Cindy Sheehan

“Peace Mom” Cindy Sheehan to Speak at Central Connecticut State University, November 16, 2009

Her Protests Galvanized National Attention to the Human Cost of the War in Iraq

November 11, 2009 (New Britain, CT)--Cindy Sheehan is an internationally known peace and social justice advocate whose son, Army Specialist Casey A. Sheehan, was killed in action in Sadr City, Baghdad, on April 4, 2004. Sheehan is founder of Gold Star Families for Peace, an organization of Americans who have had loved ones killed in wars. As an act of protest against the war, in August 2005 Cindy took a stand outside of George Bush's home in Crawford, Texas asking what noble cause her son died for; this began the “Camp Casey” peace movement. Sheehan will be at Central Connecticut State University on Monday, November 16, to give two presentations. The events are free and open to the public. Campus map and directions available at www.ccsu.edu/visit. More below the fold.

Barack Obama DOES NOT Speak For Me
By Cindy Sheehan | Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox

I was facilitating a meeting in Washington, DC this past weekend, and an Iraq “War” veteran claimed that the GI resistance movement ended the Vietnam War. I started to say that I was sure that the GI movement was a part of ending the Vietnam War as was the draft, the student movement, the Congress (that had some influence back then), and I was interrupted by the rep from Veterans for Peace who simply said: “actually it was the Vietnamese people who ended that war.”

That’s the plain truth after millions dead/wounded, the Vietnamese people succeeded in vanquishing the U.S.

Today, I recalled that meeting as a couple of very insidious things crossed my path, or caught my eye.

The first thing was an article in the rag called the Washington Post about the attack at Ft. Hood and the alleged suspect, Nidal Hasan and how there is an increasing pattern of soldiers targeting other soldiers. The WaPo editors filtered the article through the Propaganda Wing of the Pentagon and came up with the title: “Fort Hood attack is 3rd this year by antiwar radicals targeting military on U.S. soil.” I think the message is clear: “anti-war=terrorism.”

Call me cynical, (I haven’t always been this way, but I stood up a new person after I fell on the floor screaming my heart out when I found out that Casey was killed in Iraq), but I feel the next item that I would like to point out on this Friday the 13th, is something the Commander in Chief promised the troops when he stopped in Anchorage, AK to refuel Air Force One on his way to Japan, and something that I think is connected to the increasing war path rhetoric.

He actually told the men and women assembled at Elmendorf Air Force Base that if he decides to “not hesitate…to use force to protect America’s vital interests (not defined in the speech)” then he promised, promised, promised (like he promised to close Gitmo within the year and bring one combat brigade per month home from Iraq) to: Read more.

What: End the Fed Rally

When: Sunday, November 22, 2009, 1-4 PM

Where: Charlotte Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank, 530 E Trade St Charlotte, NC 28202

Where Have all the Flowers Gone?
By Cindy Sheehan | Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox

Watching Obama salute a coffin at Dover Air Force Base with all the pomp and circumstance of US Military worship filled me with disgust and sorrow.

Disgust because the White House PR apparatus went into full swing to find a family that would allow their loved ones’ coffin to be photographed in a scene that reminded me of George Bush’s landing on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier on May 2, 2003 wearing a pilot’s suit and a codpiece.

Why did Obama do this? To soften the blow, of sending more troops, for a gullible public that wants to believe someone like Obama could give a crap about the cannon fodder he condemns to pointless death?

Being the Commander in Chief of the United States Military has only meant one thing for the past sixty years or so: being the tool of the War Machine. And even though a tool has no say in whether it is used to build or destroy, did Obama have no shame when he went to salute the coffin of a young person that he (the buck stops here) killed? Does he not have the courage to sign the orders to start withdrawing our troops from these wars that were begun by the War Machine when his predecessor was in office, but roll bloodily on while he wears the imperial mantle of carnage? Read more.

This upcoming Sunday (October 25, 2PM Pacific on the website or 3PM Central at 1360am Rational Radio, Dallas, Tx), Professor Noam Chomsky will be on the Soapbox.

This is your chance to ask the author of Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez' favorite book, Hegemony or Survival (I like it too!) the question you've always wanted to ask the good Professor.

Please submit your questions (with your name and city) to: Cindy@CindySheehansSoapbox.com

I will do my best to ask Professor Chomsky as many of your questions as I can! Read more.

