Cindy Sheehan Leads Protest Against the Iraq War

Photograph

By: Evan Sisley

Date: September 26, 2005

Source: AP Images.

About the Author: Evan Sisley is a photographer for the Associated Press, a worldwide news agency based in New York.

INTRODUCTION

Cindy Sheehan (1957–) is a mother and political activist who, starting in the summer of 2005, participated in a number of protests against the war in Iraq. Sheehan rapidly became a national figure in 2005 after she began camping outside the borders of President George W. Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, demanding a meeting with the President.

Sheehan's son, Army Specialist Casey Sheehan (1979–2004), was killed in action in Iraq. She met with President Bush in June 2004, along with several members of other military families and soon after voiced a mixture of criticism and approval in describing the meeting. By early 2005, she had become entirely critical of the president and his conduct of the war. In August 2005, speaking of her apparent change of heart regarding her first meeting, for which she has been widely criticized by supporters of the Iraq war, she said, "The first time [I met with Bush] I was deeply in shock and grief, and I wasn't as informed as I am now. I'm not a mother in shock any more. I'm still a grieving mother, but now I'm an angry mother."

In January 2005, Sheehan loaned her son's combat boots to a traveling display organized by the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers) to call attention to the human cost of the Iraq war. In that month, she also helped found Gold Star Families for peace, an antiwar organization composed of Americans who have lost relatives serving in the military in the Iraq war. (The phrase "gold star" refers to the banner bearing a gold star, which may be displayed by any family that has lost a close relative in U.S. military service, a custom in force since World War I.) In August 2005, she decided to camp out by the side of the road near President Bush's ranch near Crawford, Texas, until such time as he would grant her a second meeting, and, as she put it, explain to her the "noble cause" he had alleged in several speeches was served by U.S. military deaths in Iraq. Sheehan was joined by other anti-war protestors, including a number of mothers whose sons had died in Iraq, and her protest was covered widely by U.S. and international media.

The protest shown in this photograph took place on September 26, 2005. Sheehan and hundreds of other antiwar demonstrators, headed by a group of religious leaders, were arrested after marching to the White House gate and attempting to deliver to the president a list of the names of all U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. The list also included the names of many Iraqi civilians who have died in the war. The protestors did not expect the president or his representative to actually accept delivery of the list. After making their symbolic demand, they sat down on the sidewalk in front of the White House. The U.S. Park Police, with whom the protest plan had been discussed beforehand, then arrested 370 of the demonstrators, beginning with Cindy Sheehan. All those arrested were charged with demonstrating without a permit and fined $50 each.

PRIMARY SOURCE

CINDY SHEEHAN LEADS PROTEST AGAINST THE IRAQ WAR

See primary source image.

SIGNIFICANCE

Sheehan provoked both praise and outrage because she spoke out against the Iraq war in a cultural context that greatly reveres fallen military personnel and treats their surviving relatives with heightened respect. Traditionally, these family members are expected to be grieving but supportive of the military mission their loved ones died performing and grateful for the posthumous honors bestowed by the government. It is therefore incongruous when the mother of a dead soldier harshly criticizes the mission that the soldier died performing. Nor was the style of Sheehan's protest polite or motherly. She has repeatedly accused President Bush of being a liar and a war criminal. (The war-criminal charge is a reference to a statement by former Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, U.S. prosecutor at the first round of trials of Nazi war criminals held after World War II at Nuremberg. Jackson said that aggressive war is "the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.") Sheehan was widely praised and widely attacked because she combined motherhood, martyrdom, and angry protest in an unusual manner and framed them dramatically by camping in a tent outside the home of the president.

Like her attempted delivery of a roster of the dead to the White House in 2005, Sheehan's demand for a Crawford interview was symbolic: no actual meeting with the President was anticipated. In fact, the granting of such an interview might have greatly diminished the political impact of the campout protest.

Sheehan has continued her activism since camping near the president' Crawford ranch. She was invited to the 2006 State of the Union Address in January, but was arrested before the speech began for wearing a t-shirt bearing the message "2,245 dead. How many more?" Also in January 2006, Sheehan traveled to Venezuela, as the guest of the government, to participate with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in the Caracas World Social Forum, an anti-globalization gathering.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Rising-Moore, Carl and Becky Oberg. Freedom Underground: Protesting the Iraq War in America. New York: Chamberlain Bros., 2004.

Periodicals

Dvorak, Petula. "White House Sidewalk Protest Leads to Arrest." The Washington Post. September 27, 2005.

Fletcher, Michael A. "Cindy Sheehan"s Pitched Battle: In a Tent Near Bush's Ranch, Antiwar Mother of Dead Soldier Gains Visibility." The Washington Post. August 13, 2005.

Web sites

CNN.com. "Soldier's Mom Digs In Near Bush Ranch." August 7, 2005. <http://edition.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/08/07/mom.protest/> (accessed May 15, 2006).