This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Antiwar crowd

  • The virtue of Military Service is a Myth and it is destroying this country.

    The virtue of Military Service is a Myth and it is destroying this country.

    Careful Citizen, having reverence for those who served in the military erodes our Democracy.

    The gap in civilian and military experiences in the United States over the 17 years since 9/11 has led to persuasive, persistent, and unrealistic myths that have eroded faith in civilian leadership of defense policy. Among these myths are the superior virtue of military over other kinds of public service; that battlefield experience is the most authoritative source of military policy expertise; and that an exclusively civilian background is inadequate for strategic defense leadership. In the United States, these myths are nurtured and perpetuated by both military and civilian communities and affect general public opinion as well as the attitudes of national security professionals. These myths are also corrosive. Unless they are acknowledged, addressed, and challenged, future civilian leaders may struggle to control the use of force—a profound problem for a democratic system. Downgrading civilian leadership will weaken U.S. national security and the military itself.

    I thought having experience in the field you were administering was a good thing.   Silly me.

    The myth with which the majority of Americans are most familiar is the notion that military service tops the hierarchy of civic duties. The Pew Research Center found in 2011 that 83 percent of American adults believe military personnel and their families have had to make sacrifices since 9/11, but at the same time less than half the population believes the American public has shared the burden of war. The kernel of truth underlying this perception has grown into a sense that there is a deficit on the civilian side of U.S. society.

    Civilians have made and equal sacrifice to those who serve in the military?  Someone explain this to me.

    Veterans are often offered early boarding for airplanes. Harris Teeter grocery stores provide preferred parking for veterans. Veterans’ issues top the list for dozens of major charities and are included among the charitable giving priorities of corporate foundations. On the one hand, this is all as it should be: Admiring and expressing gratitude for military service, especially in wartime, is simply the right thing for a society to do. The problem is that admiration for military service eclipses respect for other national-level institutions and other forms of service. In today’s polarized political environment, the chasm has put those in uniform in the awkward position of embodying civic virtue.

    I had no idea my service to this country was eroding Democracy.

    A Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation poll of veterans found in 2013 that nearly half believe the American public doesn’t genuinely respect their service.

    Shocked face.

    A 2017 Gallup poll found Americans’ trust in the military is more than twice what it is for the presidency and six times higher than faith in Congress.

    Well, we can’t have that.  Americans trusting in the military has to be stopped.   We should all entrust our safety to some Commie Pinko babe from NY.   We should put people who have no idea what the military is all about in charge of protecting us and stop this reverence for those who served before it destroys this nation.

     

    Read the whole article HERE.

     

  • When killing the enemy is a crime.

    When killing the enemy is a crime.

    There are too many cases of warriors being sent to prison for killing people in a war zone.  In the most recent report, a Navy SEAL is being detained.

    A Navy SEAL is being held in a military brig while authorities investigate the stabbing death of an Islamic State combatant while he was subdued in Iraq last year.

    The Navy Times reported Friday the unidentified SEAL based in California was being held in the brig at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, though he has not been charged with a crime. Such confinement is allowed in the military justice system.

    One of the cases I have followed for years is Sgt. Derrick Miller’s.   I find his story so disturbing because I can envision myself doing exactly what he and multiple witnesses testified that he did.

    During a combat mission in a hostile area of Afghanistan in September 2010, Sgt. Derrick Miller’s attention was drawn to an Afghan national who had penetrated the defense perimeter set up by the US Army. The Afghan man was positively identified by another soldier under Sgt. Miller’s command who recognized him from a detainment the previous day. The man in question was the driver of a truck reported by military intelligence as transporting members of the opposition to a nearby combat firefight. US military intelligence let the trucks pass. Sgt. Miller was sent to question the Afghan national after observing the suspicious behavior of the man as he reconnoitered their defense perimeter. It appeared that the man was gathering information, and since he was already identified as an enemy combatant, Sgt. Miller was acting instinctively to protect his unit by detaining this man. During the questioning, which took place in an open area with another US soldier and an Afghan interpreter present, Sgt. Miller asked the man why he was within the perimeter. The man initially claimed to be an electrician who was responding to a downed power line, but later claimed to be there to fix a water pump. He had no tools with him, and no apparent means of carrying out the repairs he was supposedly there to address. The man was originally observed accompanied by two men whom he claimed were his sons and helpers. Both of those men had returned to the village without having performed any electrical work, and both in separate directions. They were not present during Sgt. Miller’s questioning. During the harsh questioning, the Afghan insurgent attempted to grab Sgt. Miller’s weapon, and was shot and killed in the struggle. Within 45 minutes, SGT Miller’s unit was attacked on three sides by Afghan insurgents. During Sgt. Miller’s trial, all the soldiers who appeared from his unit testified that the enemy had to have reconnoitered their position closely in order to attack in the manner they did. There was also testimony that the incident with Sgt. Miller forced the entire unit into full alert / 100% security, which prepared the soldiers for the attack. Because of Sgt. Miller’s actions, no American lives were lost due to the level of their preparation. As the details of the events of that day came to light, the US soldiers were suspicious of the Afghan man and the two other young men with him that he claimed were his sons and helpers. Yet at different times during the few hours that the Afghan was inside the perimeter, each of these men were sent back to the village by different routes. The Afghan interpreter testified that this happened. It is believed by the soldiers present at the time that these two men were carrying information to the insurgents detailing the most effective targets for the ensuing attack. Sgt. Miller believes, despite his conviction and sentence of life in prison for the murder of this Afghan insurgent, that he was acting solely in self-defense and with sound judgment.

