There Are Criminals, and Then There Are CRIMINALS by Cindy Sheehan

[Guest guest]

M

Fri, 10 Mar 2006 15:36:43 -0500

There Are Criminals, and Then There Are CRIMINALS by Cindy

Sheehan

 

 

 

I spoke with Cindy Sheehan just before she had to leave for medical

tests in the DC area. She was badly hurt, much worse than when she was

roughed up and jailed for wearing a t-shirt at the State of the Union.

I saw her just before and after that fiasco as well. She showed me her

bruises which hadn't fully healed before this latest brutality.

 

The violence against Cindy and others keeps escalating in parallel

with the violence against our freedom and our Constitution. Bush,

Cheney and the thugs working with them feel our pressure and they're

responding with even more cruelty. It won't work. It never does. The

more violent and irrational the criminals become, the more sleeping

Americans will wake up and say, " Not in our name! "

 

I met Iraqi women who say the same is happening in their country.

Under our flag and using our money, people who claim they protect us

and represent us are killing and terrorizing men, women, and children

in Iraq. Even as they're brutalizing peaceful people in the US. Not in

our name. Increasingly criminals in power are oppressing Iraqis and

Americans. These criminals won't stop on their own. We must make them

stop. Together, we will make them stop.

 

This is one of the defining moments in our history. Anyone who cares

at all about America and what our flag stands for must stand with us

and make the thugs stop. Anyone who won't join us in non-violent

adamant opposition against fascism and oppression - anyone who will

not support us in our struggle for freedom and democracy - should be

ashamed of themselves. Will the US be the US or will we become a

neo-con / theo-con fascist tyranny?

 

Any NSA spies or pro-Bush trolls reading this, tell your masters the

truth: Cindy is not intimidated and neither are the millions who agree

with her that this war is wrong. This occupation is wrong. She's still

the same ol' Cindy I met last year. She's hurt but she's still smiling

and joking. She's not going away. She's getting more support every day.

She is not afraid of you and neither am I. Feds tried to intimidate me

in early 2001, and do you think it worked? Hell no.

 

Hundreds of people marched from the Iraqi embassy to the White House

this week to deliver more than 100,000 Women Say No to War signatures.

We'll be back on the 14th to shame the Bush Regime about their plans

to evict Katrina survivors. Bush supporters understand this: You are

on the wrong side of history. You will lose this struggle. We the

people will not let you win.

 

-- Mike Hersh

 

 

 

_________

 

 

There Are Criminals, and Then There Are CRIMINALS

by Cindy Sheehan

 

As I lie here in bed recuperating from the injuries that I received

from a federal agent and the NYPD in front of the US Mission to the UN

(USUN) the other day, I have had time to reflect on the experience,

the state of our union and its descent into a fascist state.

 

When the four of us. Missy Beattie, Rev. Patricia Ackerman, Medea

Benjamin, and I, were arrested the other day, I was singled out for

federal police brutality. The other three ladies were picked up, not

gingerly, though, and I was dragged across the pavement and treated

very, very roughly—having both arms wrenched out from beneath me. I

looked to my doctor as if I had been beaten. My daughter, Janey, asked

if I had been resisting arrest, I told her if one considers going into

a fetal position and saying, " Please don't hurt me anymore! "

resisting, then I guess I was.

 

Why was I targeted for the abuse? Is it revenge for my work at

exposing the lies of BushCo, of which John Bolton is a leading

co-criminal? Or is it to discourage other activists from taking the

same path I have taken: demanding an end to the illegal and immoral

occupation of Iraq, and demanding that our freedoms be returned to us?

I wish the Senate had the courage to stand up to the fascists in our

government - or are the 90 who voted " Yea " to extend the Patriot Act

also co-slitherers into fascism?

 

Neocon John Bolton has had a long and checkered career of lying and

doing dirty work for the regime. In 1994 he harassed and terrified

whistle-blower Melody Townsel who worked for US AID. She urged the

Senate Foreign Relation Committee not to approve Bolton's nomination

and she wrote in a letter to them: " John Bolton put me through hell -

and he did everything he could to intimidate, malign and threaten not

just me, but anybody unwilling to go along with his version of events.

