"This is the 21st century - killing is barbaric" : Cindy Sheehan in London

[Benbow]

Cindy Sheehan is in Britain for the first time, joining the anti-war movement here.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/antiwar/story/0,12809,1663388,00.html

During this trip to Britain, she will address Saturday's International Peace Conference (organised by the Stop the War Coalition), and will also meet members of the Scottish parliament and fellow activists, including Britons who have lost their sons or brothers in the war. Then it will be back to her new home in Berkeley and on with the work for her new book - about how one person can have a political impact by just getting on with it.

She is very unimpressed with Bush's rationale for the war. "He keeps coming up with the same inane speech as though that's going to rally people back to support him. As for his 'national strategy for victory' - wouldn't it have been nice if they had started to plan for that before they invaded in the first place and killed so many brave young Americans like Casey? It's gratifying that America is now opening its eyes and I'm not so wacky and out there by myself any more. We are not the 'extreme' people any more. Look at the polls, George Bush, you're the one who's at the extremes."

The Democrats have also largely been a disappointment, she says, not least Hillary Clinton. "She's very wishy-washy, she's playing the middle because she wants to be president and I look at all the politicians who want to be president and they are basically playing the middle, too," she says. "It obviously didn't work for John Kerry, and I told him: 'If you had come out strongly against the war and said you would start bringing the troops home, you would have won in a landslide'. But he has this memory that he did come out strongly against the war! Howard Dean told me the war is a hard issue. No, it's not. Our kids are there being killed and they're killing innocent Iraqis for lies. It's not brain surgery."

I have also just heard Cindy Sheehan interviewed on BBC Radio 4 (flagship UK speech channel), "Woman's Hour", on "what it was like to tell President Bush what she thinks about the Iraq conflict and how her anger at the death of her soldier son made her a force to reckon with". Look for "Listen Again" link on this page,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/

[JohnyCanuck]

1. Listening to Cindy interview now. Thanks for posting. n/t

[bigtree]

2. there's someone who's word we can trust

good to hear from you Cindy.

[gulliver]

3. Remember though, that Bush only got us into war as a last resort.

He has told us so. There are probably dozens of memos and findings that can attest to the fact that Bush, like any responsible president, ordered the government to look for any other way but war. How could anyone think that Bush didn't turn to Colin Powell and say, "Colin, I want you to find me another way to do this." Of course Bush did that that. If he hadn't, that would make him the last kind of person anyone would want as a president.

Bush gave a whole bunch of orders to people to try to avoid war, I'm sure. He stayed up late many nights thinking long and hard about how barbaric it is. The orders are top secret, or he could produce some written evidence that he tried to avoid war. And we know he wouldn't go to bed early and run on his treadmill while working up a decision on war. Someone who would do that shouldn't be president.

[400Years]

4. This woman should get the Nobel Peace Prize