How Code Pink of you Cindy
RAMSTEIN, Germany — Cindy Sheehan, mother of a soldier killed in Iraq and the woman who protested the war last summer outside President Bush’s Texas ranch, is scheduled to bring her anti-war message to U.S. military installations in Germany next month.
The purpose:
to call attention to the fact that Germany is Europe’s logistical hub for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and others threatening Iran and the Middle East,” according to an event flier. “Germany has the power to stop the further use of U.S. bases in Germany for illegal wars and criminal methods of warfare — the power and the right to just say no!”
On March 11, protesters plan to walk from Landstuhl Regional Medical Center to a parking lot just outside Ramstein Air Base, where Sheehan will be at a “Camp Casey,” paying “tribute” to those who have died in the Iraq war.
Cindy, pawn of the EU:
Beginning March 9, Sheehan’s European visit will take her to Frankfurt, Aachen, Landstuhl and Ramstein in Germany. On March 13, Sheehan is scheduled to have a news conference in Paris, and the following day will address the European Union parliament in Strasbourg, France.
A protest organizer in Landstuhl said he was asked by others, including some of the 732 members of the European Union parliament, to arrange the protest involving Sheehan.
“The meeting with Cindy Sheehan is coming to us by an offer of members of the European Union in Strasbourg,” said Detlev Besier, a Protestant reverend in Landstuhl. “They asked whether it was possible or not to visit Ramstein Air Base and the hospital. It was not our idea. We were asked whether it was possible or not.”
German Counterprotest:
Stefan Prystawik, a German writer from Bonn, is working to stage a counterprotest. On his web site, at www. stefan-prystawik.de, Prystawik said that Cindy Sheehan “is the great-great grandmother of all Bush haters.” Sheehan’s planned protest is highly inappropriate, and her complaints are “very much an internal U.S. matter. First of all it’s completely inappropriate to instrumentalize the troops here particularly, and above all, those who have suffered severe injuries and are at the hospital,” he said. “They are coming here with an attitude to deliberately demoralize troops who just got back or are going to go back to Iraq.”
With the Kaiserslautern military community home to more than 50,000 Americans with military ties, Sheehan could face a rough welcome. When asked for comment Wednesday on Sheehan’s upcoming visit, several soldiers in Kaiserslautern asked if they could be quoted anonymously.
One soldier, who recently returned from Iraq, did give his name but didn’t have much to say about Sheehan.
“Anything I would have to say about her, you couldn’t print,” Army Staff Sgt. Mark Genthner said.
Yep, looks like Cindy just one upped Al Gore.