POWER OF ONE

David Hicks before his Guantanamo nightmare began.

Anti-war mum Cindy Sheehan slams Australian PM Howard

Australian Pime Minister John Howard was an illegal combatant waging a war of terror against the world, a prominent US anti-war activist told a peace rally in Melbourne today.
Cindy Sheehan, whose volunteer soldier son Casey, 24, was killed in Baghdad two years ago, called for an end to the Iraq war and for the closure of Guantanamo Bay prison, where Australian citizen David Hicks is incarcerated.
"Our governments are saying they (Guantanamo Bay inmates) don't deserve civil rights because they're illegal enemy combatants," Ms Sheehan told the rally.
"George Bush and John Howard and Tony Blair are illegal combatants, there's nothing about this war on terror that is legal.
"These people (world leaders) perpetuate the torture and the killing and they're still allowed to run free and live in society, except George Bush; he can't go outside unprotected he has to ride around in cars that are better armoured than the one my son was killed in."
Ms Sheehan was speaking at a protest rally outside the Australian Liberal Party offices in Exhibition street.
She told about 200 people the war on terror was immoral and eroded basic civil and human rights.
She said prisoners such as David Hicks – who has been incarcerated for four years after being captured training with the Taliban in Afghanistan – deserved to be treated with humanity and justice.
As for the soldiers, we must "get them the hell out of Iraq".

POWER OF ONE

'Goodbye America': Anti-war mother ends protest

Cindy Sheehan, the bereaved mother who became a figurehead for the US anti-war movement, is abandoning her fight after growing disenchanted with the campaign.

Ms Sheehan has camped outside President George W Bush's ranch since 2005, demanding a meeting over the 2004 death of her son, Casey, in Iraq.Bush has refused to 'meet with' her.never

But announcing the end of her campaign in a blog post titled "Good Riddance Attention Whore", she has also hit out at Democrats and anti-war campaigners who put "personal egos above peace and human life".

"The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning ... was that Casey did indeed die for nothing," she said."I have tried every [day] since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful.

"Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months, while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives."

GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT

Go Cindy, Go

Cindy Sheehan -- the 48-year-old mother of Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, killed in an ambush in Baghdad last year -- has, in the space of just a few days started, from a seemingly quixotic personal mission, something of a phenomenon with media swarming around her, leading liberal and antiwar activists parachuting in to try to make her their long-sought voice, and political experts in both parties working to assess what role she may have in galvanizing the public's gathering unhappiness with the increasing American casualties in Iraq.