Casey Sheehan, died 4 April 2004, we hardly knew ye . . . l

by Ploughshares Wed Apr 05, 2006 03:33

http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hack/notes/s1605451.htm

by Caitlin - Code Pink Ireland Wed Apr 05, 2006 09:58 codepinkireland at gmail dot com

I know what the Pitstop Ploughshares action means to the Sheehan family. I was there when David Norris told her about it in the Dail pub, and when Cindy learned that the plane you disarmed had actually been sent back to Texas, she burst into tears and stated that she wished Casey had been on that plane because if he had, she'd have dragged him off and broken both his legs to keep him from going to Iraq. Cindy immediately grasped the global significance of your action--it saved lives!

The free movement of US troops through this country remains a national disgrace. And without the actions of the Pitstop Ploughshares, Mary Kelly, planespotters Ed Horgan & Tim Hourigan, and others, the Irish people would still be in the dark about the profound complicity of the Irish government in the brutal and illegal wars of the United States.

Casey Sheehan was an Irish American; his plane did make a pitstop at Shannon; he was so excited to be in Ireland, and couldn't wait to return to his ancestral home and explore it. How tragic that his return trip to Ireland was in a coffin. Casey and Cindy Sheehan dreamed to seeing this emerald isle together. The irony of their separate visits to Ireland are too grim to contemplate, yet we must do just that. The blood of Casey Sheehan remains on the hands of both the US and Irish gov'ts. Let us not forget that, nor Casey, nor Cindy, nor the brave activists who've taken such drastic measures to stop the killing.

Thank you Ciaron! Your struggle matters enormously to the Sheehans and to the people of Ireland and the US--whether they know it or not. We must all work together to raise their collective consciousness and shut down this war!

Solidarity!

by Denis Donaldson Wed Apr 05, 2006 11:29

"Every mans' death diminishes me". Casey Sheehan was a US soldier engaged in the US and Bristish imperialist war effort in Iraq. He was an adult. It is quite understandable that where you have occupation you have resistance. He made his choice and he paid the price, he was a soldier not a civilian unlike the majority of his armies victims.

While it is right to be saddened by death and sympathetic to his family on their loss, let us not loose sight of his complicity in war. He was no different from a Black n Tan here in the twenties.

by Caitlin - Code Pink Ireland Wed Apr 05, 2006 12:27 codepinkireland at gmail dot com

To compare Casey Sheehan to a Black & Tan reveals a terribly sad misunderstanding of not only Casey, but of soldiers in general, and of the systematic brainwashing machine that recruits young people from the cradle to the grave to serve its ends. And it is that machine--the miltiary-industrial machine--that some of us are trying to dismantle.

Did you go and listen to Jimmy Massey, Frank Corocoran, or Hart Viges when they were in Ireland to talk about that very process and try to persuade Ireland to end its part in it? Did you hear Cindy Sheehan when she was here, speaking in unison with Tahrir Swift & Raeid Al Wazzan--both Iraqis, and with Rose Gentle--mother of KIA British soldier Gordon Gentle? And would you call Gordon Gentle a Black & Tan? Neither Gordon Gentle nor Casey Sheehan deserved to be dismissed with such an incendiary label.

Rose Gentle's campaign on behalf of her dead son has been so successful that recruiting for the war machine in Scotland has come to a standstill. Cindy Sheehan's "Camp Casey" movement broke the iron curtain of media silence in the US and awoke millions of Americans to what their government is doing in their names in Iraq and Afghanistan, and what that government is doing at home to their children. US military recruiting is currently at an all-time low, and Bush's approval rating is now at 34%--a record for any sitting US president.

I hope you will do some deeper research before casting stones at the dead in this horrific conflict. Perhaps you might go out to Shannon and speak with some of the young soldiers who are terrified of what they heading into and who see no way out. So many of them signed up because they wanted money for education, because they'd been lied into believing they were defending their country, their families, or because Bushco has so devastated the US economy that the military seems often the only place to get a job .The lives and deaths of young soldiers like Casey Sheehan and Gordon Gentle are profoundly meaningful when put in the larger context of policies such as the PNAC, GWOT, et alia. Please do not diminish that meaning.

Had Casey Sheehan lived in Ireland "back in the day", do you really believe he would have signed up as a Black & Tan?

http://tinyurl.com/hqbnv

http://www.ivaw.net/

http://www.gsfp.org/

http://www.stopwar.org.uk/new/news/index.htm

by brigid Wed Apr 05, 2006 13:28

Beannacht De le hanmanna na marbh
is go bhfaga dia mor ar an saol isar slainte againn,
agus go gcuire Dia rath ar ar saothar
agus ar shaothar na gCriostaithe.

by Caitlin - Code Pink Ireland Thu Apr 06, 2006 00:20 codepinkireland at gmail dot com

If you peruse it, I think you might discover the magnitude of US military discontent and disagreement with this war. Not every soldier is "complicity":

http://www.westpointgradsagainstthewar.org/

And please do read these pages on the above website; they constitute not only resistance and refusal, but an excellent resource for countering the lies of Bertie & Co, who have the audacity, the hubris to defend their allegiance to Bushco based on absurdist notions of trust:

http://www.westpointgradsagainstthewar.org/thelies_of_t...1.htm

http://www.westpointgradsagainstthewar.org/laws_and_tre...r.htm

by Ploughshares Thu Apr 06, 2006 07:52

It could be argued that more creative tension and oppposition to the war on Iraq is presently coming out of the military and military families than the civilian peace movement.

Meanwhile check the following link for an example of civil resistance in the U.S.
www.jonahhouse.org

by Vet Tue Apr 11, 2006 01:50

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/ballard031205.html