Sheehan considers challenge to Pelosi
By ANGELA K. BROWN
Associated Press Writer
Sunday, 08 July, 2007
Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070708/ap_on_el_ho/cindy_sheehan_pelosi
CRAWFORD, Texas - Cindy Sheehan, the soldier's mother who galvanized the anti-war movement, said Sunday that she plans to run against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unless she introduces articles of impeachment against President Bush in the next two weeks.
Sheehan said she will run against the San Francisco Democrat in 2008 as an independent if Pelosi does not seek by July 23 to impeach Bush. That's when Sheehan and her supporters are to arrive in Washington, D.C., after a 13-day caravan and walking tour starting next week from the group's war protest site near Bush's Crawford ranch.
"Democrats and Americans feel betrayed by the Democratic leadership," Sheehan told The Associated Press. "We hired them to bring an end to the war. I'm not too far from San Francisco, so it wouldn't be too big of a move for me. I would give her a run for her money."
Messages left with Pelosi's staff were not immediately returned. The White House declined to comment on Sheehan's plans.
She plans her official candidacy announcement Tuesday. Sunday wrapped up what is expected to be her final weekend at the 5-acre Crawford lot that she sold to California radio talk show host Bree Walker, who plans to keep it open to protesters.
Sheehan announced in late May that she was leaving the anti-war movement. She said that she felt her efforts had been in vain and that she had endured smear tactics and hatred from the left, as well as the right. She said she wanted to change course.
She first came to Crawford in August 2005 during a Bush vacation, demanding to talk to him about the war that killed her son Casey in 2004. She became the face of the anti-war movement during her 26-day roadside vigil, which was joined by thousands. But it also drew counter-protests by Bush supporters, many who said she was hurting troop morale.
Sheehan, who has never held political office, recently said that she was leaving the Democratic Party because it "caved" in to the president. Last week, she announced her caravan to Washington, an undertaking she calls the "people's accountability movement."
"I didn't expect to be back so soon, but the focus is different than it was before," Sheehan said Sunday. "Instead of talking and making accusations, we're going into communities and talking to the people who've been hurt by the Bush regime. We're finding out how we can help people."
Sheehan, who will turn 50 on Tuesday, said Bush should be impeached because she believes he misled the public about the reasons for going to war, violated the Geneva Convention by torturing detainees, and crossed the line by commuting the prison sentence of former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. She said other grounds for impeachment are the domestic spying program and the "inadequate and tragic" response to Hurricane Katrina.
Libby was convicted of lying and obstructing justice in an investigation into the leak of a CIA officer's identity.
Sheehan said she hopes Pelosi files the articles of impeachment so Sheehan can move onto her next projects, including overseas trips for humanitarian work. But if not, Sheehan said she is ready to run for office.
"I'm doing it to encourage other people to run against Congress members who aren't doing their jobs, who are beholden to special interests," Sheehan said. "She (Pelosi) let the people down who worked hard to put Democrats back in power, who we thought were our hope for change."
Pelosi was elected to the House in 1987 and became the first female speaker in January.
Sheehan said she lives in a Sacramento suburb but declined to disclose which city, citing safety reasons. The area is outside Pelosi's district, but there are no residency requirements for congressional members, according to the California secretary of state's office.
Tuesday 3 July 2007
The unintended consequences of the “cakewalk war”
By Paul Craig Roberts
07/02/07
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17951.htm
John Lukacs in his monograph, June 1941: Hitler and Stalin, reports that “the best military experts throughout the world predicted the defeat of the Soviet Union within a few weeks, or within two months at the most” following Hitler’s invasion of Russia on June 22, 1941.
While the superb German military machine made an excellent showing, by the beginning of 1943 its offensive capability was exhausted and the Germans were defeated at Stalingrad.
Germany lost the war one and one-half years before the US could manage the invasion of Normandy.
If Hitler had not depleted the German Army in Russia, a US invasion of Normandy could not have been contemplated.Lukacs concerns himself with unintended consequences of June 22, 1941.
It is not too early, or too late, to concern ourselves with the unintended consequences of March 20, 2003.
Four and one-quarter years ago the Pentagon and its neoconservative advisors and media propagandists promised Americans a “cakewalk” war of 3 to 6 weeks duration.
Six weeks later on May 2, 2003, in history’s most ill-advised propaganda stunt, President Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, whose tower was adorned with a banner declaring “Mission Accomplished,” and announced the end to major combat operations in Iraq.
In fact, the war had hardly begun.
Four years later with the failure in June 2007 of President Bush’s desperate last measure--”the surge”--US offensive capability is exhausted.
The US military can do no more and has less control of the situation than ever.
Perhaps the clearest indication that the war in Iraq is no longer under American control is Turkey’s announcement of plans to invade northern Iraq, the home of the Iraqi Kurds.
