Showdown At The Crawford Ranch

by Karen Button

Down at the ranch in Crawford, Texas, where Mr. Bush is on holiday for five weeks, a force of nature named Cindy Sheehan is disturbing his peace.

Sheehan’s son, 24-year old Casey, was killed in Sadr City, Iraq last April, five days after he arrived; Sheehan has been dogging Bush ever since. She met with him last June, not long after her son’s death, but since then, she says, her grief has turned to anger after “learning of the lies George Bush told” to take America to war and to continue its occupation.

While Bush gave a weekend address that was aglow with the latest economic report and the so-called progress being made in Iraq, vets and families in Dallas were speaking out about the truth of what they’ve seen in Iraq. Sheehan roused the crowd there on Friday, “I want (Bush) to tell me ‘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. - “There, I used the ‘I’ word – imperialism.”

Now, she has a few more questions for Bush and is insisting he meet with her, so she went to where she knew he’d be vacationing. She and 50 others arrived at Bush’s Crawford ranch on Saturday in a bus emblazoned with “Impeachment Tour-Veterans for Peace” fresh from the annual convention of Veterans for Peace. Vets and their families accompanied her there, where they set up camp and Sheehan told the few reporters who showed up that she was there to stay until Bush met with her.

Just out of view of Bush’s ranch retreat was the gathering storm of those prepared to force accountability upon a man who’s continually dodged it.

On Saturday and Sunday, the blogosphere went crazy with stories about Cindy Sheehan’s vigil and how to support her; particularly, how to get the media to pay attention. Hundreds of calls were made to news outlets and by Monday, they were beginning to pay off.

In five short days, Sheehan’s vigil has become something of a movement in itself, a symbol for the 57% of Americans who disagree with Bush’s handling of Iraq. Sheehan figures she’s been receiving 3-5 phone calls a minute; twenty congressional members have signed a letter authored by John Conyers calling for Bush to meet with Sheehan; the anti-war group True Majority stepped in with funding so Bush will be confronted by vets or their families every time he steps outside his ranch; and the international press is spreading the story, with The Guardian and others reporting where the US mainstream press is not.

“Every time he leaves, there will be a GSFP (Gold Star Families for Peace) member, MFSO (Military Families Speak Out) members, VFP (Veterans for Peace) members, and Code Pink members who will protest him and say ‘Meet with Cindy’,” said Sheehan from Crawford on Wednesday. “We will not let him have a 5 week nice vacation when there are millions of people in harm’s way in Iraq due to his careless policies. The people of Iraq and our soldiers are suffering. Why should George have a nice vacation?”

On Wednesday, Bush left his ranch for Aurora, Illinois where he was met by Sheehan-supporting protesters at the Caterpillar plant where he also signed a whopping $286.4 billion Transportation bill. (Alaska, by the way, the third-least populated state, got the fourth most money for special projects--$941 million. The projects include $231 million for a bridge near Anchorage to be named "Don Young's Way" in honor of the man who brought home the bacon.)

With an impending fundraiser on Thursday a couple ranches away and the arrival of Condoleeza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld, Sheehan has been threatened with arrest if she doesn’t leave by then. But she says she’s staying.

Momentum is growing, with hundreds of visitors coming by to showing support and calls coming in from around the world. This, not from the mainstream media, but through the Internet. A recorded news conference call is being podcast (www.joetrippi.com/files/cindy-call-081005.wav) and a website set up by afterdowningstreet.org is tracking the event at www.meetwithcindy.org. Right-wing talk shows have been doing their best to discredit Sheehan, which is testament to how effective her vigil has been.

Sheehan represents the thousands who want answers as to why their children were killed in a war based on lies and to the hundreds of thousands who want the US out of Iraq now.

Meanwhile, another day of violence in Iraq marked the grinding occupation. Baghdad’s mayor was ousted in what the Western media is calling a coup by The Supreme Council for Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Badr Organization (the militia who has ties to Iran and is now controlling much of southern Iraq), though what really happened is they were voted in during the January 30 elections and today chose to oust Tamimi, installing their own leader. Also, in Mosul, fifteen people were killed in separate incidents over the past 24 hours, in Baghdad a suicide bomber killed seven people and wounded 14 and a mortar bomb exploded killing a traffic policeman, in Iskandariya two civilians were killed as gunmen shot at their car, two oil security guards were killed in the refinery town of Baiji, and a policeman was gunned down near Kirkuk. This, and the deadline for a new constitution looms in five days.