Symbolic Actions don't Solve Real Problems
My Speech at anti-war Rally in San Francisco
By Cindy Sheehan | Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox

It’s nice to see everybody here today as we are about to embark on another symbolic march to nowhere.

How many self-congratulatory miles do you think we’ve marched for peace in the last 45 years? Millions?

How many petitions do you think we’ve signed and delivered? Millions?

How many phone calls have we made to our elected representative? Billions?

How many War Party Politicians like Nancy Pelosi do we continually elect to office? Thousands?

Why do we consistently and constantly perform these symbolic actions, when millions of people are not symbolically dying?

When millions of people are not symbolically losing their homes, their jobs and being poisoned by the War Machine, why are only symbolic actions undertaken?

Trust me, our symbolic actions have absolutely zero affect on real problems.

Have our actions over the years diminished the War Machine by one iota? Hell no, as a matter of fact, The Empire counts on us to keep our actions symbolic, because our symbolic actions actually strengthen The Empire.

Why? Read more.

Capitalism: An Apathy Story
By Cindy Sheehan

This Thursday, in a move that would make Baron von Louis Rothschild blush with shame (or burst with pride), Goldman Sachs will announce that it is more than doubling its bonus pool: from 11 billion in 2007 to 23 billion in 2008.

I always thought the concept of the “Welfare Queen” was eliminated during the Clinton Regime (where his SecTreas was a former chair of G S) however, Goldman Sachs has received billions of dollars in taxpayer welfare and supposedly paid that back, except for the 13 billion that was funneled through AIG to Goldman through loan guarantees.

Well, wouldn’t it be hunky dory if every loan we consumers took out from these banksters came with a guarantee that if we failed, our government would pay our loans off?

What Does Peace Mean?
By Cindy Sheehan

I guess to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee it means presiding over the further destruction of the population of three countries that didn’t harm anyone.

I guess it means voting for every war-funding bill while one is a Senator.

I guess it means continuing the use of the obscene and immoral drones.

I guess it means continuing torture and building larger prisons to pre-emptively and indefinitely detain suspected “terrorists.”

I guess it means using the politics of fear to justify your wars. “Afghanistan is a war of necessity.” “There are still people in the world who want to hurt Americans.”

I guess it means increasing your military budget.

I guess it means paying back your donors on Wall Street and in the insurance companies to profoundly harm people in your own country.

I guess it means hiring hostile people like Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, Stanley McChrystal and Petraeus.

I guess it means extending the damaging embargo on Cuba and threatening “crippling economic sanctions” for Iran.

I guess since the committee awarded the prize to Jimmy Carter who gave rise to the Taliban and al Qaeda in Iran giving billions to those who fought against the USSR (talk about Blowback), it tells the people of Afghanistan if you are killed, we will give your killer the Nobel Peace Prize.

Jesus Christ, why didn’t they just give it to George Bush?

The US Peace Movement was put on life support with the election of Democrats. I hope now that we have a president who is just a tool of the war machine AND a Nobel Peace Laureate that it hasn’t put the final nail in the coffin of the Peace Movement.

Peace to us means, not just an absence of war but, an absence of preparing for war.

Peace to us means that innocent people won’t suffer for profit.

I guess to the Establishment: War is Peace.

By Cindy Sheehan

"You gotta make me do it."
Barack Obama

I had just walked back into my hotel room yesterday after chaining myself to the White House fence and being arrested, when I saw White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, say that removing troops from Afghanistan was "not an option."

Hundreds of us were out in front of the White House as this nation is heading into the 9th year of what is the longest overt military misadventure, next to Vietnam.

Sixty-one other people were arrested with me. Organizations calling for the end to torture and for single-payer Medicare for all were in attendance, along with Vet groups and other pro-peace organizations and leaders.

September 30, 2009

President Obama,

I know that you are only fulfilling your campaign promises to increase the violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan and I notice that not a significant amount of troops have been withdrawn from Iraq. However, even with your hostile rhetoric and promises to escalate the violence, many people voted for you because they believed you were the peace candidate.

Since the election, you have betrayed the progressive base that gave you victory on many occasions already, but the cause that keeps many of us motivated is the continued carnage in the Middle East. What bothers me even more, especially, is the fact that the so-called anti-war movement has given you a nine-month free pass and thousands of people have died, including hundreds of our own troops.

Since you took office, 125 of our irreplaceable young have been killed in what you called a “dumb war” in Iraq and 223 in what I call the "other dumb war,” Afghanistan. I have been waiting for a mother of one of those needlessly killed troops to demand a meeting with you to ask you: for “What Noble Cause?” her child was sacrificed. Read more.

