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

Category: Antiwar crowd

  • Guantanamo Protest in DC

    Today in Washington, DC, Amnesty International and the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition, staged events protesting Guantanamo. I learned that they were in town from reading VanHelsing at Moonbattery, so I took the Blogger Urban Reconnaissance Vehicle (BURV) and headed downtown. The first thing I found was the Amnesty International’s Guantanamo Cell Tour 2008.

    A child who really needed to get a sandwich or two was handing out fliers to passers-by;

    Then there was the cell itself;

    The woman who was conducting the tour told me that it’s not representative of normal cells, but those of “Class V” prisoners. But according to Fox News, that’s not true;

    Amnesty International-USA said the cell, which contains a toilet, sleeping bunk and a small window, is meant to symbolize the U.S. government’s alleged mistreatment of detainees at the prison.

    It said the tour is designed to increase public awareness and mount pressure on the Bush administration and Congress to close down the U.S.-controlled detention center. The group planned its display in Washington to coincide with a House Judiciary subcommittee’s hearing on harsh interrogation techniques.

    But Charles “Cully” Stimson, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, lashed out against Amnesty’s campaign, calling it a “complete fraud in misrepresenting the condition of detention at Gitmo today.”

    Not having been to Guantanamo myself, I can’t attest to either story so I’ll just go with the experts on this. Since AI has an axe to grind and funds to raise, I’ll stick with the ex-government guy. Here’s an interview I did with the “tour guide” Cicely;

    [youtube HwQMCU-0WPU nolink]

    The particular Gitmo alum who was identified as the suicide attacker in Mosul last month was Abdullah Salim Ali al-Ajm. Cicely said he was held six years at Gitmo, but that’s not true he was there three years before he was released.

    After I was done taping, we all had our picture taken – that’s Gabrielle Birchak and Rob Raffety from Project Breakout.

    Their corner of the Mall was virtually ignored by the thousands of tourists out on this sweltering June morning;

    But their cell on the Mall was a little bit more realistic than the one I found at the other event in Lafayette Park (across from the White House where there are usually more tourists);

    It seems someone should have spoken up and mentioned thats how Americans get treated, not how we treat foreign prisoners. But, oddly, no one did speak up.

    I don’t think this guy’s hunger strike began intentionally;

    Just as I got there, they formed up for their march – around Lafayette Park.

    I was doing an interview with the Washington Post so I missed the shot of them walking by the White House. It might have been part of WaPo’s plan. But the reporter assured me that he wasn’t a communist, so who knows.

    These two guys (Raoul might know who they are) were lamenting the fact that their planned protest in Denver wasn’t going to be as good as their protests at Fort Benning’s School of America or Seattle because they weren’t going to be in charge. I’m guessing they’re not happy that the umbrella organization is making them tone down their dissent.

    About that time, this guy started eye-balling me;

    And sent this woman over to take my picture;

    I just noticed this guy from the picture three photos above taking my picture;

    I don’t what that was about, but I handed all of them my card and told them if they needed to ask me anything they can reach me at this blog. We’ll see how that turns out. Here’s a video of their little march around Lafayette Park and some REALLY BAD sax playing;

    [youtube uk579SHG23c nolink]

    All-in-all it was a pretty pathetic event. They were vastly outnumbered by the apathetic tourists. I didn’t see any support for them from the tourists, hardly any asked questions, and aside from me and the Washington Post reporter, I didn’t see any media. He told me that he was so new at the Post, he didn’t have business cards yet.

    Code Pink had the event on their website, but there were none of the usual suspects there – in fact the only people I saw wearing pink were tourists.

    There were more participants at the protest in the middle of January in the pouring-ass rain. Today was a sunny June day. I think they’re losing their cache`.

    Thanks to Jammie Wearing Fool , Little Green Footballs, Nice Deb, Stop the ACLU , Gateway Pundit, The Real Revo, Inoperable Terran, Libertarian Republican, Pirate’s Cove and McClatchy Watch for the links.

