Sheehan Suggests Bush 10 Times Worse Than Bin Laden -- GOPUSA

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Sheehan Suggests Bush 10 Times Worse Than Bin Laden
By Nathan Burchfiel
CNSNews.com Correspondent
January 31, 2006

(CNSNews.com) -- Echoing the accusations of musician Harry Belafonte and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan on Monday wondered aloud whether President Bush is "10 times the bigger terrorist than Osama bin Laden."

In December, Bush estimated that 30,000 Iraqis have died since the beginning of combat in March 2003. "On Sept. 11," Sheehan said, "3,000 Americans were killed, so does that make George Bush 10 times the bigger terrorist than Osama bin Laden?"

Sheehan posed the rhetorical question during a mock impeachment forum organized by several liberal groups, including Democracy Rising and ImpeachPAC. Democracy Rising founder and quadrennial presidential candidate Ralph Nader was scheduled to participate with Sheehan but did not show.

Sheehan became a major figure in the anti-war movement in August 2005 when she staged a protest outside Bush''s Texas ranch to protest the war in Iraq. Her son, Casey Sheehan, was killed in Iraq in 2004.

She recently returned from Venezuela, where she met with Chavez during his World Social Forum. During a speech with Sheehan at his side Sunday, Chavez declared, "Enough already with the imperialist aggression. Down with the U.S. empire."

At the same event, Sheehan said she agreed with musician and activist Harry Belafonte, who had called Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world." Sheehan said the president "is responsible for killing tens of thousands of innocent people."

Although she originally portrayed herself, with great assistance from the media, as a grieving mother speaking out against the war, Sheehan has recently extended her political activism to other causes. All have the president as the focus of her criticism.

She is fighting against the confirmation of Bush''s Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito and she believes Bush should be impeached over the National Security Agency''s wiretapping of suspected terrorists.

On Tuesday, the day President Bush will deliver his sixth State of the Union address, Sheehan will meet with liberal Democratic members of Congress and a survivor of Hurricane Katrina to discuss "the people''s state of the union." She has also announced plans to return to Bush''s ranch in April for another protest.

But during her remarks Monday, she said "what we really need to be talking about ... is the immediate withdrawal of our troops from Iraq."

A recent Los Angeles Times poll found that 14 percent of Americans support an immediate troop withdrawal, while 40 percent support keeping troops there "until the job is done." Sheehan criticized the poll in an interview with Cybercast News Service , saying that it didn''t consider that "63 percent of Americans believe this war is a mistake and they want the troops to start coming home."

She added that she thinks public opinion on a troop withdrawal "is turning around."

Sheehan, who lives in Berkeley, Calif., has announced that she is considering challenging Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein because of Feinstein''s support for war funding and her refusal to support a filibuster of Alito.