    Another link on Miller is HERE.   We are not alone in dealing with these cases, Canadian Robert Semrau and British Sergeant Alexander Blackman are just two more examples.   I am not suggesting that crimes are not committed during a time of war, I am suggesting that we no longer engage in war.  What we do is deploy Americans into places where we expect them to only kill people that don’t offend our social pallet.

    Conducting operations that require warriors to seek permission from people who are at times not even in the same hemisphere should not be classified as a “War”.  The  Oise-Aisne American Cemetery Plot E holds the remains of many thousands of service members.  We now know that too many of them should have never been buried among the dishonored.  This is not a new problem, we have just not learned to deal with it very well.

    Too often the enemy of a warrior is a peaceful citizen with offended sensibilities.

     

     

  • Our old buddy Stewart Rhodes of the so called “Oath Keepers” – still running his suck.

    Our old buddy Stewart Rhodes of the so called “Oath Keepers” – still running his suck.

    Back in the early days of TAH there were the Blog Wars.  Some guy named Jonn and a bunch of others didn’t care much for Stewy and his klan.  I am just a loving and kinda forgiving guy so far be it for me to try and outshine the eloquence of one Jonn Lilyea on the matter:

    “Yeah, the Oathkeepers, our sworn enemies led by former Ron Paul staffer, Stewart Rhodes, were the “source” for rumor. I wouldn’t believe Rhodes, an Adam Kokesh supporter, if my life depended on it. If you read further down the “article” you’ll see there no real reason to believe the story, it’s just a bunch of crackpots trying to stir up some shit;”

    ” Personally, I think that the Oathkeepers are more despicable.”

    Let’s just say TAH as a general guideline doesn’t care for Patchy Rhodes very much.  His hysterical babbling and tin foil temperament are some of his better qualities.  I have lost count of how many posers/embellishers we have busted that were affiliated with his group.  It started out as an interesting group but quickly turned septic mostly due to the puss filled ego of its blowhard leader.

    We all have variant opinions on the late Senator McCain but Stewy goes full batshit as if he has some breaking secret scoop about McCain that the average literate person didn’t have decades ago.  The irony of this one-eyed fat man claiming someone else built a reputation on lies and deception is just too rich.

     

    Anyone interested in a trip down memory lane can put “Stewart Rhodes” in the search box at the top of the page.   There are one-eyed fat men that I admire…he just ain’t one of them.  I try not to link to sites that I think suck so you will have to look up OathKeepers on your own.  The interview was done by that guy over at The Next News Network.

  • Join the exciting world of Stolen Valor Investigations

    Join the exciting world of Stolen Valor Investigations

    Some of yuz might be aware of a recent opening in the Circle of Trust.  Our resident Army guru has moved on to better things.  If you would like to join this exciting field of unlimited bullshit and mass confusion, please do not hesitate to contact us.

    All we ask of an investigator is:

    A willingness to put up with my constant haranguing.

    Generally lucid individual that looks forward to being the FNG

    Ability to give good phone.

    Some of those highly trained operator language skills would be a plus.

    Can deliver a compassionate approach to the monthly death threat.

    An abundance of time currently devoid of any purpose.

    Possess an ability to decipher clues.

    Preferably they have been in the Army, knows someone who has been in the Army or at least slept with someone that was in the Army.

    A good working knowledge of all that Army Bling, patches, pins, and hats would be really helpful.

