Cindy Sheehan resumes Crawford protest

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Cindy Sheehan resumes Crawford protest
By ANGELA K. BROWN
Associated Press Writer


AP Photo/RON HEFLIN
CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- A year after her first protest against the war in Iraq attracted thousands of people, Cindy Sheehan resumed her vigil in President Bush's adopted hometown Sunday - this time on land she helped buy for the peace movement."Last summer we made a commitment to be here every time George Bush was supposed to be on vacation because he never met with me last summer. The troops are still in Iraq," said Sheehan. "We're going to be doing it until our goals are accomplished."
White House spokesman Tony Snow has said that neither Bush nor his staff plan to meet with Sheehan.
About 50 demonstrators attended an interfaith service Sunday on the 5 acres the group recently bought with insurance money Sheehan received after her oldest son Casey was killed in Iraq in 2004. The land, featuring a field and groves of trees, is near downtown and about 7 miles from the Bush ranch.
Sheehan told the group "our hearts are connected," regardless of people's races, countries or religions.
As she spoke, a man disrupted the service with loud questions and shouts of "This is unpatriotic!" before he was asked to leave.
"I believe Bush is doing what he should be doing," said the man, William McGlothlin of Marked Tree, Ark. "Freedom of speech is good until it gets out of whack."
Sheehan said she expected more war opponents to arrive throughout the month. Their protest initially was to start Aug. 16, after the Veterans for Peace convention in Seattle, but she moved it up last week after learning that Bush would be in Crawford for only 10 days at the beginning of August.
A year ago, Sheehan and a few dozen anti-war demonstrators arrived in Crawford from the Veterans for Peace convention in Dallas and marched toward Bush's ranch, demanding to talk to the president about the war.
Two of Bush's top aides met with Sheehan, but she said she wouldn't leave until Bush himself talked to her, so she set up camp in ditches off a road a couple of miles from the ranch.
As her 26-day vigil swelled to several thousand people on weekends - and as locals complained of the noise, traffic and odor from portable toilets - a sympathetic landowner allowed the group to use his 1-acre lot about a mile from the ranch.
Last fall, county commissioners banned roadside camping and parking.


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