“The People of Fallujah Love Cindy Sheehan”

By Robert Scheer

Sunni leaders who are still willing to participate in the Dec. 15 elections told Marines in a meeting in Iraq that they are encouraged by the actions of activist Cindy Sheehan and others who are calling for a U.S. withdrawal.

According to a Washington Post report:

“The people of Fallujah love Cindy Sheehan,” declared Farouk Abd-Muhammed, a candidate for National Assembly in Dec. 15 elections, referring to the mother of a slain Marine who became a U.S. antiwar activist. He spoke Tuesday at a pre-election meeting of local leaders in Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad, scene of the largest U.S. offensive of the war in November 2004.

Abd-Muhammed described watching recent television reports with his family showing Americans waving banners that read “Stop the war in Iraq.”

“I salute the American people because we know after watching them on satellite that they are ready to leave,” Abd-Muhammed said.

“We know that there are now voices, even in the Congress, that want America to leave Iraq as soon as possible,” said Fawzi Muhammed, an engineer who is the deputy chairman of Fallujah’s reconstruction committee. “It makes us feel very happy and comfortable because it is the only solution to the problems in Iraq.”

Sheehan should be congratulated for showing the Iraqi people and the rest of the world what democracy is all about.