    They will have to sign an SF-180, pass a background check, complete some home schooling and be willing to attend a formal course that will actually make them a Private Investigator.

    You can complete additional training  if you wish to do Fugitive Recovery and or Personal Protection.

    If you are still living in your mothers basement, have a man bun, are afraid of scary black guns, or spend a significant part of the day playing with yourself…this is probably the career opportunity you have been waiting for.

    The good new is; I am the Stable Genius of the crowd.  The rest of these guys really got some serious issues.   So if you just can’t seem to get that edge back since they made you turn in your Contractor Satellite Phone and they stopped sending checks your way…hit me up.  I can put you knee deep in the shit.

    We try to work with most disabilities.

    Neatness counts, we like to keep things organized.

    Thank you for your time.  Please send inquiries to dave@militaryphony.com

     

     

  • Those Islands in the Pacific

    Looks like there’s some sort of protest movement underway on Guam, one of our westward military bases in the Pacific, as well as on Okinawa.

    http://www.guampdn.com/story/news/2017/10/25/okinawa-women-join-fight-protect-ritidian-stop-militarism-guam-and-okinawa/797174001/

    A small group of Guamaians don’t want the military there, despite the fact that the island is a US protectorate and the US military does provide income to the locals.

    While Japan and the US are engaged in a co-operative effort to upgrade military bases on Okinawa, the local residents are concerned about how it will affect them.

    A similar program of upgrading the military base on Guam to accommodate 5,000 Marines is underway. Transferring the Marine Corps from Okinawa to Guam will begin in 2020.

    The contention by one of the Japanese residents of Takae, Okinawa is thus: “Since bases and live fire training ranges are built to prepare for future wars, it is without a doubt that residents of Okinawa and Guåhan will be exposed to irrevocable harm,” Ashimine said. (See article above)  Now, you do reasonably have to ask if Ashimine is even vaguely aware of the damage done to Okinawa during Operation Iceberg in 1945. Some of these archival photos clearly show that the island’s forest was almost completely destroyed by that warfare. Nature has an amazing way of replacing and repairing over a long term all the damage we humans do in the short term.  You may find these archival photos interesting:   https://scout.com/military/warrior/Article/33-Photos-From-the-Battle-for-Okinawa-101458847

    There is a group of residents of Takae on Okinawa whose concerns are that a helicopter may crash on someone’s house. Construction on the helipad base in that area began in 2006. I can understand their concerns, but construction of the helipad base started 11 years ago and they’re protesting now?

    At any rate, these ladies of the No Helipad Society have traveled to Guam to assist a small group of Guamaians in their protest against more militarization. The Guam group Save Ritidian, now protesting further militarization, also seems to be blithely unaware of Guam’s history. Since January,  Save Ritidian has opposed the live fire training range complex to be built above Ritidian, on Andersen Air Force Base. For them, it’s about the environment of Ritidian and its surrounding lands, such as Yanbaru Forest, that are at risk, including Guam’s major source of fresh water, the  Northern Guam Lens Aquifer.

    Again, I think that these well-meaning people are either unaware of the history of Guam and the US during WWII, or they have chosen to ignore it. But as you may recall, the Japanese had seized what was then a US-protected territory, the island of Guam, and had parked 19,000 members of the Japanese Army there.  This video from Youtube is about 45 minutes about the Battle of Guam in 1944, where the US regained its island territory.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEuCEODNyQM

    I do understand these things, because for years, a major source of concern where I live now was PCBs in the water being retrieved from the lakeshore harbor, which is now a major recreational site. The cleanup took some time, but it has been completed, and trout are caught there occasionally in the summer. And I live near a very large military base with active duty people who frequent a restaurant I go to occasionally, as I explained previously:  https://www.azuse.cloud/?p=71528

    That means that I live in what used to be termed a ‘target area’, just as my home town was because of its railyard and its heavy equipment, tire and electronics factories.

    We are facing constant threats against us from all corners of the world by people who want to annihilate because we exist. The bone of contention of both these groups is that we should be pressing for peace. You can almost hear ‘at all costs’, can’t you? What they seem to miss completely is that if you are not preparing for war waged against you, then you end up with Pearl Harbor being bombed or two skyscrapers and other buildings being crashed into by hijacked planes, and you will have no peace – ever.

    So while I understand the concerns of the protest group on Guam, I have to wonder if they realize or even vaguely understand what might have happened to them if the US had not retaken the island of Guam from the Japanese.

    Simply put, they might not be here today.

