December 12

Cindy Sheehan first appeared on the radar when she camped out near President Bush’s home in Texas to protest the war in Iraq. As a result, the media have had a field day with her, charting her every move. Yesterday Miss Sheehan was convicted of trespassing, a charge growing out of her attempt to deliver an antiwar petition to the United States’ mission to the United Nations. Her efforts on behalf of the peace movement have rendered her an extremely high profile figure. Sheehan’s activities have generated a lot of support for her mission; and while the antiwar movement is growing with each passing day, the movement has a lot of growing to do in the high profile department. You want high profile? I’ll give you high profile; just consider the Greenham Women. Greenham Common was a Royal Air Force base in England. Beginning in 1981 English women began establishing ‘women’s peace camps’ at the base to protest the presence of American cruise missiles, both conventional and nuclear, at the facility. On the 12th in 1982, 30,000 women joined hands and formed a circle around the entire base, a distance of roughly 9 miles. The Greenham Women remained in the peace camps until the last cruise missile was returned to the United States in 1991 and the base was returned to civilian use.