CODEPINK Statement on Vigil Outside of Walter Reed Hospital (Source)
Contact: Allison Yorra: 202-487-5112
August 26th, 2005
Right-wing attacks on peaceful vigil come on same day as announcement that Walter Reed Hospital will be closed.
Washington, DC – Since March 25, CODEPINK: Women for Peace members in Washington, DC have been holding vigils outside Walter Reed Hospital every Friday evening, to shed light on the plight of injured soldiers.
Gravely and seriously injured soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan arrive at Walter Reed for treatment late at night, under cover of darkness, so that the public does not become aware of the number of soldiers wounded and the severity of their injuries.
These are vigils, not protests, and participants have included Washington, DC-based members of Veterans for Peace, Military Families Speak Out, and DC Labor Against the War, who all want more support for veterans.
“Since we started these vigils, we feel we have helped put the spotlight on the needs of the soldiers and helped achieve positive results, such as greater VA funding and a rollback of attempts to make soldiers pay for their own meals, phone calls, daily hospitalization fees and increased co-payments,” said CODEPINK’s Gael Murphy, one of the vigil’s organizers.
The vigilers still have concerns about veterans’ care, such as a projected $3 billion shortfall for 2006 VA funding, the closing of veterans hospitals (including Walter Reed), the bureaucratic hurdles facing soldiers with long-term disabilities who are trying to get disability payments, and the Army’s recent statement that it is “revisiting” 72,000 cases of post-traumatic stress disorder (PSTD) recorded in past 5 years because misdiagnosis and fraud have inflated the numbers. “We are continuing the vigils because there is still a need to push for better care,” said Laura Costas of CODEPINK and Military Families Speak Out, whose brother served in Iraq. “Yes, we want to bring the troops home, but we also want to ensure that they are well-cared for when they return.”
The vigilers have often received encouragement from the wounded soldiers and their families, who often join the vigil themselves. “The first time I attended one of the vigils, a soldier’s wife invited me to come inside and visit her severely wounded husband,” said Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK. “He shared his worries about the care he would get when he returned to his hometown and the financial burden on his family, and he thanked us for being there. His parting words were ‘Please don’t forget us like veterans of other wars have been forgotten.’”
In recent weeks, the vigil has attracted some people who have tried to change the tone and message of the vigil, including yelling and holding up inappropriate signs. The organizers have asked the newcomers to be respectful and wonder if they might indeed be infiltrators whose aim is to disrupt the vigil.
The organizers also suspect that the sudden attention to the vigil on the part of the conservative media is part of a well-orchestrated smear campaign against the peace movement. “With the war in Iraq so disastrous and public opinion turning against this war, there is a new desperation on the part of the some conservative groups,” said CODEPINK co-founder Jodie Evans. “Despite their mud-slinging, the peace movement continues to gain momentum, as we see in Crawford, Texas and will see at upcoming massive anti-war rally on September 24 in Washington DC.”
PHOTOS of the vigil are available from Andrea Buffa, andrea@globalexchange.org.
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It truly does befuddle me when they start cutting off things to the military itself. Hmm..
Martin Sheen, Rev. Al Sharpton Visit Cindy Sheehan In Crawford (see the ‘Comments’ section as well):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2005/08/29/martin-sheen-rev-al-sha_n_6358.html
Forwarded:
Cindy Sheehan is hurting her cause by smearing an American citizen ‘James Morris’ in calling him an anti-Semite and saying that he doctored her email to ABC’s ‘Nightline’.
She also sent this email to two other people Tony Tersch, a retiree living in
Thailand, and Skeeter Gallagher (access the following URL):
http://www.slate.com/id/2124788/sidebar/2124791/
Three people have seen her original email which mentioned the PNAC Neocons and her son dying for Israel.
Nobody had doctored Cindy’s email as those were her original words.
At first Cindy’s claim was that James Morris hacked into her email.
James Morris a hacker? Not hardly!
Cindy changed her story about that (access http://www.slate.com/id/2124788/sidebar/2124791/ ) and has disingenuously denied writing those words about the PNAC Neocons and Israel in the letter that she asked James Morris to send to ABC’s ‘Nightline’ on her behalf.
The only way to settle it for good would be for Cindy Sheehan to allow access (via her internet provider) to her email send history for March 15th, 2005.
Morris is willing to do the same with his email account for March 15th, 2005 as well.
If Sheehan declines this offer, then we will know that she indeed did write those words which she vehemently claims that she didn’t.
