OpEdNews - Page 2 of Article: Cindy Sheehan Knows Her Power

Casey's lieutenant told Cindy her son volunteered to rescue U.S. troops caught in the ambush. An Associated Press story of April 13, the day of Casey's memorial service, related the Pentagon account: "Sheehan and seven soldiers were killed when their units were attacked by rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire south of Baghdad." More than 50 U.S. soldiers were wounded and at least 75 Iraqis died. The battle of Sadr City was the bloodiest fight since the fall of Baghdad a year before.

The Army posthumously awarded Casey, who was 24-years old, a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.

After Casey's death, the pressure Cindy felt since the months before September 11 vanished. Her body's intuitive warning system had relayed its terrible omen.

"We were super close," Cindy said about a bond the shattered vase dream portrayed more vividly than her words.

On Mother's Day, five weeks after Casey died, another dream startled Cindy. She and her husband Patrick were visiting Santa Barbara and the Veterans for Peace exhibit of combat boots, symbolizing U.S. war casualties.

I am sitting in the audience in a big theater. Casey walked onto the stage, wearing only his underwear and casually holding a Diet 7UP in one hand and carrying his M16 in the other. I heard his name called. Then, he put the rifle to his head and pulled the trigger.

When Cindy woke from the shocking dream, she knew Casey, a drama major in college, was sending her a message. "He would not just leave me without the support I needed," she said.

In June, Cindy, still in shock and grieving, and 27 other military families met with G.W. Bush at Ft. Lewis near Tacoma, Washington. He expressed sympathy for their losses.

Five weeks after the Mother's Day dream, Cindy quietly began her protestations for peace. In a newspaper interview, she criticized Bush's conduct of the war and his shifting reasons for the invasion. Then, Cindy joined a demonstration against the U.S. attack on Iraq. Two days later, in another newspaper interview, Cindy said she had doubted Bush's claim Saddam posed an immediate threat to the U.S.

In early 2005, she addressed the D.C. opening of the Veterans for Peace exhibit and with nine other military families founded Gold Star Families for Peace.

Then, on a hot August day, Cindy pitched a tent in a ditch near Bush's Crawford, Texas, compound, and with two other women held a simple vigil by the gate. She requested another meeting with Bush and "an explanation for what noble cause my son died."

Bush shunned Cindy during his five-week vacation, but thousands of veterans, returning soldiers, peace activists, and celebrities visited "Camp Casey." Cindy received international attention, and the media called her "Peace Mom."

Bush argued he had already met with Cindy and other suffering families. By then, however, a few media accounts had disclosed Bush's fraudulent claims Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda and 9/11. "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oil Field Contracts," part of secret energy papers the administration released under court order in July, 2003, showed Saddam had negotiated contracts with Russian, Chinese, and French oil companies. The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, Congressional benchmarks, and troop surges were contrived to force Iraqis to relinquish their oil revenues to ExxonMobil, Chevron, and other U.S.-based multinational companies.

After Camp Casey, the D.C. Police arrested Cindy and other peace activists demonstrating in front of the White House. The Capitol Police detained her for "unlawful conduct" -- wearing a T-shirt imprinted with the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq -- at Bush's January, 2006, State of the Union address.

The U.S. government's abuse of the Constitutional rights of the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, ostensibly fighting to protect Americans and bring democracy to a foreign country, became a painful tableau and a warning to other opponents of Bush administration policies.

As Americans learned how Bush's lies precipitated the Iraq war, the Pentagon's story about Casey's death also unraveled. Five months after Casey died, another military representative visited Cindy to augment the Army's account Casey volunteered for the Sadr City rescue. The story had troubled Cindy since she first heard it. After her Mother's Day dream, the Pentagon's explanation rang hollow.

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