Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Cindy Sheehan: What do you think of her situation?

host · 08-18-2005, 11:37 AM

stevo, the June, 2004 Vacaville. CA newspaper report that Drudge cited, and propagandized, followed soon after by the entire "talking point" "Op", apparatus that has "persuaded" you to embrace a Sheehan "flip flop", is revisited by the editor of that Vacaville publication. She disagrees with the Drudge "smear" attempt..........

Quote:

http://www.thereporter.com/search/ci_2925934
Article Launched: 08/09/2005 06:57:00 AM

Anti-war position not new
By Diane Barney

Reporter readers have followed the evolution this past year of Vacaville resident Cindy Sheehan from grieving mother to outspoken anti-war protester who today is camped out near the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, demanding his resignation.

It is not the same Sheehan family we met in April, still stunned after learning that 24-year-old Army Spc. Casey Sheehan had died in an ambush.

The Sheehans - with 16 other families - met President Bush at Fort Lewis, Wash., where he extended condolences and appreciation for their sacrifice.

At the time, the Sheehans debated whether to be brutally honest with the president. They had serious concerns about the war. But in the end, they told our reporter, they decided to be respectful. President Bush even kissed Cindy Sheehan on the cheek.

Cindy Sheehan said of her first encounter with the president, "I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis. I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of faith."

But that article, published June 24, 2004, was called into question on Monday following a story in the Drudge Report.

Under the headline, "Protesting soldier mom changed story on Bush," only portions of our story were printed. Left out were the Sheehans' reservations about the war.

The online report claimed Cindy Sheehan "dramatically changed her account about what happened when she met the commander in chief last summer!"

We don't think there has been a dramatic turnaround. Clearly, Cindy Sheehan's outrage was festering even then.

In a press release Monday by the Institute for Public Accuracy, Sheehan explained she was "still in shock" at the time she met with the president.

"We had decided not to criticize the president then because during that meeting he assured us 'this is not political.' And I believed him," Sheehan wrote. "Then, during the Republican National Convention, he exploited those meetings to justify what he was doing."

In ensuing months, she has grown more focused, more determined, more aggressive. She co-founded Gold Star Families For Peace in December 2004, a group which has written numerous letters, articles and posted online reports. She has participated in protests around the country. She and her daughter, Carly, have appeared in anti-war TV messages. And now she's camping out near the president's ranch.

We invite readers to revisit the story - in context - on our Web site and decide for themselves. Stay tuned as it continues to evolve.

The author is editor of The Reporter.

stevo, your indignation directed toward Sheehan is misplaced. Her comments display the still growing outrage, frustration, and despair, as she emerges from the numbness of her grief. Her reaction to the following, in her circumstances is understandable. Your reaction to it is to defend and to support it, with the aim of continuing it's course without challenge or dissent.

Quote:

Iraq <a href="http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/CIA/CIA-2-23-01.htm">CIA Director Tenent's Feb., 2001 Testimony to Congress</a>

Since Operation Desert Fox in December 1998, Baghdad has refused to allow United Nations' inspectors into Iraq as required by Security Council Resolution 687. In spite of ongoing UN efforts to establish a follow-on inspection regime comprising the UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the IAEA's Iraq Action Team, no UN inspections occurred during this reporting period. Moreover, the automated video monitoring system installed by the UN at known and suspect WMD facilities in Iraq is no longer operating. Having lost this on-the-ground access, it is more difficult for the UN or the US to accurately assess the current state of Iraq's WMD programs.

We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute its WMD programs, although given its past behavior, this type of activity must be regarded as likely. We assess that since the suspension of UN inspections in December of 1998, Baghdad has had the capability to reinitiate both its CW and BW programs within a few weeks to months. Without an inspection monitoring program, however, it is more difficult to determine if Iraq has done so.

Quote:

<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/14/60II/main577975.shtml">Feb. 4, 2004 The Man Who Knew</a>
Powell said that when he made the case for war before the United Nations one year ago, he used evidence that reflected the best judgments of the intelligence agencies.

But long before the war started, there was plenty of doubt among intelligence analysts about Saddam's weapons.

One analyst, Greg Thielmann, told Correspondent Scott Pelley last October that key evidence cited by the administration was misrepresented to the public.

Thielmann should know. He had been in charge of analyzing the Iraqi weapons threat for Powell's own intelligence bureau.......

"The main problem was that the senior administration officials have what I call faith-based intelligence. They knew what they wanted the intelligence to show."
Greg Thielmann

Bush and his administration knew the truth but later misled and distorted the actual threat Saddam posed to the rest of the
world are press remarks from Colin Powell on Feb. 24:

Quote:

2001:"QUESTION: The Egyptian press editorial commentary that we have seen here has been bitterly aggressive in denouncing the U.S. role and not welcoming you. I am wondering whether you believe you accomplished anything during your meetings to assuage concerns about the air strikes against Iraq and the continuing sanctions?
SECRETARY POWELL: I received a very warm welcome from the leaders and I know there is some unhappiness as expressed in the Egyptian press. I understand that, but at the same time, with respect to the no-fly zones and the air strikes that we from time to time must conduct to defend our pilots, I just want to remind everybody that the purpose of those no-fly zones and the purpose of those occasional strikes to protect our pilots, is not to pursue an aggressive stance toward Iraq, but to defend the people that the no-fly zones are put in to defend. The people in the southern part of Iraq and the people in the northern part of Iraq, and these zones have a purpose, and their purpose is to protect people -- protect Arabs -- not to affect anything else in the region. And we have to defend ourselves.
We will always try to consult with our friends in the region so that they are not surprised and do everything we can to explain the purpose of our responses. We had a good discussion, the Foreign Minister and I and the President and I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq, and these are policies that we are going to keep in place, but we are always willing to review them to make sure that they are being carried out in a way that does not affect the Iraqi people but does affect the Iraqi regime's ambitions and the ability to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and we had a good conversation on this issue."
Please take note that the above quote comes from a page on the
U.S. State Departments own website. <a href="http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2001/933.htm">http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2001/933.htm</a>

Next, we offer a quote from National Security Advisor, Dr. Rice, date July 29, '01:

Quote:

"(Larry) KING: Still a menace, still a problem. But the administration failed, principally because of objections from Russia and China, to get the new sanctions policy through the United Nations Security Council. Now what? Do we do this for another 10 years?