Combat “Enablers:” PLEASE DON’T GO! Open Letter to the “Troops”
By Cindy Sheehan, Gold Star Mom | Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox

Dear Combat “Enablers and other Troops,

I read an article in the Army Times recently that said 3000 more troops will be deployed to Afghanistan and 1000 more to Iraq.

“The troops are what the military calls “combat enablers” — noncombat troops who specialize in areas such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; explosives ordnance disposal; medical and mental health; and personnel administration. They will deploy in team-sized elements as opposed to larger units,” according to the article.

This follows close on the heels of Admiral Michael Mullen (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) going before the Senate September 15th to ask for more troops and Stanley “the Goon” McChrystal, (death squad leader and commander in Afghanistan) is expected to request more troops soon in his much awaited assessment of the mess, which will be hereafter be called: "assess-mess" to save time.

Since the Democratic Congress has already appropriated an additional 100 billion dollars and , because their leader has called Afghanistan a “war of necessity,” the followers of your Commander in Chief have stood down in the anti-war arena so I can only regretfully and gloomily predict more future disaster and body bags in the Middle East.

As a mother who had a son killed in Iraq, this is my personal message to you: Read more.

Cindy Sheehan (Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox) wrote to update us on the International People's Declaration of Peace (IPDoP):

• This is the final version of IPDoP...the committee sent it out for translation services today!
• We are working on website and an online petition to sign after the translations are complete, it is not ready to be signed yet.
• We are also working on an archival quality hard copy document to be taken all over the world for signatures of leading peace proponents.
• We are also working on accompanying articles for the Declaration.
• We still need commitments for free or very low cost translation services into: French, Japanese, Arabic, Bengali, and Chinese

International People's Declaration of Peace

PREAMBLE

We the undersigned, as responsible citizens of this planet, hereby proclaim the urgent universal need for sustained security through peace, for present and future generations of the human family.

Nothing Short of Peace on Earth
By Cindy Sheehan | Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox

Readers: Can you translate: Arabic, Hindi, Portuguese, Japanese, or Bengal? Please read on...

At one of my many events in Kentucky this past week at a delightfully named coffee and beer hangout in Louisville, Ray’s Monkey House, a lovely woman named Trudie came up to me with tears in her eyes and she told me: “Cindy, when you were in Crawford that summer, I thought to myself, ‘this is the beginning of the end of war.’ It might take time, and it might not happen in our lifetimes, but what you started to honor your son will end war.”

If only. If only, we the people could finally realize that it is not up to our governments to end war. Our governments and the War Machine are locked in a violently greedy mutual stranglehold and could not care less about our opinions or our children.

In my opinion, our struggles are in vain when we try to organize each other and ourselves to go begging the Robber Class to reform itself. It’s not ever going to happen. Throughout history we have repeatedly and to no avail, begged for our few crumbs of prosperity and peace and look where it has gotten us…in the midst of an economic depression that is further fueled by the blood of our troops and the blood of strangers thousands of miles away.

The Capitalist system of military conquest to perpetuate itself will never go without a fight. So, we need to forget about our governments and their masters, we need to reach out to each other to make firm promises that we will never allow our governments to use us as weapons of mass destruction to kill or oppress each other again.

That is why I am working so hard on the International People’s Declaration of Peace (IPDoP). It proclaims our essential and intrinsic values as human beings and our basic human right to not be subjected to state sanctioned violence. Read more.

9-11 and Oil
By Cindy Sheehan | Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox

Friday was the 8th anniversary since the tragedies of 9-11 and before I go forward, I want to extend my heartfelt sympathies to the families of the people who were killed that day, but to also recognize that everyone in this country has suffered whether they know it or not.

On that sunny and bright morning, 8 years ago, I awoke from my sleep to learn that the first plane had hit the first tower. As the events of the day unfolded, I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that this event would somehow lead to the death of my oldest child Casey, who was in the Army stationed at Ft. Hood, Tx. I went into a tailspin of depression that didn’t break until I fell on the floor screaming after I found out he was killed in Iraq on 04/04/04. I wasn’t depressed anymore I was in a pain-soaked, white-hot rage.