Here’s Cindy’s slander:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cindy-sheehan/camp-casey-day-12_b_5830.html
Access ‘Comments’ section at the following URL by scrolling down to the ‘Comments’ link near the bottom:
http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2005/08/cindy-sheehan-mother-of-spc-casey.html
More on Cindy Sheehan at following URL (James Morris mentioned there as well):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cindy_Sheehan
The original letter (sent from Cindy Sheehan to James Morris) is included below:
From: SCINDY121@
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 12:54:21 EST
Subject: nightline
To: justicequest2000@
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=”—-1110909261″
X-Mailer: 9.0 for Windows sub 5116
Content-Length: 7462
Dear James
Could you forward this to a NightLIne producer? Check it out first and see if I should change anything or add anything.
Thanks
Cindy
March 15, 2005
To Whom it May Concern:
Imagine my distress when I turned Night Line on last night and I was confronted with the gory details of my son’s murder in Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq on 04/04/04. Imagine, also, my sorrow and rage at the side of the story that you presented to the American public.
I was on the Night Line Townhall Meeting in Washington, DC on 01/27/05. After I spoke (which I think was a fluke), Ted Koppel dismissed me as being “emotional.” First of all, how can I approach this discussion without emotions, MY SON WAS KILLED, AND KILLED FOR LIES? Second of all, that show was not fair and balanced and I think the conclusion “Should we stay” was foregone.
The show last night was also not fair and balanced. To see all the wives being interviewed who had not lost their husbands and to hear what “hard work” it is to be left behind when their husbands are at war. How hard to you think it is to have a child killed in an illegal and immoral war? In this “wonderful” group of families left behind, we had exactly ONE of the wives call us..she is Diane Rose who was my son’s Colonel, Frank Rose’s wife. The last time we heard from Diane was in October and we feel we have been left behind by anyone connected to the 2-5 Cavalry. Is support only given if your loved one stays alive? One wife was quoted as saying that Sundays were the hardest for the families left behind. My son was killed on Palm Sunday last year..how does anybody think Sundays are for my family?
A distraught father who lost his son was shown telling how much his life was so adversely affected. Why wasn’t a mother (like me) who has been an outspoken critic of this war and of the President’s policies interviewed for this piece? Why wasn’t I given a chance to talk about 04/04/04 and the series of lies, mistakes and miscalculations that led to my precious oldest child’s death??
General Chiarelli was quoted as saying that 04/04/04 was a “wake up” call to the 2-5 Cavalry. If he thinks it was a “wake up” call, let me tell you how having 3 Army officers come to my door on 04/04/04 and tell me that my darling son was KIA. I have learned so many details of that day and of my son’s experience in Iraq.
The very first thing that went wrong happened in November at Ft Irwin, California…the 2-5 Cavalry went for desert training. They received open desert warfare training and my son was killed in an urban guerilla attack, which he hadn’t been trained for. Also, he was wearing an inadequate helmet and a Vietnam era flak jacket. Casey was stationed in a very dangerous place, like the General said: FOB War Eagle. I have subsequently learned that the soldiers of the 2-5 Cav who were stationed outside of Baghdad had Kevlar body armor. I have also found out that Casey slept in the back of his Humvee for the last 2 weeks of his life because there wasn’t any room on post for him to have a cot. How tired and overworked was he before he went into that battle on 04/04/04?
In addition, my son was killed after L. Paul Bremer inflamed the Shi’a by taking away their tv station and newspapers. The Abu Ghraib scandal was about to break in America…but it was well known by the Iraqi people that their citizens were being tortured and defiled in the prisons. My son was a sitting duck by the time 04/04/04 rolled around.
The very worst thing of all, is that my son was sent to rescue some fellow soldiers trapped in an ambush in the back of a LMTV..which is basically an open air trailer. It would be the equivalent of driving through Dallas on 11/22/63 in a Convertible. The troops stationed at FOB War Eagle were sent ahead of their tanks and Bradleys!!! They had to go into battle in the back of LMTV’s and non-armored Humvees. This is just proof to me that our troops are as important to their leaders as bullets are. It is a small miracle that only 7 of them were killed in the ambush. Luckily for the rest of the moms, it was dark. After my son’s murder, there was an article in Stars and Stripes that quoted one of Casey’s superior officers as saying. “04 April taught us a lesson. We won’t send soldiers to battle without their armor any more.” How do you think that made me feel? It was like “OOOPS, your dear son was killed. Life happens. Oh well, you live and learn.” The General was also quoted as saying that the insurgency “surprised” them. Why? Has there ever been an invasion/occupation of a sovereign country that hasn’t been resisted? Anyone with half a brain and an even rudimentary understanding of history would know that all occupations are resisted. The Pentagon and the Army brass did not plan adequately for an occupation.
