Anti-Iraq war parents to take protests across nation

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Thu, 25 Aug 2005 21:02:20 -0700 (PDT)

Anti-Iraq war parents to take protests across nation

 

 

 

 

 

Anti-Iraq war parents to take protests across nation

 

Reuters

Wed Aug 24, 2:03 PM ET

 

 

NEW YORK - Parents of soldiers killed in Iraq plan to follow President

George W. Bush around the country in the coming months, hoping to

generate nationwide anti-war sentiment after camping out at his Texas

ranch.

 

Through much of August, Cindy Sheehan, who lost her son in Iraq, has

stationed herself with other protesters outside Bush's Crawford ranch,

garnering international media coverage at a time when more than 1,800

U.S. military have died in the Iraq conflict.

 

 

 

Sue Niederer, who with Sheehan and other families of dead soldiers

founded " Gold Star Families for Peace, " on Wednesday vowed to pursue

the president with her anti-war message.

 

" We are going to be continuously on Mr. Bush and make him understand

we are not going away. We are very, very steadfast in what we doing, "

said the 56-year-old housewife, real estate agent and substitute

teacher from Hopewell, New Jersey.

 

 

 

Niederer, whose 24-year-old son Seth Dvorin died in Iskandariya, Iraq,

on February 3, 2004, said she and others plan to travel to wherever

Bush will be speaking.

 

Anti-war groups kept the pressure on the president this week as he

made speeches in Utah and Idaho, where he promised that U.S. troops

would remain in Iraq to complete their job to honor those who already

died there -- a logic Niederer disputed.

 

 

 

" You are dishonoring the soldiers, you are not honoring them, " she

said of Bush's speech.

 

" Given the reasons for why we went into this war, why have their

deaths not been in vain? " she asked, referring to Bush's now disproved

pre-war assertion in 2003 that Iraq might have stockpiles of weapons

of mass destruction.

 

 

 

Sheehan, the Vacaville, California, mother whose son Casey was killed

in combat in Iraq, has become the center of the anti-war effort by

camping out near Bush's ranch and demanding to meet face-to-face with

the president.

 

She plans to speak in Brunswick, Maine, in September and in Brooklyn,

New York, in October.

 

 

 

After Bush ends his Crawford stay at the end of August, the anti-war

families are also considering crisscrossing America in buses in hopes

of building a national protest movement similar to that seen during

the Vietnam War, when public sentiment against the war contributed to

the eventual U.S. withdrawal.

 

" This is Vietnam No. 2. As we are seeing in the polls, the American

people are beginning to realize this war was created on lies, deceit

and deception, " Niederer said.

 

 

 

A majority of the U.S. public doubts the United States will win the

war in Iraq and believes the Bush administration deliberately misled

Americans over Iraq's weapons capabilities, according to a July 27 USA

Today/CNN/Gallup Poll.

 

It was the first poll to find that more than half of Americans -- 51

percent -- believed the administration was deliberately misleading

when it asserted that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

 

 

 

But creating a Vietnam-style nationwide protest against the Iraq

conflict will be near impossible without a draft to focus dissent,

said Stanford University Political Science Professor and Hoover

Institution Senior Fellow Morris Fiorina.

 

" If you had a draft, you would affect everybody and break beyond the

usual protesters, " Fiorina said.