  • Andre Shepherd’s asylum rejected by German courts again

    Andre Shepherd’s asylum rejected by German courts again

    shepard

    We’ve been following Andre Shepherd since he first deserted and applied for asylum in Germany in 2008. He was a mechanic for Apache helicopter gunships who was to deploy with his unit for a second time. We’ve been told by people who deployed with him that he wasn’t very dependable anyway – he ran their dayroom during his first deployment. According to someone who knew him before he joined the Army, he wasn’t very dependable back then either.

    German courts denied his application for asylum back in 2011. I guess his lawyer appealed that decision, and they were in court the other day where asylum was denied once again, according to Russia Today;

    Andre Shepherd, 39, deserted his post at Katterbach Kaserne military base in southern Germany in 2007 after being told he would have to return to Iraq for a second tour. He claims he felt that he would be forced to take part in what he called “war crimes” if he did.

    However, that excuse failed to hold up in court and the case was dismissed on Thursday, with presiding Judge Josef Ruber ruling that Shepherd had failed to exercise all available options to leave the military before deserting, making no attempt to join another military unit.

    Ruber also said that Shepherd – who served as an Apache helicopter mechanic for the US Army – was unable to prove that he would have been forced to commit war crimes on returning to Iraq….

    I think he was more scared that Jody was going to steal his German girlfriend than he was about being forced to commit war crimes, to the extent that a depot-level mechanic can commit war crimes while mopping up the dayroom.

  • Brandon Bryant, Star of Drone Documentary, is a Liar

    Brandon Bryant, Star of Drone Documentary, is a Liar

    The views expressed here are personal and do not represent the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the United States government.

    I’ve recently written about Brandon Bryant, ex-Air Force drone sensor operator (or as they apparently call them in Norway, a “pilot”) over on my blog, PickYourBattles.Net.  Brandon is the star of a new Norwegian documentary called Drone, where his personal story is apparently the meat of the flick.  There is just one problem.  Brandon Bryant is a liar.

    In the short video embedded above, at one point Brandon claims, to an audience in New York City, that the FBI called him to inform him that he was being targeted by ISIS.  Then the video shows him telling that exact same story to an audience in Germany, where instead of ISIS he says that the FBI told him he was being targeted by a conservative right wing “Christian Patriot” group.  This is par for the course.  Sadly, most in the media seem to ignore Brandon’s utter lack of credibility.  Or at least they don’t carefully research him.  I guess I can’t really blame them.  After watching more than forty videos of Brandon running his yap, I do not begrudge them for passing up on the experience.  Still this charlatan needs to be exposed.

    I know Brandon hates him some TAH so I had to show up over here.  And when asked to pile on as a guest blogger, I just couldn’t say no.  Kind of like Bryant couldn’t say no to violating his oath of office because he was scared that he might be “ridiculed.”  Yeah he said that.  In public.

    To be fair, those of us in the defense business know that ridicule strikes fear into the hearts of even the most courageous soldiers, strike that, “warriors.”  Mortars, rockets, small arms, and anti-aircraft artillery are one thing, but we’re talking about ridicule here.  This ain’t X-box, ridicule is the real deal, it’s like being in “the shit.”  In fact, I may have just now developed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) simply from the thought of ridicule.  I am viewing a computer screen right now, so there is a case to be made.  If you’re Brandon Bryant, of course, or one of his Legion of Jerkoff superhero sidekicks.

    Not only does Brandon claim PTSD from being a drone operator with only a handful of lethal actions from ten thousand miles away from the battlefield, but he has also publicly stated that he’s waiting on his VA benefits so that he can have a place of his own.  He’s too good traumatized to get a job and he claims to be homeless.  Never mind that he lives with his mother in Missoula, or at least he did, and was using the generous GI Bill to go to school; a bounty that comes not just with full tuition, but also with more than $1000 a month in Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH).  Still, Brandon will tell ya, he’s homeless and he’s a “disabled veteran” with no income.  He says he has nothing.  He touts a “physical injury” from his time in the service, but somehow that doesn’t keep him from literally doing back flips on internet video.  If you don’t watch this video for any other reason, it’s worth watching just to see that.  But to be fair, I can’t swing a stick without hitting a homeless disabled veteran doing gymnastic maneuvers.  So there’s that.

    But show some compassion, dear reader.  Brandon is too disabled to work.  Especially not while also fitting in his globe trotting and fine foreign dining, and giving speeches and attending long Q&As about his European film.  That poor bastard really pulls on my heart strings.