Then Gen. Chiarelli said the thing that upset me the most. He said that the loss of life was terrible, but at least Iraqis had elections on 01/30/05. With the continuuing insurgency and with Iraqis and Americans losing their lives everyday there, how can he be proud of that? I may remind you and the General, that Iraqi elections was not the reason that our President and his Neo-Con war mongers invaded Iraq with our precious human resources. I will give the two reasons given for the invaseion here: Saddam had WMD’s and he was an imminent threat to America. Saddam could have WMD’s on our shores within 45 minutes. Condoleeza Rice used fear as a factor when she said: Don’t let the smoking gun be a mushroom cloud. Rumsfeld and Colin Powell pointed out to us where the weapons were on a map.
The second reason that America was given before the invasion was that Saddam was the biggest sponsor of world terrorism and he supported Osama Bin Laden! Oh really??? The hijackers were predominantly Saudi Arabian as was Osama (who is still at large, by the way). The theory that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11 was disproven by the 9/11 commission’s report. A huge factor in Americans believing all this bull is that our media..the Fourth Estate didn’t do any research and expose the lies for what they were: justifications for invading a country that posed no imminent or long-term threat to America.
One reason that the President DID NOT give for the invasion and occupation of Iraq was so that Iraqis could have elections. As a matter of fact, that was Ayatollah Ali al Sistani’s idea..not Bush’s. If the president in his lying and betraying in the lead up and rush to this insane invasion had told the world that we were going over there to give Iraqi’s elections, would we the people have gone along with the invasion? Would we as compassionate Americans have thought that it would have been worth billions and billions of dollars; hundreds of our amazing children dead; tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi women and children dead: a country lying in ruins? I don’t think so. I certainly didn’t raise my son to be an outstanding citizen of the world to go and die so some people could have ink-stained fingers!!! If anyone reading this has children, would you think it was worth it?? Instead of some Congress leaders showing ink-stained fingers at the SOTU address they should have held up blood soaked hands.
Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel. Am I stupid? No, I know full-well that my son, my family, this nation, and this world were betrayed by a George Bush who was influenced by the neo-con PNAC agenda after 9/11. We were told that we were attacked on 9/11 because the terrorists hate our freedoms and democracy…not for the real reason, becuase the Arab-Muslims who attacked us hate our middle-eastern foreign policy. That hasn’t changed since America invaded and occupied Iraq…in fact it has gotten worse.
It would be so amazing if your show would put me, or another parent who lost their child on who disagrees with the war and this administration: to have just an entire show..without presenting the false side of the debate. That would take a lot of courage and integrity. I hope your program will exhibit these qualities.
I also think that Mr. Koppel owes me an apology for the rude way I was treated on his show. After I expressed myself about the war being based on lies and that the troops should be brought home immediately because the war was based on lies, I was not thanked for my comments, or my son’s sacrifice. He just said to keep the discussion away from emotions. Then, the wife of a soldier who was killed was allowed to speak and she praised the policies of this deplorable and despicable administration, and she was thanked and praised by the panel.
Also, another aspect that Mr. Koppel refused to acknowledge was when a man walked up to a microphone and asked Richard Perle to explain PNAC..he was rudely ignored.
I am so glad the First Cavalry came home from this senseless and needless war based on the imaginations of Neo-Cons and fought with ignorance and arrogance by the Commander in Chief and the Pentagon. I am thrilled for the mothers whose children didn’t come home under the cover of darkness in flag-draped boxes like my son did. I am sure that some of Casey’s buddies were able to walk off the plane because of his sacrifice. I am just so deeply sorry that my son’s blood had to be their leaders’ lesson in how to occupy a country and fight an insurgency. My son is dead forever and my joy has been robbed from me for the rest of my life.
Your show needs to show both sides of this debate and stop being a propanda tool for this administration. This is my challenge to you from a true patriot who wants the lies exposed.
Love and Peace!!!
Cindy Sheehan
Mother of Hero: Spc Casey Austin Sheehan KIA 04/04/04
Casey’s Peace Page
Co-Founder of Gold Star Families For Peace
http://www.gsfp.org/
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Cindy Sheehan should make her AOL (scindy121@aol.com) send history available (via AOL if she has to) for March 15th, 2005. If she won’t, we will know why…