9-11 was, of course, the defining moment of this generation. Of course, whether it was an inside job: evil Dick Cheney planning it between heart attacks in his bunker; to the “official story” (yeah, right!); the attacks were exploited to lead to, among other things: get our country militarily mired into three countries by now; torture; Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and rendition (began under the Clinton admin); USA PATRIOT ACT; military commissions act; lack of personnel and equipment to help the victims of Katrina in her aftermath; crumbling infrastructure here in America; collapsing economy; the FISA Modernization Act, etc, etc.

Keep the Change!
By Cindy Sheehan | CindySheehan'sSoapbox

“If George Bush was/is a war criminal; then Obama is a war criminal. If Obama is not, then Bush is not. We the people cannot have it both ways.” Cindy Sheehan, Martha’s Vineyard
Cindy Sheehan

Through many difficulties we faced on Martha’s Vineyard, (the sad passing of Senator Kennedy, Tropical Storm Danny---and even getting my wallet stolen) last week, a hearty band of about a two dozen of us, from off the island and on, tried our damndest to revive some kind of anti-war sentiment in this nation.

The media wanted to make it a story about the media: about how Crawford was such a big story and how Martha’s Vineyard is not. I don’t think that was the story, though.

Even though, we received endorsements from three of the most effective national anti-war groups; Veterans for Peace, Iraq Vets Against the War and World Can’t Wait and about a dozen others from smaller groups, but the large groups that supported the anti-Bush, anti-war message of the Camp Casey in Crawford were MIA physically and spiritually from the actions in Martha’s Vineyard. Read more.

From Crawford to Chilmark, A Mother Protests for Peace | CindySheehansSoapbox.com
By Megan Dooley | Vineyard Gazette Online

Three American soldiers were killed in combat in the Middle East during the week that President Obama spent vacationing on the Vineyard. Three more mothers lost their children, a sacrifice with which Cindy Sheehan is all too familiar. In 2004, her elder son Casey, then 24 years old, became one more casualty in a war she considers “a hopeless cause,” and “destined for ruin or disaster.”

Last week, Ms. Sheehan called her own troops, a collection of anti-war activists drawn from around the country, to the Vineyard to serve as reminders that the loss of life is ongoing, and to breathe life back into a movement that she has seen all but evaporate in the wake of a new presidential administration.

“It seems that the anti-war movement has disappeared from the face of the earth,” said Ms. Sheehan in an interview Saturday morning. “There’s no protest, [and] there’s very little opposition to Obama and the foreign policy right now.”

Still, she refuses to abandon her mission. “President Obama is here, and I’m still opposed to the policies that he’s carrying out and escalating from the Bush administration,” she said. To those who consider it inappropriate to intrude on the President’s personal vacation, she responded: “When you have troops committed, tens of thousands of troops committed . . . it’s not appropriate to have a lavish vacation.”

Ms. Sheehan staged similar protests during George W. Bush’s presidential vacations, camping out with other protestors outside of his ranch in Crawford, Tex. She doesn’t see why she should not hold President Obama to the same standard. “[People opposed to this week’s protests] are mostly people who didn’t say that when I was harassing George Bush on his vacation.” Read more.

Sheehan returns to rebuke Obama | Agence France -Presse (AFP) (Where's American Media?) via Google News -

Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts - After spending weeks dogging George W. Bush's presidential vacations, anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan is now trying to make life uncomfortable for President Barack Obama.

Sheehan used to pitch a peace camp near Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, becoming a symbol of the anti-war movement after her son Casey died in action in Iraq.

On Thursday, she and a band of anti-war protesters turned up outside the media center used by journalists covering Obama's vacation on the well-heeled east coast resort island of Martha's Vineyard.

"The reason I am here is because ... even though the facade has changed in Washington DC, the policies are still the same," Sheehan told a handful of journalists, against a backdrop of her "Camp Casey" banner.

She told US peace activists to wake up and protest Obama's escalation of the war in Afghanistan, and complained that despite the president's anti-war stance, US troops remained in Iraq.

"We have to realize, it is not the president who is power, it is not the party that is in power it is the system that stays the same, no matter who is in charge."

"We are here to make the wars unpopular again," she said. Read more.

Cindy Sheehan's Lonely Vigil in Obamaland
By John V. Walsh | Counter Punch

The bottom line is that everyone in New England and NYC who is a genuine antiwarrior should join the imaginative effort of Cindy Sheehan in Obamaland this week and weekend. We owe it to the many who will otherwise perish at the hands of the war parties of Bush and Obama.

