CODEPINK plays a specialized role -- it is supposed to represent women -- and it uses a specialized tactic -- it claims to represent non-political women aroused by injustice. But one wonders why it bothers with the pretense.
One need only look at the biography of 54- year-old Medea Benjamin. Born Susie Benjamin to a wealthy family, she changed her first name to that of the enraged woman in the Greek tragedy who seeks revenge against her husband by murdering her children. Benjamin's own vengeance against America has led her to support murderous dictators across the globe. She is an ardent pro-Castro advocate, having once lived in Cuba and married a pro-Castro Cuban. For years she led guided tours to Cuba. After returning from her first trip to Cuba in the early 1980s, Benjamin told the San Francisco Chronicle that Cuban life "made it seem like I died and went to heaven."
In the 1980s, Benjamin helped form the Institute for Food and Development Policy (IFDP), which sent aid to the Marxist Sandinistas ruling Nicaragua. During the 1990s, she and other members were field marshals during the anti-globalist riots in Seattle. In 2000, she was the Green Party candidate for the California U.S. Senate seat held by incumbent Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat. She chronicled her radical, Socialist agenda in her book, I Senator.
CODEPINK's Jodie Evans has a pedigree equal to Benjamin's. She is a trustee of the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), a coalition of anti-capitalist environmentalists. RAN's co-founder, Michael Roselle, also founded the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), which the FBI has ranked alongside the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) as one of the top terrorist groups in the U.S. Evans took her most recent anti-American junket in January 2006 when she joined Benjamin and their newest convert, Cindy Sheehan, on a visit to meet Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. On an earlier trip to Iraq, Evans helped to found the International Occupation Watch (IOW) in Baghdad. With assistance from Benjamin and Leslie Cagan, IOW helps U.S. soldiers declare themselves conscientious objectors and monitors alleged American abuses in Iraq. Its declared mission is to be a "watchdog regarding the military occupation and U.S.-appointed government, including possible violations of human rights, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly."
www.cfl912project.org
