Re: Cindy Sheehan too cowardly yet again to address war for Israel agenda with Chris Matthews on MSNBC 'Hardball' broadcast



Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 01:51:22 -0700 (PDT)

Subject: For Karen Houppert/Cindy Sheehan
To: Karen Houppert


Dear Ms. Houppert,

Please consider doing a piece about how disingenuous Cindy Sheehan is being when Chris Matthews (of MSNBC's 'Hardball' broadcast) asked her what she thought the motivation was for the Iraq war and Cindy put forth the 'for profit' motive when she wrote that it was for a PNAC Neocon agenda to benefit Israel in that ABC 'Nightline' email as I just saw your piece for 'The Nation' as well via the following URL:

www.thenation.com/doc/20060612/houppert/5

There is war profiteering in most wars, but such wasn't the primary motivation for Iraq. Securing the realm for Israel in accordance with the 'A Clean Break' was (again, one can read about the 'A Clean Break' from James Bamford's 'A Pretext for War' book via the following URL):

www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php

Here are two URLs (take a look at the 'Hardball' transcript below which includes the interview that Cindy did with Chris Matthews yesterday):

www.slate.com/id/2124788/sidebar/2124791/

representativepress.blogspot.com/2005/08/cindy-sheehan-mother-of-spc-casey.html

representativepress.blogspot.com/2005/08/gorilla-in-room-is-us-support-for.html

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19830397/

Well, Cindy Sheehan is an anti-war activist, probably the most famous. Her son, Casey, was killed during his service in the Iraq war. She‘s currently on a 17-city, two-and-a-half-week tour called “Journey for Humanity,” protesting against President Bush and actually calling for his impeachment. Cindy Sheehan joins us now from Charlotte, North Carolina. Thank you very much for joining us, Cindy Sheehan.
CINDY SHEEHAN, SON DIED IN IRAQ: Hi, Chris. Thank you.
MATTHEWS: Thank you. Well, let me ask you about impeachment. What are the grounds? I mean, imagine you‘re a member calling for impeachment on the floor of the Senate, or conviction. What would you say?
SHEEHAN: Well, I would say the lies and the deceptions that led to an illegal and immoral occupation of Iraq, that has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, I would say breaking the FISA laws by spying on Americans without warrants that George Bush admitted to, I would say the inadequate and tragic response to Katrina. I would say for authorizing torture. I would say for authorizing consolidating executive power, all the power in one branch. And I think there are many grounds that impeachment could be started on.
MATTHEWS: Do you believe that we have waged an aggressive war in Iraq?
SHEEHAN: Well, I think that it was illegal and immoral. There were no weapons of mass destructions. There was no connection between Saddam and 9/11, and all evidence has shown, especially this week, that what we‘re doing is strengthening al Qaeda and strengthening hatred against us for occupying the country and destroying a country that was no threat to us.
MATTHEWS: Why do you think President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, the other hawks in this administration—why do you think they took us to war?
SHEEHAN: Well, I think it was a lot to do with oil. It was a lot to do with destabilizing that region, which they have done very thoroughly. The Iraqi refugee crisis has made the entire region compromised there. And I think it was for profit. I mean, it‘s for Halliburton. It‘s for Blackwater. It‘s for Standard Oil. It‘s for the war profiteers. And that‘s why war is usually waged.
MATTHEWS: You believe that this was—this war was fought because people in the White House decided to make some money for their pals in business? You really believe that?
SHEEHAN: I believe that that...
MATTHEWS: That they sent...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: That they sent 3,600 Americans to their death and 20,000-some losing their arms and legs and killed another 100,000 Arabs so that they could get richer?
SHEEHAN: As Major General Smedley Butler said, War is a racket. It always has been, and it always will be. And I believe that that‘s one of the reasons. It‘s what Dwight Eisenhower warned us of when he left office, the military-industrial complex.
MATTHEWS: Yes, but he was warning us about people like Kennedy and Rockefeller, who wanted to spend more money on the budget on defense spending. But was he warning us about...
SHEEHAN: Well, if we don‘t...
MATTHEWS: ... war profiteering...
SHEEHAN: Well, if we don‘t...
MATTHEWS: Do you really believe that Cheney...
SHEEHAN: Absolutely. Absolutely.
MATTHEWS: OK.
SHEEHAN: Cheney, and he was the CEO of Halliburton that got the no-bid contracts.
MATTHEWS: Right.
SHEEHAN: And it is for strengthening the military-industrial complex, because they can‘t build more bombs and tanks and guns if we don‘t use them, if we don‘t deplete them. And that‘s one of the major reasons for it. And also, it‘s for controlling the natural resources. And if it‘s not for that, what was it for, Chris? It wasn‘t for...
MATTHEWS: That‘s what I‘m asking.
SHEEHAN: It wasn‘t for terrorism because it‘s just made terrorism worse. And al Qaeda wasn‘t in Iraq before we invade.
MATTHEWS: Do you think that Cheney and the president are guilty of war crimes?
SHEEHAN: Absolutely, for authorizing torture, which is against the
