Sheehan, Arnove Spread Antiwar Message, Plan

As part of a week of Mother's Day Peace Events, anti-war icon Cindy Sheehan and anti-war author Anthony Arnove brought their personal and powerful message to a crowd of nearly 400 at Seattle's Town Hall on Monday, May 8, 2006.

Proceeds from the event, organized by Mothers Day Original Movement Against War (MOMAW) and Seattle's Code Pink, went to support the Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan (RAWA) and Madre, an international women's human rights organization.

Arnove, author of Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal, addressed the Bush administration's stated reasons for launching pre-emptive war against Iraq and how each of these reasons has proven false. He reminded the audience "We're three years into the war and the antiwar movement was shown to be right while the press, the politicians, and the pundits were all wrong." He also spoke of the Bush administration's method of packaging and re-packaging the same lies about Iraq, this "Garth Brooks" theory of war marketing, to build support for war against Iran.

To contradict the Bush administration's claims that the US military is bringing "democracy" to Iraq, Arnove reported that recent Zogby polls indicate that only 1% of Iraqis think America invaded Iraq to liberate them.

In addition to rising numbers of Americans who believe the war was a mistake and the president's dropping approval rating, Arnove also spoke of the military's decline. "The military is currently facing the largest shortfalls in recruitment since the Vietnam War," he said, "and the largest deficits are among African-American and Latino recruits." He also noted that the civil rights movement in the US helped to end the Vietnam War by inspiring rank-and-file soldiers and drew the connection between the new immigrants rights movement and the ongoing efforts by the antiwar movement to end the war in Iraq.

Reflecting the country's growing recognition of the complicity of both parties in the march towards war, Sheehan openly criticized politicians who voted against the war but continue to support funding it. "Why do you keep voting for war funding?" Sheehan angrily demanded of Congress. "They say, �To support our troops." But how much of that money goes to the troops? Not much." Some soldiers are forced to drink contaminated water and beg for food from Iraqis. After being pressured not to run as an antiwar candidate against Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein in California earlier this year, Sheehan admitted that "We don't have a two-party system here. We have a one party system."

Sheehan told the hushed audience about the struggles of losing a loved one to in a war whose only beneficiaries seem to be multinational corporations. Packing for the speaking tour, she included her son's army jacket, "in case I have to go to an antiwar march." This time, however, she looked at the jacket and checked it for Casey's blood. Could this have been the jacket he was wearing when he was shot?, she asked herself. "And they say we don't support the troops?"

Both speakers criticized the deadly consequences of the war and the clear result that people around the world are less safe now than they were before. "You don't fight a war on terror by fighting a war of terror," Sheehan noted. "We are arrogant and racist to believe that we should have gone there in the first place and that we now have to stay there."

Sheehan read a few passages from her soon-to-be-released book, 10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military, written with Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg. In a letter she wrote to Barbara Bush, mother of the current president, she writes "I used to wash my kids' mouths out with soap on the rare occasions that they lied. Did you do the same for your son? Would you now?"

Both speakers' words were powerful and politically principled. Sheehan emphasized the right of the Iraqi people to resist the occupation of their country by a foreign invader, even at the cost of her own son's life. When one right-wing audience member confronted her during the Q&A session afterwards, Sheehan responded that she didn't believe her son was a terrorist: "The Iraqis have a right to defend themselves, even though my son had to die." She said her son was as much a victim of this war for oil and empire as the Iraqis who died fighting for their country.

Sheehan articulated a message of action and hope against the pessimism of some segments of the antiwar movement. "When are people of conscience going to draw that line in the sand and say we're not going to vote for you if you support the war?"

To find out the next stop on Arnove's "End the War" tour, visit www.endthewartour.org.