Cindy Sheehan will be at Martha’s Vineyard beginning August 25 a short way from Obama’s vacation paradise of the celebrity elite but very far from the Afghanistan and Pakistan and Iraq where the body bags and cemeteries fill up each day as Obama’s wars rage on. She will remain there from August 25 through August 29 and has issued a call for all peace activists to join her there. For those of us close by in the New England states and in New York City, there would seem to be a special obligation to get to Martha’s Vineyard as soon as we can.

A funny thing has happened on Cindy Sheehan’s long road from Crawford, Texas, to Martha’s Vineyard. Many of those who claim to lead the peace movement and who so volubly praised her actions in Crawford, TX, are not to be seen. Nor heard. The silence in fact is deafening, or as Cindy put it in an email to this writer, “crashingly deafening.”

Where are the email appeals to join Cindy from The Nation or from AFSC or Peace Action or “Progressive” Democrats of America (PDA) or even Code Pink? Or United for Peace and Justice. (No wonder UFPJ is essentially closing shop, bereft of most of their contributions and shriveling up following the thinly veiled protest behind the “retirement” of Leslie Cagan.) And what about MoveOn although it was long ago thoroughly discredited as principled opponents of war or principled in any way shape or form except slavish loyalty to the “other” War Party. And of course sundry “socialist” organizations are also missing in action since their particular dogma will not be front and center. These worthies and many others have vanished into the fog of Obama’s wars.

Just to be sure, this writer contacted several of the “leaders” of the “official” peace movement in the Boston area – AFSC, Peace Action, Green Party of MA (aka Green Rainbow Party) and some others. Not so much as the courtesy of a reply resulted from this effort - although the GRP at least posted a notice of the action. (It is entirely possible that some of these organizations might mention Cindy’s action late enough and quickly enough so as to cover their derrieres while ensuring that Obama will not be embarrassed by protesting crowds.) We here in the vicinity of Beantown are but a hop, skip and cheap ferry ride from Martha’s Vineyard. Same for NYC. So we have a special obligation to respond to Cindy’s call. Read more.

Cindy Sheehan hopes to make peaceful splash
By Julia Rappaport | Boston Herald

Rabble rouser and peacenik Cindy Sheehan is jumping on the Obama vacation bandwagon. The activist, who made headlines when she protested in Crawford, Texas, during former President George W. Bush’s month-long vacation there in 2005, landed on the Vineyard last night to spread her anti-war message to Obama and the media.

Reached by phone from a Boston hotel as she prepped for her trek to the island, Sheehan said it doesn’t matter who’s in the White House - she’s not going anywhere. “First of all, I oppose the policies of the U.S. government in the Middle East. I have since before my son was killed,” said Sheehan, who lost her son in the Iraq war in 2004. “I opposed it when Bush was president and I oppose it now when Obama’s president.”

Sheehan, who has never been to the Vineyard before, said she is interrupting her own vacation for the trip, which will include press conferences, peace vigils and sailing excursions on what she’s dubbed, “SS Camp Casey.” Sheehan just came off a four-month, 36-city book tour for her 100-page “Myth America” and had intended to take all of August off. “But I decided that this would be a very good way to cut my vacation short,” she said. “To demonstrate to the world that there are still people in America who care about peace.” Read more.

"My vote against this misbegotten war (Iraq) is the best vote I have cast in the United States Senate since I was elected in 1962."
-- Senator Ted Kennedy

Cindy Sheehan:

I would like to extend my sincere condolences to the Kennedy family and the people of Massachusetts on the death of Senator Edward Kennedy.

I was invited to visit with the Senator in September of 2005 right after my first foray into presidential vacation adventures. I walked into an office on Capitol Hill that was a mini American History Museum. The Senator displayed his own art, memorabilia from the Kennedy family and even framed child's artwork from his children and various nieces and nephews.

Gathered around a large marble fireplace (unlit in the September Washington DC heat) and surrounded by his Portuguese Water dogs, we talked about loss and war and peace.

[While Bush has not met with Cindy Sheehan yet and Tony Blair has not sat down with Rose Gentle who also lost her son in Iraq, the new guy Gordon Brown has met with Gentle, suggesting a possibility for Obama: meet with Cindy Sheehan as Bush never did. -- DS]

Anti-Iraq war campaigner Rose Gentle meets Prime Minister
The Daily Record, Aug 21 2009

A GLASGOW mother who campaigned against the war in Iraq after her soldier son was killed met Prime Minister Gordon Brown today.