Geneva Conventions and against our own 8th Amendment, and for spying on
Americans without due process, and for detaining human beings without due
process, which is against
MATTHEWS: Why do you think the president commuted the sentence of his former assistant for national security, Scooter Libby?
SHEEHAN: Well, Scooter Libby, the—one of the founders and promoters of the Project for a New American Century—Scooter Libby—I think Scooter Libby knows where a lot of the skeletons are buried, that‘s for sure.
MATTHEWS: OK. Let me ask you about your plans because you‘ve became active again. You took kind of a breather, didn‘t you, for a while there in the anti-war effort?
SHEEHAN: I took a very short, five-week retirement, but I feel rested and ready to go, yes.
MATTHEWS: Now, you‘ve talked about running against Nancy Pelosi. I‘m out here in San Francisco right now. It‘s very much an anti-war city, as you know.
SHEEHAN: Yes. Yes.
MATTHEWS: Feverishly anti-war.
SHEEHAN: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Do you think you can actually take a nick out of her support, Nancy Pelosi, if you ran against her for the House?
SHEEHAN: Well, I think that we could do very well there, and I‘ve already gotten just tremendous support from the city of San Francisco, and really from people all over the country that are disgusted with the two-party system, disgusted with the spinelessness of the Democrats, who are—they want to close up their businesses and quit their jobs and move to San Francisco to help me. And I think it‘s going to be a real people‘s movement. And I think that we will have a profound effect on the race there...
MATTHEWS: OK.
SHEEHAN: ... if not win it.
MATTHEWS: Let‘s imagine you‘re a member of Congress. How would you -
or you‘re speaker yourself. How would you actually end the war? What parliamentary, legal moves would you make? These people up on the Hill are putting their sleeping bags out. They got their cots out to, all the theatrics.
SHEEHAN: Right.
MATTHEWS: And tomorrow morning, we‘ll still have a war. Do you have an actual legislative plan to end the war, Cindy Sheehan?
SHEEHAN: They need to shut off George Bush‘s funds. They need to appropriate enough money to bring our troops home, as General Odom said, as quickly and safely as possible. And we need to appropriate money for the people of Iraq and for our soldiers and our veterans, to take care of them. But give him just enough money to bring the troops home. That‘s what they have, they have the power of the purse strings.
MATTHEWS: And what happens...
(CROSSTALK)
SHEEHAN: ... the power of the purse string.
MATTHEWS: Hey, Cindy, I sympathize with that point of view, but what happens on the other side if you do that? If you do that, then the other side, the president can say, can‘t he—the minute there‘s a casualty out there, the minute there‘s a soldier that doesn‘t get his weapons—his ammo when he needs it or his fire support or anything breaks down out there, he‘ll say it‘s because the Democrats and the anti-war people cut off the spending. That‘s why that soldier died. What do you do then?
SHEEHAN: We need to appropriate enough money to bring them home, and...
MATTHEWS: But he‘s not going to sign that bill.
SHEEHAN: They don‘t need...
MATTHEWS: You know he‘s not going to sign that bill!
SHEEHAN: Chris, it‘s not a bill, it‘s taking away his money.
Congress can do that. That‘s the only way that they can stop it.
MATTHEWS: Well, and then he can say...
SHEEHAN: It‘s not a bill.
MATTHEWS: Right. It‘s an appropriation. I know about how the Hill works, Cindy.
SHEEHAN: Right.
MATTHEWS: I know all about it. You‘re right. The people who oppose this war can write an appropriation bill. Nancy Pelosi‘s talked about that on this show. And it says you can only spend this money to bring the troops home. Then, the second step, the president vetoes that bill and says, Send me a clean bill to support the troops. If the Democrats don‘t do that, then he blames every calamity over there on the Democrats, and you, the anti-war people.
SHEEHAN: Well, the Democrats have—the Democrats have not done a good job of making this George Bush‘s war, George Bush‘s calamity. It has been from the beginning...
MATTHEWS: Well...
SHEEHAN: ... and every death, every innocent Iraqi, every American soldier is directly related to George Bush.
MATTHEWS: OK.
SHEEHAN: And when Congress gave him...
MATTHEWS: You know why?
SHEEHAN: When Congress gave...
MATTHEWS: You know why they failed?
SHEEHAN: ... him more money—when Congress gave him more money, they made it their calamity.
MATTHEWS: You know why they failed? Because Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, a whole batch of them, voted to support and authorize this war...
SHEEHAN: I know.
MATTHEWS: ... on day one. They‘ve never come back strong enough against their positions.
SHEEHAN: I agree. I agree. And we need to support people who will be courageous in supporting our troops, really supporting our troops by bringing them home.
MATTHEWS: You know what? I like your passion. I‘m very careful about motive, though. Whenever you assign motives to the other side, you‘re in a dangerous area because you don‘t know why they‘re supporting this war. You just don‘t like the war, and that‘s fair enough with me. Thank you very much, Cindy Sheehan.
SHEEHAN: Well, I—read “War Is a Racket,” Chris.
MATTHEWS: You know, I read so much, but thank you for that recommendation.
SHEEHAN: Thank you.
MATTHEWS: I‘ll get to it. Thank you. I mean it.