From Crawford to Chilmark, A Mother Protests for Peace

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.