Peace Blog Archive

Watch Cindy Sheehan – They Can’t Kill Love

The Yellow Badge of Cowardice
Cindy Sheehan

There was an unbelievable story in The Cove Herald last week that comes from near where George Bush and I own property: Copperas Cove, Texas. Apparently two residents: Bill and Georgia Thomas decided that the Resident in Chief deserved one of the three Purple Hearts that Bill earned in Vietnam for: “emotional wounds and scars” because people all over the world talk so badly about poor George.

This story stunned me on a day when nine US soldiers and 20 were wounded in a car bomb attack in the Iraqi province of Diyala. Over 500 Iraqis were killed or found decomposing in Baghdad last week and April ’07 is shaping up to be one of the deadliest months for US troop fatalities. This is also a day when there is a hearing into the Army’s exploitation of Pat Tillman’s death to use him as a poster boy for patriotic fervor and unfounded hero worship. Why can’t we talk about our soldier’s heroic lives and not their tragic deaths as victims of the military industrial complex. (more…)

Mass Murderers
Cindy Sheehan

“Humankind has not woven the web of life.
We are but one thread within it.
Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
All things are bound together.
All things connect.”
~Chief Seattle~1855

Last night, at the annual White House Correspondent’s Dinner, we did not get the usual “stellar” comedy performance from George Bush in deference to the Virginia Tech tragedy. Who can forget that “uproariously hilarious” bit he did looking for WMD under the couch in his office in 2004 shortly before my son was killed in Iraq by this joker in chief? How nice that George reined in his comedic impulses for the families and friends of the murdered VT students…because I can assure you, their families are finding nothing funny right now.

Troops dying unnecessarily every day in Iraq has not even slowed down this annual event with correspondents and George Bush has not found it in the slight bit crucial to temper his comedy routines in deference to the families that he has destroyed by his war for profit in Iraq . (more…)

“Why We Occupied Senator Herb Kohl’s Office — And Why This is Just the Beginning”
A statement from the Campus Antiwar Network at UW-Madison
http://www.campusantiwar.net/ * WisconsinCAN@gmail.com

On Wednesday, April 18, the Campus Antiwar Network at the University of Wisconsin-Madison led a walkout of approximately 200 students against the war. This walkout culminated in 100 antiwar activists entering the office of Senator Herb Kohl, with twenty-five staying the night and dozens more joining us in the morning before Senator Kohl’s staff had us evicted by the Madison Police Department and the Department of Homeland Security.

WHY WE OCCUPIED SENATOR KOHL’S OFFICE

The simplest reason: Senator Kohl (D – WI) says he’s against the war, but votes to fund the continuation of the war. Moreover, in a remarkable display of arrogance, Senator Kohl has refused to meet with the antiwar movement in his state during the entire four years of the war in Iraq. Thus, the vibrant antiwar community in Madison, including chapters of the Campus Antiwar Network and Iraq Veterans Against the War, the Madison Area Peace Coalition and the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice, has never been able to discuss our position with a senator who says he is on our side, but never votes that way.

We presented Senator Kohl’s office with six demands, and informed him that setting a definite date for a public meeting with him to discuss these demands would end our building occupation immediately. Ultimately, his office preferred to inflict the force of the police on us rather than the force of our arguments on the senator. (more…)

Below is coverage of UW-Madison CAN’s ongoing occupation of Senator Herb Kohl’s office. (Despite the abrupt ending of the first article, which doesn’t make this clear, we’re still in the office.) Other coverage has included Air America and local television and radio.

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field

http://www.dailycardinal.com/news/anti-war-network-sits-in-at-sen.-kohl-s-office-through-the-night.html

Anti-war network sits in at Sen. Kohl’s office through the night

Written by Erica Pelzek
Thursday, 19 April 2007

UW students stage walk out in protest of Iraq war

After walking out of their classes at 1 p.m. Wednesday in protest of the war in Iraq and rallying students down State Street, more than 40 members of UW-Madison’s Campus Anti-war Network staged an all-night sit-in at U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl’s, D-Wis., Madison office. (more…)

Sacrifice
Keynote Speech for the Omaha Peace and Justice Expo
Cindy Sheehan

If you have much, give of your wealth; if you have little, give of your heart.
Arabian Proverb

I recently discovered an incredible woman: Jeannette Rankin. She was the first Congress woman, in 1916…she was from the state of Montana and besides beginning the debate on the 19th Amendment to finally give women our long overdue right to vote, she was an uncompromising and sassy peace activist (like me) for her entire life. In her Congressional roles, she voted “Nay” on World War I and II. (more…)

by David Taylor

I was hoping to see someone else write a substantive post about yesterday’s action in Smithfield, North Carolina. Here I’ll share my experience/observations in lieu of a report from someone more intimate with the details. I think it’s important that awareness be raised on this issue for several reasons. First and foremost because torture is illegal and inhumane. Secondly because our Governor, to my knowledge, hasn’t taken any real steps to end the complicity of the state of North Carolina and county of Johnston with Aero Contractors by allowing the torture taxis to be based in Kinston and Smithfield apparently without question. Whatever good the CIA and AERO may have done is being overshadowed by a grievous series of events involving renditions and torture.

I got up early Monday to drive to Smithfield where I met with organizers and participants of a planned frontal approach to AERO CONTRACTORS who lease space at the Johnston County Airport. You may not know that 3 employees of AERO CONTRACTORS have been indicted by the government of GERMANY for their participation in the kidnapping and rendition of a German citizen, Khaled El-Masri. He is of Lebanese descent – not Iraqi, Iranian, Pakistani nor Afghani. Heck, he isn’t even Saudi like most of the folks who supposedly perpetrated the 911 attack on the WTC. (more…)