Cindy does Cairo

By Ethel C. Fenig

Cindy Sheehan, who lost the media spotlight--and some funding--as the surge in Iraq proved successful is ba-a-ack.

In Cairo. As a guest of the Muslim American Society, she is shilling for their local terrorist affiliate while, true to form, getting in her jabs at America.

Some examples.

The establishment that runs our country just disgusted me and I was tired of it. It is very corrupt and I definitely saw that when I was focusing on anti-war activism.

The leaders of both parties work together to keep normal people out of the process. In many ways the Democratic leadership, especially in Congress, has been complicit with George Bush, the US president, in his crimes against humanity.

How can [Democratic Speaker of the House] Nancy Pelosi say unequivocally that water-boarding is torture and that Bush and [Richard] Cheney, the US vice-president, should not only be impeached but they should be charged with war crimes when in 2002 she herself was briefed on water-boarding and shown video of the rendition places where water-boarding happened?

And is that why she running against Rep Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)?

I decided if Nancy Pelosi wasn't going to put impeachment on the table then I would run against her.

You can't take any part of the Constitution off the table, even though they have rendered it almost meaningless between George Bush and Karl Rove. Since they came to power they have institutionalised torture and spying against Americans.

They have passed the Military Commissions Act and just done away with habeas corpus. They have practically rendered it meaningless.

So what does all this have to do with her excursion in Egypt?

My anti-war work evolved into work for global human rights because I saw the problem was much deeper than just George Bush.

It's about militarism and violence, globalisation and free trade.

I decided I wanted to do human rights work on behalf of people around the world who have been harmed by US imperialism.

Part of why I am here, also, is to draw attention to the parallels between the military courts here and the same kinds of courts that are being used to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay by the US.

Ah the grandiosity of it all.

But this sums up Sheehan in Egypt and frankly, Sheehan in America.