Aug 8 -UPDATES ON CINDY SHEEHAN VISIT TO CRAWFORD

MONDAY MORNING at Camp Casey saw plenty of signs

UPDATES ON CINDY SHEEHAN VISIT TO CRAWFORD
Monday, Aug. 8, 2005
Photos Appear At Bottom Of Page

12:05 p.m., Monday, Aug. 8

The Iconoclast's Deborah Mathews reporting:

Cindy Sheehan spent the night in her tent beside the road last night and has spent the morning on the telephone in the Peace House being interviewed by the media. Right now she is there alone.

She seems to be doing well, but looks tired.

License plates from other states are seen throughout downtown Crawford as business appears to be booming. The Coffee Station is crowded.

Another report will be provided shortly.

2:20 p.m., Monday, Aug. 8

Associate Editor Nathan Diebenow interviews visitors to "Camp Casey."

Interview With Supporters From Belton, Texas

PRAIRIE CHAPEL — Cathy and Jerry Donica of Belton, Texas, were visiting with supporters of Cindy Sheehan Sunday afternoon at what has now been deemed Camp Casey, the campground named after Sheehan’s late son where the mother has set up residence for the month of August. The Donica’s, owners of a computer business in Belton where they have lived for about seven years, spoke with The Iconoclast’s Nathan Diebenow briefly about the reasons why they were there, the information soldiers are giving them about Iraq, and the attitude of the local townspeople and farmers.
.........
ICONOCLAST: You guys are from Belton, so why are you hear?
CATHY DONICA: To support Cindy, to support the Peace House, and anybody that’s against George Bush (laughs).
ICONOCLAST: How did you guys come to hear about Cindy and her push to meet Bush?
CATHY DONICA: The DemocraticUnderground.com is where I hear it from.
JERRY DONICA: My wife (laughs).
CATHY DONICA: (laughs) I’ve always been very liberal at heart anyway. My nephews came back from Iraq as well, and I don’t want to see them go back again.
ICONOCLAST: Where were they at?
CATHY DONICA: You know, I don’t remember the name of the town, but I remember it started with the letter A. They went out with the National Guard out of Waco, I do believe, and they live in Fairfield now, but they were over there for the whole year, and they said they were shot at and everything else. I don’t want them going back. The chances are that they will, and I don’t want to see them go back.
ICONOCLAST: How old are they?
CATHY DONICA: 20 and 22.
ICONOCLAST: What are their names?
CATHY DONICA: Jason and Steven Rossiaky. They were stationed over there with their father, Steven Rossiaky.
ICONOCLAST: What position is the father?
CATHY DONICA: I want to say staff sergeant, but I’m not sure.
ICONOCLAST: What position are the boys?
CATHY DONICA: They’re just brand new in the National Guard, so I’m not sure.
ICONOCLAST: So you have a connection to the conflict in Iraq.
CATHY DONICA: Yes, and assorted friends, too, that are coming back. Friends of different soldiers out of Fort Hood.
ICONOCLAST: They’re coming back, but what are they saying?
CATHY DONICA: Unfortunately, I can’t get a whole lot of people to tell me very much. There was one guy that came back, and he and I talked a little bit about it. He was very closed up about it. He was very much — Here’s what I’ve noticed about everybody that’s coming back: it’s not about whether or not they support why they’re going over there. It’s that they support each other. Their job has to be done. The biggest message I hear from soldier is regardless of what their political leanings are — a lot of them here want to go back because they want to be supportive of the other soldiers. That’s the biggest message. That’s why they don’t want some coming back — it’s either they all go over there or they call come back.
ICONOCLAST: Have they talked about the vaccinations they received before or during their deployment or the equipment that they have gotten? Have they described any sicknesses that they have since coming back to the States?
CATHY DONICA: There was a girl soldier that I talked to. She was in the first Gulf War, and she had the anthrax vaccination done. I remember her complaining to me that she felt so aggressive coming back and she knew it was from the shot. She knew that it was from the shot. She knew for a fact in her mind that it was from the shot. She was saying that it made her mroe angry, aggressive and sicker. She felt sick all the time. I don’t remember her name.
ICONOCLAST: How many years ago did you meet with her?
CATHY DONICA: Three or four years ago.
ICONOCLAST: Was she in her mid-30s or something?
CATHY DONICA: Yeah, she sure was.
ICONOCLAST: So she would be about 40 right now?
CATHY DONICA: She probably would be.
ICONOCLAST: What about your nephews? Have their behavior’s changed since coming back? Can you notice a difference from then and now?
CATHY DONICA: My son would be a better person to ask. I don’t really talk to them. One of them got married. The other one, he just keeps to himself. The only thing he told my son was that he got shot at when he was over there. He was trained to drive a tank, but wound up being an MP instead.
ICONOCLAST: So was he out of the base area?
CATHY DONICA: He stayed on the base mostly. I don’t think he was dealing with a lot of combat or anything.
ICONOCLAST: What about the other one?
CATHY DONICA: The other one was right there with his dad. The three of them were stationed in the same area.
ICONOCLAST: So they didn’t go outside the base.
CATHY DONICA: Not often. They were actually safer than a lot of the other soldiers were. They didn’t see a lot of conflict. They got shot at, mostly sniper fire, I guess.
ICONOCLAST: Have there been anyone from the Crawford area that have come out here and said anything to you?
CATHY DONICA: Other than that man that was just here. He was nice. He’s always very nice.
JERRY DONICA: She (Diane Wilson, co-founder of CodePink) said that some teenagers were out there doing donuts (in their truck).

