On September 17th, three CODEPINK activists confronted Condoleezza Rice at a speech inside the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, CA, calling her a war criminal, responsible for torture and lying the U.S. into a war of occupation in Iraq. They waited until her speech was finished before standing up with "bloody hands" to confront her loudly in front of about 1,000 audience members.

Cynthia Papermaster writes, "We sat in the third row center, right in front of Condi, who gave quite a good speech and had great rapport with the audience. She assumed that her audience supported the USA's dominance of the world economy, and was bold in her descriptions of other countries' flaws. I was most struck by her derisive characterization of the huge influence of corporations in Russia as "Russia, Inc." I think she missed the irony in her comparison of them with the US.

"The three of us had pinned fuschia signs saying "INDICT RICE" to our backs, under our jackets. We sat quietly through her speech, and toward the end, rubbed red paint on our hands. We stood up with the audience for the standing ovation, but didn't sit down. Instead, we took off our jackets so our signs showed, continued standing, and held up our bloody hands...we told Rice she was a war criminal, having enabled torture, lied the U.S. into an illegal war of occupation, etc. She said, "These people came here to hear me, not you," and some other stuff we didn't catch because she was talking at us while we were talking loudly to her. She definitely heard us, loud and clear."

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