Sheehan speaks at Nashville Peace Fest

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NASHVILLE, June 27 (UPI) -- Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan is calling for an end to both offshore drilling and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Resources of communities are being sucked dry by the industrial military complexes. They are locked up in wars of aggression as our infrastructure in the United State is literally crumbling," Sheehan, who lost her son Casey in Iraq in 2004, told The Tennessean Saturday before delivering a speech at the Nashville Peace Fest.

"Since Casey was killed, and I have been studying peace, I have come to know profit is a reason for war, and not a consequence of it. We have a system where profit is the goal, and it doesn't matter if they are killing the earth and people.

"Our addiction to oil, not only people but also military and industrial complexes, leads to war and more environmental disaster. We can't have peace without environmental stability and economic justice."

Amnesty International collected signatures from the estimated 500 peace activists gathered at the event for several petitions, including one calling for the release of Nobel Peace Prizewinner Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar.

Sheehan will begin two weeks of protests in Washington on July 4 to "campaign for independence from oil, drone bombs and military recruitment," the newspaper said.