It was at the Veterans for Peace national convention in Dallas last year that Cindy Sheehan says she was galvanized to seek a meeting with President Bush at his Crawford, Texas, ranch.
The result was a 26-day sit-down protest near Bush's ranch that attracted common folk and luminaries from across the nation, rejuvenating the anti-war movement.
On Thursday, Sheehan, who became a peace activist after her soldier son, Casey, was killed in Iraq in 2004, was at the Veterans for Peace national convention at the University of Washington.
Now almost 40 days into her fast supporting war resisters and their families, Sheehan, though weak, announced that she is offering land she bought in Crawford near Bush's ranch as a refuge for U.S. troops who desert to resist the war in Iraq.
"What is the noble cause that my son died for in Iraq?" Sheehan asked, echoing her remarks from last year as she spoke Thursday on the steps of the HUB on the UW campus.
Joined by conscientious objectors from the Vietnam War, the 1991 Persian Gulf War and Iraq, Sheehan said she decided to offer her land because 12,000 more U.S. troops are being deployed to Iraq, calling the war "this nightmare, and it's breaking my heart."
Truly detestable. Opposing the Bush administration's foreign policy in Iraq is one thing, but actively seeking to undermine our military - the people who put their lives on the line to keep this country safe and free - is just plain disgusting.
And what's this about Sheehan being weak?
She looks fine here, and her fast certainly doesn't seem to have cut into her dance schedule or, really, caused her to lose any weight.
Maybe it's the ice cream.