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Every Mother's Son
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Monday 08 August 2005
http://peacejournalism.com/ReadArticle.asp?ArticleID=4557

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.
- Stephen King

George W. Bush hauled stakes for Texas and a vacation a few days ago. Cindy Sheehan followed. She got off a bus Saturday afternoon and started walking to the Crawford ranch. She wanted some answers and was going to get them.

Sheehan had met Mr. Bush once before. On April 4, 2004, just shy of a year after Bush stood on an aircraft carrier beneath a banner that read "Mission Accomplished," Cindy Sheehan's son, Army Specialist Casey A. Sheehan, was killed in Iraq when his unit was attacked by rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire. He was 24 years old.

After Casey's death, Cindy Sheehan was invited to the White House for a visit with Mr. Bush in June of 2004. Her first memory of Bush's appearance that day was when he walked into the room and said in a loud, bluff voice, "Who we'all honorin' today?"

"His mouth kept moving," Sheehan later recalled of her meeting with Bush, "but there was nothing in his eyes or anything else about him that showed me he really cared or had any real compassion at all. This is a human being totally disconnected from humanity and reality. His eyes were empty, hollow shells." Bush called her "Ma" or "Mom" throughout the whole meeting, and never got around to learning her name.

"The whole meeting was simply bizarre and disgusting," Sheehan said later. "designed to intimidate instead of providing compassion. He didn't even know our names. I just couldn't believe this was happening. It was so surreal and bizarre. Later I met with some of the other fifteen or sixteen families who were at the White House the same day and, sure enough, they all felt the same way I did."

That was it. Cindy Sheehan, who had never been politically active in her life, became an activist. She traveled the country to speak to whomever would listen, she told the story of Casey's life and death, and she threw fire at George W. Bush with the passionate anguish of a mother who was forced to bury her son.

"Casey was told that he would be welcomed to Iraq as a liberator with chocolates and rose petals strewn in front of his unarmored Humvee" Sheehan wrote in February. "He was in Iraq for two short weeks when the Shi'ite rebel 'welcome wagon' welcomed him to Baghdad with bullets and RPG's, which took his young and beautiful life. Casey was killed after George Bush proclaimed 'Mission Accomplished' on May 1, 2003. Hundreds of our young people and thousands of Iraqis have been needlessly and senselessly murdered since George Bush triumphantly announced an end to 'major combat' almost 2 years ago now. All of the above events have been heralded by this administration as 'turning points' in the 'war on terror' - or as wonderful events in the 'march of democracy.'"

In June of 2005, Cindy Sheehan testified at a hearing in Washington DC about the Downing Street Minutes, the recently leaked British intelligence documents which exposed the fact that Bush intended to invade Iraq almost from the beginning of his first term, and that "Intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" of invasion.

"I believed before our leaders invaded Iraq in March, 2003," said Sheehan in her testimony, "and I am even more convinced now, that this aggression on Iraq was based on a lie of historic proportions and was blatantly unnecessary. The so-called Downing Street Memo dated 23 July, 2003, only confirms what I already suspected: the leadership of this country rushed us into an illegal invasion of another sovereign country on prefabricated and cherry picked intelligence. It appears that my boy Casey was given a death sentence even before he joined the Army in May of 2000."

And so it came to pass that George W. Bush hauled stakes for Texas and a vacation a few days ago, and Cindy Sheehan followed. She got off a bus Saturday afternoon and started walking to the Crawford ranch. She wanted some answers and was going to get them. She got as far as a police checkpoint, and has gotten no further. She is still there, waiting to speak to Mr. Bush so she can get an answer to her question. Why did her son die?

The folks on the Crawford ranch sent out some important people to speak to her. They sent Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser. They sent Joe Hagin, a deputy White House chief of staff. Cindy Sheehan sent them both packing.

By Sunday, a media frenzy had erupted around her. On Sunday night, the New York Times published a story about Sheehan's Texas standoff. "Her success in drawing so much attention to her message - and leaving the White House in a face-off with an opponent who had to be treated very gently even as she aggressively attacked the president and his policies - seemed to stem from the confluence of several forces," wrote the Times. "The deaths last week of 20 Marines from a single battalion has focused public attention on the unremitting pace of casualties in Iraq, providing her an opening to deliver her message that no more lives should be given to the war."

"At the same time," continued the article, "polls that show falling approval for Mr. Bush's handling of the war have left him open to challenge in a way that he was not when the nation appeared to be more strongly behind him. It did not hurt her cause that she staged her protest, which she said was more or less spontaneous, at the doorstep of the White House press corps, which spends each August in Crawford with little to do, minimal access to Mr. Bush and his aides, and an eagerness for any new story."

Casey Sheehan was every mother's son. Cindy Sheehan is every son's mother. She loved him with every cell in her body and every breath in her soul, and mourns his absence in every second of every day, and will have some answers for her pain and loss, or will know the reason why. She is down in Crawford, right now, waiting for George W. Bush to stop sending lackeys to placate her. She wants to speak to the man who sent her son to die. She is waiting.

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/080805I.shtml

Cindy Sheehan to Be Arrested Thursday —David Swanson, Mon Aug 8 22:13
Casey Sheehan was every mother's son. —William Rivers Pitt, Mon Aug 8 18:21

Fw: CAMP CASEY: CINDY SHEEHAN VISIT TO CRAWFORD (WACO, TX) —Gunni Di, Tue Aug 9 01:41
While Bush Vacations, Innocent People Die! —Greg Szymanski, Mon Aug 8 19:14