(Dr. Condoleeza) RICE: Well, in fact, John, we have made progress on the sanctions. We, in fact, had four of the five, of the permanent five, ready to go along with smart sanctions.

We'll work with the Russians. I'm sure that we'll come to some resolution there, because it is important to restructure these sanctions to something that work.

But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.

This has been a successful period, but obviously we would like to increase pressure on him, and we're going to go about doing that."
<a href="http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0107/29/le.00.html">http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0107/29/le.00.html</a>

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0050112-7.html
Q The President accepts that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, he said back in October that the comprehensive report by Charles Duelfer concluded what his predecessor had said, as well, that the weapons that we all believed were there, based on the intelligence, were not there. And now what is important is that we need to go back and look at what was wrong with much of the intelligence that we accumulated over a 12-year period and that our allies had accumulated over that same period of time, and correct any flaws.

Q I just want to make sure, though, because you said something about following up on additional reports and learning more about the regime. You are not trying to hold out to the American people the possibility that there might still be weapons somewhere there, are you?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I just said that if there are -- if there are any other reports, obviously, of weapons of mass destruction, then people will follow up on those reports. I'm just stating a fact. .................

......Q Two follow-ups. There's been quite a bit of talk that Syria might have hidden some of these weapons of mass destruction. Is the government of Syria cooperating at all in the search for WMD?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, you have the report from Charles Duelfer. You can go and look at that report in terms of addressing those issues, and I think the President has spoken to the whole issue of weapons of mass destruction. Obviously, if there are any other reports that come to people's attention, they'll follow up on those reports.............

............. Q Scott, did the White House intend to, at any point, come out and tell the American people that the search for WMD was over?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think that the President addressed this issue back in October. Maybe you weren't there for when he talked about it. But Charles Duelfer is the one who was overseeing these efforts and he's now back here. He's continuing to wrap up his work. I think it's up to him to make those determinations about when he says everything is concluded.

Q And understanding that the White House --

MR. McCLELLAN: I mean, there is still some wrap-up work that he's doing; there's still some -- the Iraq Survey Group continues to operate in Iraq under the multinational force command. And much --

Q The search is over? Is the search --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think -- I think that others have already addressed that much of their physical search has -- that their physical search has essentially ended, yes, but that they continue to go through documents. So they're -- some of their work continues, because there are thousands and thousands of pages of documents that they were able to recover that were part of the basis for the previous report that Charles Duelfer released. And it was -- the President talked about it at that time, it was a comprehensive look at the regime and the regime's intentions and the regime's capabilities.

On Sept. 16, 2001, president Bush told the press that he could "not have imagined" that terrorists would hijack airliners and fly them into buildings. Later reports revealed that Bush's statement was not true.

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0010916-2.html
...........Never did anybody's thought process about how to protect America did we ever think that the evil-doers would fly not one, but four commercial aircraft into precious U.S. targets - never.............

Only later did we find this to call the president's remarks into question:

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...&notFound=true
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 14, 2004; Page A16

While planning a high-level training exercise months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, U.S. military officials considered a scenario in which a hijacked foreign commercial airliner flew into the Pentagon, defense officials said yesterday.

Quote:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing...18-norad_x.htm
NORAD had drills of jets as weapons
By Steven Komarow and Tom Squitieri, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties.

One of the imagined targets was the World Trade Center...................

Quote:

http://www.mdw.army.mil/news/Contingency_Planning.html
Contingency planning Pentagon MASCAL exercise simulates
scenarios in preparing for emergencies
Story and Photos by Dennis Ryan
MDW News Service

Exercise SimulationsWashington, D.C., Nov. 3, 2000 — The fire and smoke from the downed passenger aircraft billows from the Pentagon courtyard.

Quote:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/...in509471.shtml
'99 Report Warned Of Suicide Hijacking

WASHINGTON, May 17, 2002

Former CIA Deputy Director John Gannon, who was chairman of the National Intelligence Council when the report was written, said U.S. intelligence long has known a suicide hijacker was a possible threat.

(AP) Exactly two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, a federal report warned the executive branch that Osama bin Laden's terrorists might hijack an airliner and dive bomb it into the Pentagon or other government building......
(Edited to add lil "dots" between the quoted article segments.)

......"I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile," national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Thursday.

In Jan., 2003, in his SOTU address, Bush <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=1835559&postcount=46">detailed</a> the stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons that Iraq possessed. In Jan. 12, 2005, (above quote box), the whitehouse admitted that no stockpiles were found, or were likely to be found.

In May, 2005, the "Downing Street Memo", revealed a charge never denied by the Bush admin.....that in July, 2002, the US admin. was planning to invade iraq and was formulating "a set of facts" to "fit that policy".

As I do, Sheehan believes that the Bush admin. is running a criminal administration that has broken with the trust of the American people and has committed multiple war crimes. Her outrage at the loss of her son at the hands of these criminals is expressed appropriately. Your defense of this administration and your attack on Sheehan is not appropriate or responsive to the evidence of their lies, distortions, and violations of international law and conventions, stevo.