    I’ve known Brandon online for some time now.  When I first became acquainted with him, I thought he might have something of substance to offer to an important discussion.  Turns out I was wrong.  His story morphed over the years from wanting to be a voice for drone operators serving under bad leadership, to him later claiming that distance technology is cowardly and bad.  Of course, there are many who agree with him on that point.  We in the biz call them the enemy.  They hate our distance warfare capability as much as Brandon does, and they prefer making hand-to-hand IEDs.  You know, what Brandon would call honorable combat.  Practically a fist fight.

    Now this self-proclaimed expert on war is writing letters to the President of the United States, as though he has some kind of moral authority despite the fact that he directly violated his oath of office while he was serving.  That doesn’t stop him from making lofty proclamations, though.

    Not only have I learned that Brandon will lie without a second thought, as the video above demonstrates, but his motivations are not pure.  They weren’t pure when he was in the military, and they’re not pure now.  It’s still all about him.  He knows nothing of service despite his collection of Reader’s Digest quotes to the contrary.  He admits that he’s always wanted to be a hero and that he grew up with comic books.  I think it’s fair to say that him plagiarizing the words of Captain America from a Marvel comic both at his Tedx talk, as well as during his ramblings at the Drone documentary premiere in New York City, shows that he hasn’t lost that love of fiction.  Brandon is all about spreading fictions.

    But public service and public discourse are not the stuff of fairy tales.  And there is an important discussion to be had about our nation’s national security and how our military capabilities are utilized.  Sadly, Brandon is hurting this discussion and the credibility of better people who inexplicably enable his shenanigans.  For some reason, these more serious people are not relegating Brandon to the kid’s table where he belongs.  Perhaps these journalists and lawyers are just taking their time, as I did, figuring out his lack of character.  I suspect, however, that many of Brandon’s foreign friends, like Tonje Hessen Schei, are not too troubled by his character so long as he follows a particular script.

    And that script is infecting and hurting an important discussion all over the internet.  Hopefully the fine folks at TAH can help foster and improve the discussion by continuing their fine tradition of exposing this guy for the fraud that he is.  Brandon likes social media and a lot of people are eating up the piles of manure he’s feeding them.  I hope that those who hate liars as much as myself, and who love their country and want our capability to remain strong while we debate the proper use of that capability, will help get the word out on Facebook and Twitter about this scoundrel.

    Thanks for your help.

     

     

  • Canada contemplates fate of US deserters

    Canada contemplates fate of US deserters

    One of TSO’s first posts here was about Joshua Key who slipped away from the Army and absconded to Canada where he wrote a completely inaccurate tome about his time in the Army and his service in Iraq. Well, here we are six years later and Key is still cowering in a corner of a Canadian taxpayer-funded apartment. But, Canada is contemplating ending his little adventure according to a link sent by Thomas to The Star;

    Eight applications from war resisters to stay in Canada as permanent residents, on humanitarian and compassionate grounds as well as spousal sponsorships, were denied. Four war resisters have received removal orders, including one last month.

    Key, who was born in Oklahoma, served as a combat engineer in Iraq in 2003. He deserted the army while on a two-week furlough and fled to Canada in 2005, when he applied for refugee status. His request was denied in 2006, but a federal court judge ordered the refugee board to review his bid for asylum. In 2010, he was rejected again and applied for spousal sponsorship with his Canadian wife.

    The negative decisions have renewed fears that Key’s spousal sponsorship application could be turned down any day.

    Key’s American wife left him back in 2009 and returned to the US leaving Joshua behind – so I guess he’s taken a stank-ass hippie Canadian wife to solidify his refugee request. The Star article quotes some of Key’s fantasies in their article about his service in Iraq – like the one about US soldiers play soccer with an Iraqi man’s severed head.

    Canada has sent some deserters back to the US – each returning to a year in military confinement. Conservative Canadians want to send them all sent back;

    “Military deserters from the United States are not genuine refugees under the internationally-accepted meaning of the term,” said Rémi Larivière, a spokesperson for Citizenship and Immigration Canada. “These unfounded claims clog up our system for genuine refugees who are actually fleeing persecution,” he wrote in an email.

    Desertion in Canada is punishable by up to life in prison.

    To date, no refugee claims made by U.S. military deserters have been accepted.

    I’m pretty sure that Key will be a burden to any national system of welfare. If Canada doesn’t want him, they should send him to live in Iraq, preferably in the area that the Islamic State occupies. In fact, they can send the whole bunch of them to Iraq.