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Fifth Column
Walter Reed Counter-protestors
2005-08-30
Scripps Howard from the DC Examiner, on page 5 at link

Since spring, long before an angry and loony mom named Cindy Sheehan set up camp outside President Bush’s Texas ranch, anti-war activists have been holding vigils outside Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Friday nights. Organizers say they weren’t getting much media attention — even after a pro-war group began gathering to protest the vigils.
So how long have the protests against the protests been going on?
Until last week, that is. That’s when an online news service with politically conservative ties released a special report suggesting the vigils were actually protests aimed at wounded soldiers.
You remember reading about that - the signs made all the Rantburgers apoplectic.
Now, vigil organizers are alleging that the story is part of a strategy ...
Karl, is that you?
... by Bush supporters to hurt war protesters’ ...
Oh, so they were protesting!
... credibility in the wake of Sheehan’s public-relations success and sinking support for the war.
How about rage about taunting the wounded warriors as a motivation for the counter-protests?
They had credibility? Who knew?
“It’s all part of a smear campaign,” Medea Benjamin, a communist liberal anti-war activist from San Francisco and a co-founder of CodePink, one of the communist groups organizing the vigils, said in a telephone interview. Sheehan, the mother of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq, has gotten help from liberal donors, liberal public-relations firms and liberal groups including CodePink.

Friday night at Walter Reed, the counterprotesters outnumbered the 20 or so vigil participants by a 3-to-1 margin. They waved flags, yelled at anti-war activists and painted signs like this one: “Cindy Sheehan Bride of Bin Laden.”
Oh, dear. That was in poor taste. I think Binny's got better taste than that.
They said a hospital should be off-limits for political demonstrations, no matter the message.

One counterprotester, Vietnam veteran Ted Sampley, said he had come from Kinston, N.C., for the day, to give the anti-war crowd a piece of his mind. “Our wounded soldiers are not barter for them to use to try to push their cause,” he said. “It’s very transparent what they’re doing. They don’t care about soldiers’ health benefits. This is deja vu, Vietnam, Jane Fonda, John Kerry, all over again.”

Laura Costas of Silver Spring, Md., one of the vigil participants, said her brother served 14 months in Iraq with the Army and was injured when an explosive device hit his unarmored Humvee.
And that really was the end of the article. Unarmored humvee. The writer really could've taken off on that!
Posted by:Bobby

#1  "....Medea Benjamin"

Remember Medea? She was the witch from the Greek Golden Fleece story. She killed her children and fed them to her husband.

Now the question is "does your name determine your behavior or do you get the name you deserve at birth"? Probably doesn't matter in her case.....
Posted by: Elminemble Spinemp8037   2005-08-30 18:11  

00:00