Sheehan: Get troops out of 'occupied New Orleans'

Cindy Sheehan

Fresh from a visit to hurricane-ravaged Louisiana, anti-Bush activist Cindy Sheehan is demanding the U.S. military be removed from "occupied New Orleans."

In a dispatch on leftist filmmaker Michael Moore's website, Sheehan said she was troubled by the "level of the military presence" in the Gulf Coast state.

"George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power," she said. "The only way America will become more secure is if we have a new administration that cares about Americans even if they don't fall into the top two percent of the wealthiest.

The Vacaville, Calif., woman, whose son was killed fighting insurgents in Iraq, launched an anti-war movement last month when she camped outside Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch and demanded to meet with the president, drawing national media attention.

In her Internet posting today, Sheehan said she had "imagined before that if the military had to be used in [continental U.S.] operations that they would be there to help the citizens: Clothe them, feed them, shelter them, and protect them. But what I saw was a city that is occupied."

Describing the scene, she wrote, "I saw soldiers walking around in patrols of 7 with their weapons slung on their backs. I wanted to ask one of them what it would take for one of them to shoot me. Sand bags were removed from private property to make machine gun nests."

The activist insisted there was no reason for the security presence, because "the vast majority of people who were looting in New Orleans were doing so to feed their families or to get resources to get their families out of there. If I had a store with an inventory of insured belongings, and a tragedy happened, I would fling my doors open and tell everyone to take what they need: it is only stuff."

She commented: "When our fellow citizens are told to 'shoot to kill' other fellow citizens because they want to stay alive, that is military and governmental fascism gone out of control."

Sheehan came under fire last month after WorldNetDaily broke the story that she had called enemy terrorists "freedom fighters."

"But now that we have decimated the country," she said, "the borders are open, freedom fighters from other countries are going in, and they [American troops] have created more terrorism by going to an Islamic country, devastating the country and killing innocent people in that country."

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