Rose Gentle, whose 19-year-old son Gordon of the 1st Battalion Royal Highland Fusiliers was killed by a roadside bomb in Basra in June 2004, had a private meeting with Mr Brown at an undisclosed location in Fife.

She later said the hour-long meeting had been "calm" and gone well.

By Cindy Sheehan

"And you look at somebody like that (note: me) and you think here's somebody who's just trying to find some meaning in her son's death. And you have to be sympathetic to her. Anybody who has given a son to this country has made an enormous sacrifice, and you have to be sympathetic. But enough already."
ABC Nightly News Anchor, Charles Gibson August 18, 2009

"Enough already?" Hmmm…I don't know Charlie Gibson and I don't pay any attention to his career, but I seem to agree with him on this one: "Enough already."

Enough with the killing, torturing, wounding and profiting off of the backs of our troops and off of the lives of the people of Iraq-Af-Pak: as our brothers and sisters in Latin America say: "Basta!"

Somehow, I don't think that this is what Charlie Gibson meant, though. I am sure that he just wants me to go away like most of the rest of the anti-war movement has done under the Obama presidency.

The President Exhibits Crazy Speech Patterns
By Cindy Sheehan | Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox

Please join us on Martha's Vineyard from August 26th-30th to demonstrate to the world that there are still some people here in America who want peace no matter who's inhabits the Oval Office.

As I listened to clips of Obama's speech to the VFW on August 17th, 2009, I was wondering if his speechwriters were on vacation and they just recycled an old Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice speech.

While the so-called left is focused on the health care debacle and is allowing the so-called right to define the debate when it should be: Medicare for all, and all for Medicare; Obama and his neocon foreign policy team are preparing for a decades long, bloody foray in Af-Pak.

As Yael T. Abouhalkah, an editorial writer for the Kansas City Star, put it:

"Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union," by David Swanson is due in stores September 1st, but the publisher has it now and you can get it straight from Seven Stories Press.

August 16, 2009

For immediate release:

Next week, Cindy Sheehan will join other like-minded peace activists to have a presence near the expensive resort on Martha's Vineyard where President Obama will be vacationing the week of August 23-30.

From her home in California, Ms. Sheehan released this statement:

"There are several things that we wish to accomplish with this protest on Martha's Vineyard.

"First of all, no good social or economic change will come about with the continuation or escalation of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. We simply can't afford to continue this tragically expensive foreign policy.

"Secondly, we as a movement need to continue calling for an immediate end to the occupations even when there is a Democrat in the Oval Office. There is still no Noble Cause no matter how we examine the policies.

By Cindy Sheehan

So much has happened in the last four years since about seven dozen of us marched down Prairie Chapel Road on August 05, 2005, in Crawford, Tx to confront the now disgraced President George W. Bush!

Our little protest of a few people grew to tens of thousands of people all over the world who resonated with my simple question: “What Noble Cause?” What was a little spark on a hot and dusty small road in Texas turned into a blazing inferno of peace and justice that I never even imagined would happen. From Camp Casey to Peace has been a long road, but after much toil, we have finally arrived.

During that summer in August of 2005 of sweltering in constant 100+ degree-days (and nights), our country also experienced the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina and with our protest on the literal doorstep of the Idiot Emperor, George Bush, his regime was killed by his inept handling of both situations.

Prairie Chapel Road - Four Years Later
By Amy Branham

Tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of the day Cindy Sheehan, Dede Miller and I led the march in the bar ditches to former President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas to ask "What Noble Cause?" We had our faces and stories splashed all over the news that weekend and for weeks and weeks, thanks to the perfect storm created by the mothers of dead soldiers coming to face off with the President and a very, very bored bunch of media sitting and waiting in Crawford, Texas for something, anything to happen.

We walked in that ditch for maybe a mile in the hot August Texas sun and heat, leading a hundred or so of our dearest friends from across Texas who answered the call when they got it. Among us were veterans from across the country who were in Texas for the VFP convention in Dallas who caravanned with us to Crawford. We had Blue Star family members with us, the mothers, wives, sisters, and children of those on active duty in the military. We had people who were peace activists and we had just normal, ordinary people who wanted to lend their voice and support.

Most know what became, eventually, the story of Cindy Sheehan's stand against President Bush. What many of you don't know and haven't heard is the story of healing, peace and comfort I and thousands of others found out there on Prairie Chapel Road behind the scenes, away from the camera crews and media. Today, this is the story I want to tell you.