Cindy Sheehan has been an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq. Sheehan's son, Casey, died in Iraq in 2005. Her speech to a small crowd at Brunswick Community College reflected her aniti-war sentiment.
But outside, a different group gathered. About fifty people carried signs and flags. Their message: support our troops.
"People like Cindy Sheehan are actually helping our loss of will to fight," said protestor Tom Russell.
Veteran Norman Meares said, "A lot of people showed up here today just for that reason. Is to let the lady inside know that we care. Most of us are veterans, and this is important for us to show our support for our troops."
North Carolina Peace Action organizer Barbara Stanley noted, "We think we are supporting the troops. We think we are the ones to question whether a war you would send our guys, or girls would be legal, we think that's our job, especially while our troops are away."
Sheehan has been touring the state, with stops in Raleigh, Statesville, and Asheville spreading her message. The tour is sponsored by state and local organizations including, North Carolina Peace Action, and Code Pink, a women's organization for peace.
Sheehan continues her tour of North Carolina with a stop in Raleigh Tuesday.
Interesting
I find it interesting that people lambast this woman for speaking her mind. First, it's a free country with free speech, so that argument just doesn't fly with me. Second, everyone seems to have her message wrong...she is speaking out against the war and it's reasoning, not the troops themselves. I rather doubt this woman is saying anything negative about troops such as her son. They are two very different things. Any idiot knows the troops have no choice, they go were ordered and I salute them for serving. The reasoning behind why they are ordered it why she campaigns. In any event, I don't agree with her and do think this whole debacle was necessary, unfortunate as it is. It still annoys me though that people get her message wrong then condemn her for it.
Come on now , everyone
Come on now , everyone knows that Iraq had WMD'S. They used them on Iran and killed thousands. They used them on their own people and killed thousands. Even their own military knew they had them and were superized that they were not used when our troops closed in on Bagdad. Even now some of our troops have shown the effects of being around some type of chemical weapons.How many months did SH have to get rid of them to Syria,Jordan and Iran. Remember all of the MIG'S shot down heading to Iran. Remember all of the leaks coming out of Congress to the left wing media,Kerry,Murtha,Kennedy. S/F ROGER FLEMING
Red Star-News reporting
Cindy Sheehan's appearance draws 80 supporters and 20 protestors. The Red Star-News features a front page story (doesn't it give you a tingle down your leg?).
When 700 people gathered peacefully in Shallotte a while back for a Hands Off My Healthcare rally - not even a mention in the want ads!
Red Star
There have never been any truer words written This is the worst newspaper ever produced on a daily basis.
cindy (POS ) sheehan
I would not have given one penny to see that garbage say even one word. How did she get in and out of this county alive anyway. While I was in RVN we had our inconsequential POS media darling also, it was called jane fonda.I am sure that the ghost of many US Troops and POW'S are on her shoulders.Just like Obama and his democratic party and left wing media is accused of dithering and non commitment we also had ours LBJ,Robert McNamara and in that time the biggest media fraud of that time Walter Croncrite's telling of the war starting around the time of KHE SANH. I can remember seeing him on tv telling of the demoralization of the troops. I don't know where that idiot was but in Marine Recon and Force Recon we were giddy,fighting and winning. The war was lost in WASHINGTON,DC,CBS,NBC AND ABC JUST LIKE IT IS BEING LOST TODAY. S/F ROGER FLEMING
Nutjob
Sheehan is an unhinged attention seeker who uses her son's death in a crass attempt to gain publicity. She's commented that the terrorists in Iraq are "freedom fighters." If this is the case, and her son was killed by them, why is she so upset? Furthermore, she hobnobs with Hugo Chavez, members of the Revolutionary Communist Party, and calls for the defeat of the "American Empire." There is a line between dissent and treason and Sheehan crossed it along time ago. I'm glad to see that her appearance attracted very little attention; what was she thinking coming to this part of the country? Please just go back to Berkeley now and leave us alone, Cindy.
God Bless Cindy Sheehan
God Bless Cindy Sheehan. God Bless her son and all who have served. The Lord Bless the peacemakers and those who follow our Lord Christ in his command to keep and be about the business of peace. A true Christian, she is. May her example be one for all to follow.
Nice Christian tone, but....
...you're as full of crap AND as big of a COWARD as Cindy Sheehan is!
Thank GOD we don't have people like you in the foxholes protecting for the freedoms of this country!!!
