"We're not just building a camp, we are trying to build a movement," Sheehan said in a telephone interview from California on Thursday.
"Obama has just been a continuation of Bush's policies, and that's why I have no closure. I don't know if I ever will get closure."
But in the midst of a devastating recession, a White House preoccupation with pushing through health-care reform and a U.S. capital currently awash in political scandal, there's no question the wars overseas get precious little attention.
The late Ted Kennedy's son, Patrick, a congressman from Rhode Island, railed against the lack of media attention being paid to America's escalating military presence in the Middle East earlier this week.
In an emotional rant on the floor of the House of Representatives during debate over a resolution on withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, Kennedy characterized the media's coverage of the resignation of Democratic congressman Eric Massa as "despicable." Massa has been accused of groping his male staff during tickle fights.
"You know what cynicism is?" Kennedy shouted, his voice cracking.
"There's one, two press people in this gallery. We're talking about Eric Massa 24/7 on the TV, we're talking about war and peace, $3 billion dollars, a thousand lives, and no press? No press? .... The press of the United States is not covering the significant issue of national importance, and that's the laying of the lives down in the nation, for the service of our country. It is despicable, the national press corps right now."
Sheehan says both the Bush and Obama administrations are to blame for the antipathy. Since Sept. 11, 2001, she said, they've been doing everything possible to frighten Americans into accepting war as a necessary evil.
"We have had two successive administrations that have used 9-11 to keep us afraid, to make us think that if we don't use the military, then these bogeymen are coming to get us," she said. "It's one thing when Bush said it, but when someone like Obama starts saying it, people start to believe it. Americans are scared and confused."
http://www.torontosun.com/news/world/2010/03/12/13202861.html