The Slide
\nCindy Sheehan<\/p>\n
Day 11 of our Journey for Humanity and Accountability
\nfound our caravan group at the Charlottesville, VA
\nhome of David Swanson who is director of
\nAfterDowningStreet.org. I got to know David after my
\ngroup Gold Star Families for Peace became one of the
\nfirst organizations to sign on to ADS when the memos
\nwere exposed on May 1, 2005. That collaboration led to
\nwhat I thought was going to be the downfall of BushCo:
\nthe fact that on July 23, 2001, there was a secret
\nmeeting at 10 Downing Street that pretty much said
\nthat the invasion of Iraq was a foregone conclusion
\nand the intelligence was going to have to be \u201cfixed\u201d
\naround the policy of pre-emptive invasion.<\/p>\n
Since that time I have gotten to know David\u2019s mom and
\ndad, his wife Anna, and I consider their 15-month-old
\nson, Wesley, as my nephew. The last time I had seen
\nWesley was at the Mother of a March on May 14th where
\n38 of us were arrested blocking traffic in front of
\nCongress. Wesley had just started to walk.<\/p>\n
Like a good Auntie, I stopped on the way to the
\nSwanson home to buy Wes some toys. I had a grand time
\nplaying with them with Wesley. The innocence and pure
\njoy in a baby\u2019s face always gives me hope that God
\nwill smile kindly on the world and even after all the
\nwars, violence, destruction of the environment, the
\nBush Regime and other problems, that we will find some
\nway to go on.<\/p>\n
After a wonderful lunch (along with all of David\u2019s
\nother talents, he is also a very good cook) and team
\nmeetings for our action on July 23rd, I went
\ndownstairs to take a short nap. I passed Reverend
\nYearwood who was busy writing his speech for the
\nupcoming rally on the mall (in Charlottesville later
\nthat evening) and I lied down and looked into the next
\nroom and there was a wooden slide for a toddler. It
\nwas the exact same kind of slide that Casey received
\nfrom \u201cSanta\u201d at his 2nd Christmas. I broke down in
\ntears. It is so hard.<\/p>\n
Like Wesley, Casey was such a good baby. Like most
\nbabies, he was adored. He was so good natured and was
\nfilled with wonder at every new thing he discovered
\nand I can still here his sweet little voice say \u201cwook,
\nMama\u201d when he had something interesting in his little
\nchubby hand and wanted to share it with me. When he
\ngot a little older he would frequently come up behind
\nme and throw his arms around my legs, kiss me and say:
\n\u201cI wuv you, Mama.\u201d I can still hear his voice and will
\nnever forget the last time I talked to him when he was
\nin Kuwait getting ready to deploy to Iraq: \u201cI love
\nyou, Mom.\u201d He was dead not even two weeks after I
\ntalked to him. Shot in the back of the head by an
\ninsurgent\u2019s bullet. Sent to die by the lies of his
\nCommander in Chief.<\/p>\n
All sides of the political often accuse me of being
\n\u201cemotional\u201d in my activism or politics—well, they
\nare damn right, I am emotional. I will never stop
\nbeing emotional. For the rest of my life I will be
\nspending sleepless nights missing Casey, fondly
\nrecalling a life where he always gave the gift of
\nhimself, to his senseless death where his life was
\nstolen by a greedy executive branch aided and abetted
\nby a spineless Congress.<\/p>\n
BushCo have committed many impeachable offenses, what
\nI would call \u201cgrave, grave breeches,\u201d but the two best
\nreasons I can think of for impeaching them now are:
\nCasey and Wesley.<\/p>\n
Casey and the hundreds of thousands of others who have
\nbeen killed in the criminal invasion and occupation of
\nIraq deserve some kind of justice, as do all murder
\nvictims. There was no legal, moral, urgent or
\nstrategic reason for Iraq. For once in our nation\u2019s
\nlong history of state-sponsored violence, someone with
\na rank higher than Specialist must be held accountable
\nfor crimes against peace and humanity. Impeachment
\nwon\u2019t cure the disease of war, we have a long way to
\ngo before we can mortally wound the war monster, but
\nit will have a curative short-term effect.<\/p>\n
For Wesley and all of our young people who were born
\ninto a bloody society that still uses war to solve
\nproblems, impeachment is necessary to prevent such
\negregious abuses of executive power in the future. No
\none was held accountable for the tragic loss of life
\nor held responsible for the lies of the horrible
\nmistake in Vietnam, and my son, Casey died in another
\nhorrible mistake of a war.<\/p>\n
It is time to stop it now: If not now, then when? When
\nWesley\u2019s generation is mired in another man-made
\nmistake of a war?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s time to show courage of conviction and put
\nhumanity before politics.<\/p>\n
Please go to www.thecampcaseypeaceinstitute.org<\/a> to Call Nancy Pelosi\u2019s office (202-225-4965) on Monday, Call John Conyer\u2019s office (202-225-5126) on Monday, The Slide Cindy Sheehan Day 11 of our Journey for Humanity and Accountability found our caravan group at the Charlottesville, VA home of David Swanson who is director of AfterDowningStreet.org. I got to know David after my group Gold Star Families for Peace became one of the first organizations to sign on to ADS when… Continue reading The Slide by Cindy Sheehan<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/traprock_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/traprock_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/traprock_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/traprock_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/traprock_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/traprock_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122,"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/traprock_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions\/122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/traprock_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/traprock_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/traprock_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nfind out more info about our Journey, or to donate.<\/p>\n
\nJuly 23, 2007 to tell her you want impeachment back on
\nthe table.<\/p>\n
\nJuly 23, 2007 to remind him that 15 Congress Reps
\nsupport HRes 333 to impeach Dick Cheney—so he can
\nget started.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"