Our success in Afghanistan was also affected negatively by BUSH
Sheehan raises another point that is in the news right now. That is the fact that the Iraq war diverted attention and resources away from Afghanistan and the war on terror in general.
My opinion of the Iraq war was that it was a pet project full of war-profiteering, and supported by those in Congress who were scared by lies from Bush.
Afghanistan troop requests sat on the desks in the Bush White House for eight months at a time.
The waste in Iraq also has cost trillions of dollars and may lives that could have been better used elsewhere.
At least Sheehan is making her loss count for something. Otherwise it is truly a complete waste.
I'm glad you used the term, "opinion" in your post...
...because nothing you stated is even close to the truth. "Bush bash" all you want, but there was a threat of WMD from Iraq, they kept inspectors out for over a year before we went in. Iraq was a threat to the rest of the world with an insane and power hungry dictator that induced genocide on over 300,000 OF HIS OWN PEOPLE!!! Everyone, including the "Clinton's" backed Bush's decision to go in. The all turned their cowardly coattails when WMD's weren't located! The man did what he thought was in the best interest of world security at a time shortly after OUR 3,000 civilian women, children and men were murdered by Al-Quaida attacks. They didn't try to kill terrorists or military installations or even anything to do with a bad faction of people, just the senseless killing of 3,000 poor individuals that had to go to work or day care that awful day.
You forget far too easily, my friend that the Middle East and most of Europe detests America because of our freedoms. This includes the freedom of cowards like yourself to post idiotic conspiracy theories of which you know nothing about. I am so glad that people like you never made it into the Armed Forces of America!!!
So, go ahead and jump on the bandwagon full of COWARDS and join in the wimpy, whiney chants. Your true colors show brightly and they surely aren't RED, WHITE and BLUE!
Dear Tom,
Boy, are YOU shooting the messanger! Sheehan is an inconsequential pipsqueek.
Our will to fight and win is a direct result of our national leadership. THEY have no will top fight and win. George Bush and Barack Obama know nothing more about warfighting than Lyndon Johnson did.
Look at it this way - it took us less than four years to defeat Germany and Japan. We've been in Afghanistan for over eight years, Iraq for over six, and have accomplished nothing.
We can't have "war without end, amen." The people get tired of seeing their sons die for nothing.
When you fight a war, you fight a war. You go in, destroy the enemy and his will to fight. You make his life the true hell Sherman described.
If you pussyfoot around and do nothing, people like Sheehan become media darlings, and everyday people start losing their resolve.
I'm not saying your
I'm not saying your wrong,but in WWII we were fighting actual armys.Who we fighting now don't even have any tanks.planes,etc,etc,etc.
That's why we need to stay out of....
...counterinsurgencies and civil wars. That's the tenth principle of war that we need: Totality of Effort. You declare war on a nation (not wage a kinda-sorta war against a select group of people within that nation) then pound them into the dirt until they surrender and agree to your demands.
War should ALWAYS be our absolute, last resort. Once it becomes necessary, however, we have to take off the gloves and wage war...not play around as Bush did and Obama is doing.
I
agree...first if I were her son...I would be VERY ANGRY and DISAPPOINTED in a parent attacking what I died for...
Second, when you go to war...YOU GO TO DOMINATE your enemy...something we didn't go in to do...YOU OBLITERATE THEM...you send TEN TIMES MORE TROOPS than you need...YOU GO IN..KILL THE ENEMY WITH EXTREME FORCE...then leave....right now we are playing patty cake.
Here are there
I will have to say I really don't like the war either. However, there is something you really need to think about. We will fight a war, the question is where. If we do not fight them over there, they will be coming here to wage war. Then we will wish we had done the fighting there... I know you will say this isn't possible, but it is. Right now all the nuts are going there to fight use. If we quit and come home, they will be trying to find ways to get into the USA to kill the women and children here.
So you better think about where you want the war...
I think she is one of the
I think she is one of the few that sees this war for what it really is. As far as the comment about fighting the war there or here, if the US would stay home and mind their own bisiness and let all these other countries fight it out among themselves, we would be a lot better off and probably stay out of most all wars and conflicts.
Your right. That worked so
Your right. That worked so well when the Japanese bombed pearl harbor. Guess we shouldn't have retaliated for that one either.