As June 2007 came to an end, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul announced that if US or Iraqi forces did not eliminate the Kurdish guerrillas that were attacking Turkey, the Turkish Army would move into northern Iraq to deal with the situation.
Foreign Minister Gul was unequivocal: “The military plans have been worked out in the finest detail. The government knows these plans and agrees with them. If neither the Iraqi government nor the US occupying forces can do this [crush the guerrillas], we will take our own decision and implement it.”
This ultimatum puts President Bush in an impossible situation.
Neither the Iraqi government nor the US military have the means to deal with Kurdish guerrillas in their mountain strongholds.
The US military cannot even occupy Baghdad.
The Iraqi government exists in name only and can be found only in its offices located inside the fortified and US-protected Green Zone in Baghdad.
Moreover, to the extent that the in-name-only Iraqi government has any support, it comes from the Kurds in northern Iraq.
The rest of Iraq is controlled by Sunni insurgents and Shi’ite militias.
Even Basra in the south has been abandoned to the Shi’ite militias by Bush’s British ally.
The over-stretched American Empire hasn’t any troops to send to northern Iraq.
NATO, whose charter was to defend Western Europe from Soviet invasion should have been disbanded two decades ago.
Today NATO functions as an auxiliary US force and has been sent to Afghanistan, where it is being defeated like the British and Russians before it.
In the midst of this unmanageable chaos, vice president Cheney, Bush’s former UN ambassador John Bolton and large numbers of Christian and Jewish Zionists are demanding that the US attack Iran, and Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The unintended consequences of the “cakewalk war” are already far outside the Bush administration’s ability to manage and will plague future governments for many years.
For the administration to initiate new acts of aggression in the Middle East would go beyond recklessness to insanity.
========
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions..
By Paul Craig Roberts
07/02/07
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17951.htm
John Lukacs in his monograph, June 1941: Hitler and Stalin, reports that “the best military experts throughout the world predicted the defeat of the Soviet Union within a few weeks, or within two months at the most” following Hitler’s invasion of Russia on June 22, 1941.
While the superb German military machine made an excellent showing, by the beginning of 1943 its offensive capability was exhausted and the Germans were defeated at Stalingrad.
Germany lost the war one and one-half years before the US could manage the invasion of Normandy.
If Hitler had not depleted the German Army in Russia, a US invasion of Normandy could not have been contemplated.Lukacs concerns himself with unintended consequences of June 22, 1941.
It is not too early, or too late, to concern ourselves with the unintended consequences of March 20, 2003.
Four and one-quarter years ago the Pentagon and its neoconservative advisors and media propagandists promised Americans a “cakewalk” war of 3 to 6 weeks duration.
Six weeks later on May 2, 2003, in history’s most ill-advised propaganda stunt, President Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, whose tower was adorned with a banner declaring “Mission Accomplished,” and announced the end to major combat operations in Iraq.
In fact, the war had hardly begun.
Four years later with the failure in June 2007 of President Bush’s desperate last measure--”the surge”--US offensive capability is exhausted.
The US military can do no more and has less control of the situation than ever.
Perhaps the clearest indication that the war in Iraq is no longer under American control is Turkey’s announcement of plans to invade northern Iraq, the home of the Iraqi Kurds.
As June 2007 came to an end, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul announced that if US or Iraqi forces did not eliminate the Kurdish guerrillas that were attacking Turkey, the Turkish Army would move into northern Iraq to deal with the situation.
Foreign Minister Gul was unequivocal: “The military plans have been worked out in the finest detail. The government knows these plans and agrees with them. If neither the Iraqi government nor the US occupying forces can do this [crush the guerrillas], we will take our own decision and implement it.”
This ultimatum puts President Bush in an impossible situation.
Neither the Iraqi government nor the US military have the means to deal with Kurdish guerrillas in their mountain strongholds.
The US military cannot even occupy Baghdad.
The Iraqi government exists in name only and can be found only in its offices located inside the fortified and US-protected Green Zone in Baghdad.
Moreover, to the extent that the in-name-only Iraqi government has any support, it comes from the Kurds in northern Iraq.
The rest of Iraq is controlled by Sunni insurgents and Shi’ite militias.
Even Basra in the south has been abandoned to the Shi’ite militias by Bush’s British ally.
The over-stretched American Empire hasn’t any troops to send to northern Iraq.
NATO, whose charter was to defend Western Europe from Soviet invasion should have been disbanded two decades ago.
Today NATO functions as an auxiliary US force and has been sent to Afghanistan, where it is being defeated like the British and Russians before it.
In the midst of this unmanageable chaos, vice president Cheney, Bush’s former UN ambassador John Bolton and large numbers of Christian and Jewish Zionists are demanding that the US attack Iran, and Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The unintended consequences of the “cakewalk war” are already far outside the Bush administration’s ability to manage and will plague future governments for many years.
For the administration to initiate new acts of aggression in the Middle East would go beyond recklessness to insanity.
========
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions..
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