In Solidarity With Cindy Sheehan

By Bonnie Weinstein

These comments were delivered to the August 12, rally in support of Cindy Sheehan held in San Francisco, on behalf of Bay Area United Against War (www.bauaw.org).

Sheehan was introduced at a College Not Combat rally here at 16th & Mission Street as a Gold Star Mother for Peace who “lost her son in Iraq.” When she took the microphone she said she wanted to clarify something. She told the crowd that she only wished she had lost her son. Then she would be in Iraq right now looking for him in every nook and cranny. She said, “My son is not lost, he was murdered by this war!”

At an interfaith rally in Kentucky, Cindy was asked to respond to Bush who lamented about what “hard work” it was comforting the family of a soldier who’s been killed in Iraq. She said, “Hard work is seeing your son’s murder on CNN one Sunday evening while you’re enjoying the last supper you’ll ever truly enjoy again. Hard work is having three military officers come to your house a few hours later to confirm the aforementioned murder of your son, your first-born, your kind and gentle sweet baby. Hard work is burying your child 46 days before his 25th birthday. Hard work is holding your other three children as they lower the body of their big brother into the ground. Hard work is not jumping in the grave with him and having the earth cover you both.”

A recent Monthly Review article reports that at the annual Veterans for Peace convention in Dallas a couple of weeks ago Cindy said, “That lying bastard, George Bush, is taking a five-week vacation in time of war,” That’s when she announced she was going to Crawford, Texas to camp out. She said she would camp out until Bush, “tells me why my son died in Iraq?” She went on, “I’ve got the whole month of August off, and so does he.” Then she asked and answered her own rhetorical questions to Bush:

“Just what was the noble cause Casey died for? Was it freedom and democracy? Bullshit!…He died for oil. He died to make your friends richer. He died to expand American imperialism in the Middle East.”

She went on,

“We’re not freer here, thanks to your PATRIOT Act. Iraq is not free. You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you’ll stop the terrorism.”

Cindy Sheehan is a woman of wisdom and compassion and fierce anger.

Well, we are here tonight to stand by Cindy’s side and in honor of her first born son, Casey, whose blood stains the hands of all those politicians who voted for this war; who vote religiously for the war budget; who send the military into our schools to hunt for more cannon fodder while their own children are enjoying the best of what their blood-money has to offer.

They think they can continue their war. They think they can get our kids to fight their bloody war. We are here tonight to say, Hell No Our Kids Won’t Go! Not Any More!

We’re here tonight to tell KMEL Radio, owned by Clear Channel, that we want them to drop the Navy as a sponsor of the KMEL Summer Jam Concert at the Shoreline Amphitheater! We’re here to tell the San Francisco Board of Education to get the military out of our schools!

We’re here tonight to demand, “Bring the troops home now! End the occupations from Iraq, to Afghanistan, to Hunters Point, Oakland, Haiti, Palestine and everywhere! All out Sept. 24^th!

Army Spc. Casey Sheehan was killed in Bagdad on April 4th 2004. His younger sister Carly wrote this poem about her brothers death. Carly’s poem has been posted at the Veterans for Peace memorial in Santa Barbara, California.

---

A Nation Rocked to Sleep

By Carly Sheehan

Have you ever heard the sound of a mother screaming for her son?
The torrential rains of a mother’s weeping will never be done.
They call him a hero, you should be glad that he’s one, but
Have you ever heard the sound of a mother screaming for her son?

Have you ever heard the sound of a father holding back his cries?
He must be brave because his boy died for another man’s lies.
The only grief he allows himself are long, deep sighs.
Have you ever heard the sound of a father holding back his cries?

Have you ever heard the sound of taps played at your brother’s grave?
They say that he died so that the flag will continue to wave.
But I believe he died because they had oil to save.
Have you ever heard the sound of taps played at your brother’s grave?

Have you ever heard the sound of a nation being rocked to sleep?
The leaders want to keep you numb so the pain won’t be so deep,
But if we the people let them continue, another mother will weep.
Have you ever heard the sound of a nation being rocked to sleep?