Hmmm.
when was the LAST time we minded our own business...hmm...I think a guy named HITLER was making his rounds in Europe..that worked out for us...just ignore it until German subs start being seen off of the US coast...
Re:
While I am not giving my name to protect myself and family from unwarranted rebukes and personal attacks (I've learned that nasty lesson thank you), I will start by saying I hold the rank of Major with a special operations/counterintelligence US Army unit and have served my country for almost 20 years. I also hold advanced degrees in Political Science and History, specializing in international conflict and diplomacy.
After spending the better part of the past several years fighting for this country in Iraq and Afghanistan, I can honestly say that fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here is a false argument. It was a lie when the Bush Administration said it 8 years ago and it's a lie now - still meant only to provide a strawman to scare people into supporting bad policies and giving up their liberties and constitutional responsibilities.
We are engaged with such a broadly based and diverse enemy that fighting them in one or two theaters does nothing to limit their capacity for attacks anywhere in the world. They are not centralized or conventional by any means. Giving them our troops as targets in warzones of our creation does not make you or I any safer here.
I would personally prefer to support my fellow troops and those previously under my command by engaging in sensible tactics and policies. You can support the troops AND voice dissent about what they are being commanded to do. The troops are intelligent and know that you can do both at the same time without it reflecting badly upon them. Morale is so low among some troops because our government has committed them to war without end and not equipped them to do the job they have been given. Cheerleading for the war, supporting chickenhawk politicians and putting magnets and stickers on your cars does nothing to help them. At this point, they are fighting for each other, not for any causes, ideals or for you. Protesting or voicing dissent does not change the fact that you support them - especially when you insist that their precious lives are not being wasted in a meatgrinder of bad strategies and policies.
Our borders and ports are still mostly unprotected thanks to 8 years of misdirected policies and values. Even starting to do it right now, it would take monumental levels of effort and money to make them even close to being somewhat safe - and years to do it. It is true that we need to take out those who attacked us, but suggesting that we use overwhelming force through superior numbers shows that you have not paid attention to history or the type of warfare in which we are now entangled. Cowboy diplomacy and misguided foreign policy developed by incompetent neocon ideologues led us to where today. It will take time to undo what they did.
Trust me, I'm not about to give in to terrorists after what I went through, shirk my sworn duties, or oppose just wars - but this is not conventional and cannot be treated as such (i.e. - do what Sherman did). Destroying what is there and harming the population indiscriminately in order to take out a very small, radical and often unpopular minority only turns sentiment against us and further endangers our soldiers on the ground - just as it did to everyone who has ever fought against these people, and just as it did in Vietnam. We cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past and it is my hope that thoughtful and pragmatic leadership will correct our course. I guess I'll find out when I arrive in country again in a few months.
Thank you...but, no thanks.......
Well Major, if I sported your attitude as a commanding officer of the US Army, I wouldn't give my name either after comments such as yours. I must say, as I do to all servicemen I meet that I sincerely appreciate your service in the brave effort to maintain the freedom and safety of America and it's people. With that said, you sound like a whiney schoolboy that didn't get what you wanted in gym class. We are engaged in a broadly based and diverse enemy as you state. However, the unconventional methods of war they practice should ban "fairness" in combat. They wear no uniforms, sport no insignia, they fight for "Allah" and have no respect for any human life be it young, old, male or female. They kill inhumanely, without disdain and without conscience. They will torture, rape, steal and murder at a whim...walk away smiling about it.
I talk to every serviceman I can get in touch with and they tell me a different story, but these men are on the battlefront, not sitting behind a desk playing GI-Joe as you do. These men tell me of the good things that have happened in Iraq and the successes they have achieved with the children, the womens rights, new schools and on and on. Not one time have I heard the negative and condescending attitude that you have expressed in your post. They don't neccessarily like being in that dirty, hot, barren region and away from home and their family, but they aren't whining like you do. As a matter of fact, the biggest complaint I've heard out of any serviceman has been the same, they complain about how the media lies about the progress they have achieved and how the media constantly reports every bad issue they can dig up, but never any news about the good that has been done. These servicemen are ahamed of the fact that they are fighting for the very freedom the reporters use against them inordinately...the freedom of speech.
Major, Sir...you will do well not to mention your name or even a hint of it!. After the commentary you just produced, it is likely you would face court-martial for treason.
Your country is ashamed of you!!!!! You can't hide from that fact, nameless or not!
