Peace Protest: Crazed Local Yahoo Fires Shots: Did Neocons Play Role?

August 14th, 2005 · Post your comment (No Comments)

by James Buchanan

An apparently crazed local yahoo has fired shots near the Cindy Sheehan peace protest muttering threatening statements about the peace protestors. The Cindy Sheehan case is a HUGE political threat to the George Bush presidency. Mrs. Sheehan is no simple-minded soccer mom willing to accept Bush’s ever changing excuses for the Iraq War and the death of her son. She is a lone voice of reason demanding justice and accountability.

The peace protestors have been repeatedly threatened with arrest for any legal infraction whatsoever. They were forced to stand in tall grass in a ditch by the side of a rarely-used road while the media was allowed to walk freely all over the road with no fear of arrest. The shoulder of the road IS NOT privately owned property. If any protestors had wandered onto private land, it seems certain Bush, Karl Rove or whoever is pressuring local police would have insisted that they be arrested immediately. This latest incident was almost certainly a neocon creation to put more pressure on the peace advocates.

Even if a neocon hack did not call up the nutcase with the gun and put him up to this, there has been an endless stream of slander against Mrs. Sheehan by Limbaugh and friends portraying her as dishonest or portraying her as a tool of far left radicals. It is absolutely disgraceful that an innocent mother who simply wants to tell the truth about the Iraq War and prevent other American mothers from losing their sons for neocon policies in the Middle East is treated this way.

An article from the Iconoclast reports:

…

“Wait! Someone is firing a gun. (pause). He fired it into the air about five times. He appears to be a local inside the fence line on private property. Now he has thrown what looks like a shotgun into the front seat of a pickup, and he’s stomping off out of sight. I wonder where he went.

“Now he’s coming back out. I’m out here standing on the road. He’s got a no parking sign in his hand, walking toward his fence. I’m going to go try to talk to him. I’ve got to hang up.”

(three minutes later)

I went over and talked to the man. He is Larry Mattlage, who says he is on his property and just posted a no-parking sign.

“We’re going to start doing our war and it’s going to be underneath the law,” he told me. “Whatever it takes. So y’all go find another place to do whatever you do. ‘Cause this is our front yard and back yard.”

I asked, “Do you mean the protestors?”

Wait…..now there’s some Secret Service and cops. I’m going to get closer to hear what they’re saying. People in bullet-proof vests are here now. Two Secret Service agents are now walking up his driveway towards his house, with Mr. Mattlage. A member of the Sheriff’s Department has arrived. Mr. Mattlage is waving his arms now. All of them are now walking back this way.

Now they are between the lane and the house. He’s at the fence now. Let me record what they are saying. I’ll call right back.