Good-bye, Cindy? Sheehan’s ‘Retirement’ Shocks Texas Peace Activists — ‘Peace Mom’ Begins New Phase

CRAWFORD, Texas The announcement of Cindy Sheehan’s retirement from anti-war activism came as a shock to peace activists that live in the area near the vacation ranch of President George W. Bush.

“So it’s for real,” said Dr. Alan Northcutt, a pathologist from Waco who usually shows up to local anti-war demonstrations as a masked caractiture of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Things seemed “nothing out of the ordinary” to Dr. Northcutt the Saturday before the announcement. He had received an email confirming Sheehan’s attendance at a local office of Rep. Chet Edwards on the following Tuesday to protest the long-time Democrat’s stance on the war in Iraq.

But then, everything changed once Sheehan posted her resignation on the liberal DailyKos blog on Memorial Day.

“She must have had a sudden change of heart, but everybody was pretty disturbed by what happened last week with the vote in Congress,” noted Dr. Northcutt.

Sheehan’s sister, DeDe Miller, admitted that the letter had been written earlier that Monday morning, though it was a long-time coming.

“The emotion of the last two days were a bit of a factor. It’s been accumulative over the last three years,” said Miller in a telephone interview. “Like she said in her blog, it’s been something she’s been thinking about for about a year now.”

In her resignation letter, Sheehan reiterated her disgust for the Democratic Party whose majority in Congress caved to President Bush’s demands to continue American involvement in Iraq without binding benchmarks nor a timetable for troop withdrawal.

At the time of the landmark vote, Sheehan had been in Ireland working with the Irish Anti-War Movement (IAWM). Such trips overseas had become the norm for her. In the last three years since she attempted to confront the president at his ranch, she was one of the most outspoken critics of U.S. foreign policy.

“I have sacrificed a 29 year marriage and have traveled for extended periods of time away from Casey’s brother and sisters and my health has suffered and my hospital bills from last summer (when I almost died) are in collection because I have used all my energy trying to stop this country from slaughtering innocent human beings,” she wrote.

Johnny Wolf, the co-founder and owner of the Crawford Texas Peace House, told the Iconoclast that he had witnessed Sheehan come close to total burn out on several occasions. He wished her well on her new chosen path.

“If she wants to take a break, I can certainly understand it,” said Wolf, during a telephone interview. “Hopefully, she’ll take care of herself a little better. It’s a lot of stress going from ‘full media presence’ to nothing and doing that back and forth. She’s certainly deserving of all the support she can get.”

Kay Lucas, the managing director of the Crawford Texas Peace House, told the Iconoclast that she was “really stunned” by the announcement initially but could “totally identify” with Sheehan’s frustration, too.