Sleep well tonight...Major, Sir.
Major, we ARE repeating the same mistakes
Your branch of service more than any other has once again hopped onto the "counterinsurgency is the reason we were born" argument, and we are once again mired down in a grand mess that is producing no positive results as the casualties climb. Did you read the IG report from earlier this year, where the majority of army artillery batallions were graded as "not ready for combat" because we have been using the personnel for non-artillery related duties in Iraq and Afghanistan?
When the NCA dictates that we break contact and withdraw (they can't utter the word retreat, though that's what it is) if enemy forces are located in close proximity to non-combatants, it stands as prima facie evidence that we have no desire to actually defeat this enemy. We want to play war, not wage war. Of course you never target non-combatants, but you also do not fail to kill your enemy or take casualties of your own because of non-combatants.
The Western powers have become militarily incompetent because we simply refuse to do what needs to be done. We have no stomach for the slaughter. We're too civilized.
Blair insisted that Bush withdraw the Marines from (First) Fallujah because we "...were killing too many people." When we went back in, we gave too much warning, gave them too much time, and a lot of Marines and soldiers died unnecessarily.
The Rangers were within two hours of killing or capturing Muqtada al Sadr when they were called off because he had struck a deal with the interim Iraqi government.
Israel is once again being hit by rockets fired from Southern Lebanon, and simply warning of future punitive actions. Yet you and I both know that with CMR capabilities, we can have a batallion salvo in the air to wipe out that grid square within seconds of that rocket launching....
...but we don't do that. We pussyfoot around because we have no desire to destroy the enemy's will to fight.
Until the Western powers get back to the basic tenets of warfighting, until we accept and follow the Nine Principles of War, and until we become as ruthless and deadly as our opponents, we have no chance of achieving anything at all. You can't fight by the Marquis of Queensbury Rules while your opponent is kicking you in the groin.
Just for everyone's info.
Just for everyone's info. We did not go to War against Iraq but to liberate Iraq IE Operation Iraqi Freedom. So, the argument to decimate is not a real one as it was never our stated goal under Bush,Cheney Wolfowitz policy to destroy, conquer, and make a 51st occupied state. As a country, we have not "won" a war since the 1940's but we keep trying. I have the upmost respect for our soldiers in uniform and that respect affords me the constitutional granted liberty to dissent not against them but for them. Remember the Bill of Rights...we had it prior to 2000. For the price Miss Sheehan has paid, I offer she has the fair use authority of freedom of speech regardless of whether you agree with her or not. Again, name one war that the US has decisively "won" since wwII? Korean War Loss, Lebanon Loss, Cuba (Bay of Pigs) Loss, Laos Cambodia no go there, El Salvador quietly loss, We won the Grenada Invasion, Persian gulf 1 and 2 no go, Bosnia and Kosovo...remains to be seen, Somalia no really. The point is you can not win in the traditional decimation and destruction go go blow some crap up. Since the advent of Guerrilla warfare a lesser army strength is its tactics and that in pursuit of this army there will be damage to others. That damage teaches others to respond negatively to the invaders. IRA now part of the political process, ETA now part of the political process. You can not win accept by creating and affecting the positive change desired in the country. Jobs, work, education, hope (uhoh, I said hope). Cindy Sheehan, thank you for son's and your family's sacrifice. Say what you want.
Godspeed
Don't repeat revisionist history
Operation Iraqi Freedom was a phony-baloney smokescreen right from the start. The name was picked to provide cover in the event we failed in our stated and primary mission, to seize and prevent the distribution of weapons of mass destruction.
That's how we sold it to the Congress, that's how we justified it to the world, that was the main push until it became clear that the WMDs weren't there.
Suddenly, it became a war of liberation for the Iraqi people? How noble.....and what a load of bovine droppings!
Von Clausewitz wrote that "War is an extension of politics by other means." The entire world believed that Hussein had massive stocks of chemical and biological weapons, and we had more than enough justification to wage war against IRAQ. You don't go to war against one guy. You go to war against a nation.
You force that nation to accept your political demands. That's what war is all about.
Very true
Forward deployment has been a basic tenet of our defense since 1945. It works. We don't want to be fighting the war here.
The problem we seem to have is "fighting a war." We keep falling into the same idiotic counterinsurgency pit every few decades. We need a tenth Prnciple of War: Totality of Effort.
You can't wage war on PART of a nation.