His behavior back in 1994 wasn't just unforgivable, it was pathological. "

 

Not only has John Bolton not been punished for this incident and other

involving harassment and abuse, he was rewarded with a recess

appointment to the UN when George Bush, again, circumvented our

political processes.

 

L. Paul Bremer slunk, under the cover of darkness, out of Iraq two

months after my son, Casey, was killed there with $8.8 BILLION missing

from the Coalition Provisional Authority. Has L. Paul been held

accountable for the missing money? No, as a matter of fact, he was

awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and is a highly paid speaker

on the rubber chickenhawk Republican circuit.

 

Such war profiteers as Halliburton are raping the American tax payer

of billions of dollars as a matter of company policy. A Halliburton

whistle blower accused the company of charging us $45.00 per case of

soda and ten thousand dollars a night to stay in Kuwait's finest

hotels. They charge immoral prices to feed our soldiers who often

complain of rotten food. Our young people even have to pay to have

their laundry done by these outrageous over-chargers. Have they been

punished or monetarily penalized for these crimes? No, as a matter of

fact, Halliburton gets awarded more no-bid contracts in America and

around the world.

 

A book could be written about the felonies of the Bush Crime Family

and their mafia-style buddies, but I am running out of space. George

Bush has committed crimes against humanity and high crimes and

misdemeanors in his tenure as (P)resident of the White House. Has he

been held accountable for any of this? No, he spends his nights and

days comfortable and content in the fact that he is a lame duck,

already rich, and knowing that Congress is spineless and he won't be

impeached for his transgressions that have caused the deaths of so

many thousands of people worldwide.

 

When we were in the cockroach and feces-decorated jail system in NYC

the other night, we met some other women who felt they had to resort

to crime to try to survive in BushWorld. We met intelligent young

women who felt their last resort was to resort to victimless crimes.

 

Now for their petty thefts, they will have to spend months in

institutions where they are stripped of any human dignity or comfort.

All of the women we met knew they broke the law and were resigned to

their punishment but where is the justice in our system where all

people are supposedly equal?

 

However, we four white, middle-class women were the lucky ones. We

only had to spend one night in jail and we knew our lawyers would be

there in the morning to spring us. When we were heading for court, we

walked by our sisters in the holding cell and our hearts sank, because

we know what it is like to spend even one night in jail. Our souls

also connected with our sisters and brothers all over the world who

are imprisoned in far worse conditions by the policies of BushCo and

are being inhumanely tortured by these same medieval and draconian

policies.

 

Even if John Bolton, L. Paul Bremer, George Bush, Halliburton execs,

etc. ad nauseum are ever punished, we all know the conditions won't be

(but should be) as harsh as those of the other people who live in

subhuman conditions because of them. These people operate on the

standard of having all the money and all the power and they don't care

for anyone who they victimize on their way to obtaining their obscene

and ill-gotten gains.

 

One of our so-called crimes in front of USUN was " Obstructing

Governmental Administration. " I say " Hell, yes! Anyone with a

conscience or any moral courage should be doing everything in his/her

power to obstruct the administration of the Bush government. Only

massive, peaceful, non-violent resistance to his calamitous policies

will be able to stem the dreadful tide!

 

That is why we need to stand up to the neo-fascists and take our

humanity back. While we are still able. I will stand up to them again

and again, I just hope next time that they drag me by my good arm!

 

 

 

__________________

 

 

 

 

Cindy Sheehan is the very proud mother of Casey Sheehan who was KIA in

the illegal and immoral occupation of Iraq. She is Founder and

President of Gold Star Families for Peace and author of Not One More

Mother's Child available at Koa Books. Cindy is above all the proud

mom of her surviving children: Carly, Andy, and Janey.

 

Mike Hersh

 

 

 

- The After Downing Street Coalition - http://www.afterdowningstreet.org

- Convict Bush and Cheney - http://www.convictbushcheney.org

- Support Cindy Sheehan - http://www.meetwithcindy.org/

- BushOccupation.com - http://www.bushoccupation.com