casey was born and died a fine American who was abused by the same leaders that are abusing the world as I type. I could leave if I wanted to and, in fact, have received many offers to be an ex-patriate in many friendly countries. However, I want to stay and fight for my country. I want my country and the flag that symbolizes it around the globe to stand for something that we can all be proud of again.

BushCo and the neocon regime embarked on this disastrous misadventure in Iraq to prove to the world how strong and virile Pax Americana is. Their abjectly failed mission, which was evil and corrupt from the beginning, has not proven how strong our nation is, but, on the contrary, how weak. However, the neocons have managed to prove, that how, with the "mightiest" war machine in the world an insurgency in a country smaller than the state of California can hold their false freedom and deadly democracy at bay. One other thing that the neocons have proven is that America is no longer the moral touchstone of the world but is a nation that commits torture and crimes against humanity with the presidential seal of approval. BushCo has destroyed any credibility our nation ever had in the world and all of us need to fight to regain it and thereby redeem our own souls.

I implore you, while you are enjoying your potato salad and fireworks on the 4th to reflect on what the star-spangled banner means to you. If our flag symbolizes the same thing to you as it does to the neocons, then by all means, enlist and go to Iraq to let some of our soldiers come home that are tired of suffering and committing war crimes for Halliburton, Dick and Donny.

If, however, you realize that the flag no longer waves "o'er the land of the free" and you would like it to again, we invite you to come out to Camp Casey this summer and help us fight for the heart and soul of our nation. If you realize that while you are "oohing and ahing" over the pretty fireworks in your home town that there are real bombs bursting on the people of Iraq, killing them and destroying their nation for no reason other than Dick Cheney wanted to, then you need to digest your 4th of July BBQ and get out and show Dicky and the world that we mean business when we say we want our troops to come home to save them and our brothers and sisters in Iraq.

Thousands of peace loving and war hating members of the human race from all over the world are planning on coming to Crawford, Tx to Camp Casey again this summer to stand, sit, or camp in the face of the neocon war machine and prove to the world that there are Americans who will courageously speak for the people of Iraq and our soldiers who have no voices but who just want to be left in peace.

Come to Camp Casey.

We have room for everyone and everyone is welcome.

Starving for Attention by Cindy Sheehan

Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjiman, center, sits with Cindy Sheehan, center right, and others who are taking part in the 'Bring the Troops Home Fast' hunger strike at Layafette Park in front of the White House, Tuesday, July 4, 2006, in Washington.(AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson)

Starving for Attention
    Troops Home Fast: Day One
    By Cindy Sheehan
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective

    Wednesday 05 July 2006

    It is midnight of the 5th of July and 24 hours since thousands of us began the Troops Home Fast.

    Some of us will be fasting completely until the troops come home; some will be on liquids only until the troops come home; some will fast for 2 weeks, 2 days; or like me, until at least September 21st.

    Hundreds of peace-loving and dedicated people joined us organizers of the fast outside the White House during the past two eventful and event-filled days. The Granny Peace Brigade walked from NYC to DC in solidarity with the fast and with the people of Iraq and Afghanistan and our soldiers who are suffering so profoundly under the US-led occupations.

    People joined us from as far away as Texas and California in person, and thousands were with us in spirit from all over the world. We are starting a historic and very meaningful action. We were honored by being joined by legendary fasters Dick Gregory and Diane Wilson and historic whistle blower and patriotic giant Daniel Ellsberg.

    Standing apart from our hundreds of supporters were about a dozen Freepers who were holding various signs (which is as much their right as it is ours) with very "clever" messages on them. A few of the signs had the very pithy "Freedom Isn't Free." Well, I'm sorry, but the very definition of freedom is that it is free. Freedom is a birthright of every American, and we have the Bill of Rights to prove it. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that our young people have to fight insane wars for greedy swine to earn anyone any kind of freedoms. If freedom wasn't free it would be called "expensivedom."

    I was particularly impressed by a very slick and professionally made sign that the Freepers had. It was a large pinkish sign with white letters that read: Cindy Sheehan is Starving for Attention."

    Yes, that is why I am embarking on this fast. It is not because our nation with the complacent, if not intellectual, approval of most of our citizens is waging a war crime of mammoth proportions in Iraq. It's not because our soldiers are committing atrocities on an innocent population who never asked for our lethal interference. I am not fasting because our soldiers should not be dying or killing for Exxon and Halliburton. I am not sitting here with mild hunger pangs because our leadership condones and orders others to commit cruelties on my fellow human beings in such brutal places as Guantanamo. I am not fasting because the wrongfully, illegally, and immorally detained men in Guantanamo are going on their own hunger strikes and committing suicide to call attention to the fact that they are human beings who do not deserve to be tortured and tormented. I am not fasting so no other mother has to drop to her knees screaming in agony because her child is dead for nothing.

    On the contrary, I get plenty of attention and our troops are still in Iraq. I am doing it precisely for all of the reasons above. Maybe people have to ascribe nefarious motivations to our actions because they can't conceive of leaving their comfort zones for another member of humanity.

    The people of Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering so miserably. Our soldiers want to come home. Our country wants them to come home. The world wants them to come home. The people of Iraq want our soldiers to leave. Generals are recommending time tables. We fasters figure that we can sacrifice something in solidarity with the suffering in the Middle East. What we are giving up is so insignificant compared to what our soldiers and the people they are oppressing are giving up. It's about time BushCo recognizes that staying a reckless and murderous course is inherently disordered and they should turn around and order our troops to come home.

    I encourage everyone in America to move away from the comfortable complacency that allows BushCo to kill people with impunity. If we don't stand up and speak out against their offenses and for accountability, the crimes will continue even into the next administration, whichever party is in power.

    How can we not fast, or march, or write, or speak, or rally, or go to Camp Casey, or sacrifice something, anything, when the people of Iraq - and many of our soldiers - don't even have enough food to eat or clean water to drink? How can we numbly go shopping for groceries when unsuspecting and undeserving people in Iraq are being killed when simply going to the market to buy food for their families?

    We have to fast.

    Reflect and ask yourself: Why aren't I?

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan (L) prays with former U.S. Army Sgt. Geoffrey Millard during an event in front of the White House in Washington July 3, 2006. (Molly Riley/Reuters)

Comedian and anti-war activist Dick Gregory speaks during a news conference in front of the White House in Washington July 3, 2006. Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan and 'CODEPINK' launched 'Troops Home Fast,' on Monday, a hunger strike to protest the war in Iraq. REUTERS/Molly Riley (UNITED STATES)