    Welcome Weekly Standard readers.

  • Free tomorrow night?

    pink.jpg

    TSO sent me this. I don’t know if he was he was asking me out on a date or what. The email heading was “Let’s keep the heat on!” Then he left town. If anyone knows what he was thinking, let me know.

  • Liberal guilt vs. White Man’s Burden

    Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Burma, the Sudan, Tibet, Iran are all countries with which we’re all familiar of the terrible depravations portions of the respective populations suffer nearly every day. Their particular oppressors use liberal guilt to continue their brand of governance.

    Zimbabwe’s Mugabe blames the United Kingdom for his political opposition, Venezuela’s Chavez warns that “the Empire” of the US wants Chavez dead for Venezuela’s oil, Iran’s Ahmadinejad almost daily warns of a US invasion. The Myanmar government hides behind the Chinese while maintaining it’s brutal repression under the guise of protecting the country from foreign instigators.

    The United Nations act concerned about these pockets of oppression, but they do nothing to further their intentions than wring their hands and make lofty speeches. Mostly because the members are all engaged in various degrees of oppression themselves and they worry that actually enforcing the tenets of human rights might someday come to their own countries.

    Despite the rhetoric of the American Left, there is case to be made for the use of force to relieve the sufferings of people around the world. The “peace-at-any-cost” crowd can’t justify not removing radical entities from the world stage while they complain about the imagined deprivations they suffer under the Bush Administration. We have a responsibility to make the world safer for all people, as the premier defender of human rights – the city on a hill.

    The UK has a moral responsibility to end the brutal regime of Robert Mugabe since they actually facilitated his installation three decades ago. Since the United Nations has hardly been able to summon the fortitude to even mention Mugabe, they’ve outlived their usefulness. When corrupt dictators have an equal voice in the UN as civilized nations, thecollective voice is muted.

    The world knows what they won’t admit – the US isn’t prone to non-judicial use of military power and the UK isn’t looking to rebuild it’s empire. If ever there was a time or a place to use the threat of military force to remove repressive governments, it’s in those nations I listed above. If the United Nations can’t get their act together, and they’ve proven time-and-again that they can’t, the civilized nations have a responsibility to heal these aberrations using any means possible.

    Why should one more person suffer because the Left feels guilty about the judicial use of force? What’s the real humanitarian choice here?

  • Zombie in Berkeley

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    The blogger who influenced me to focus my own blog on the countless protests here in DC, Zombie, has a great photo essay on this weekend’s events in Berkeley against the Marine Recruiting station there. Complete with video;

    [youtube 3j5TstKikD0 nolink]

    Code Pink was classy enough to disrupt a eulogy a Gold Star Mom was giving for her son. World Can’t Wait showed their class by throwing Nazi salutes and booing the National Anthem. More pics at PC Free Zone, Melanie Morgan and a coupla AARs at Eagles Up.

    Zombie actually sent me an email a few weeks ago complimenting our work here, but I could never reach the quality of Zombie – they have much loonier moonbats in Berkeley.

    There’s supposed to be a protest this weekend in Lafayette Park and TSO and I were talking about going. If nothing else, there’s several bars in the area where we can cleanse our memories.

  • IVAW’s Matt Howard is a dumbass

    I ran across this video last week at IVAW’s OneStop (where they go to find mean stuff being said about them on the internet – which why they always find their way here). It’s Matt Howard who is supposedly an expert of some sort on depleted uranium usage in Iraq by US forces. His IVAW profile says he aspires to be a holistic healer and work with Chinese medicine – which must be different that western medicine somehow.

    But anyway, to the video, you have to sit through 4 minutes of propaganda about the IVAW and Winter Soldier, and then another minute-a-half of some dill weed strumming his guitar and mumbling like he’s on ‘ludes to get to Howard’s insane rant;

    [youtube rVfvB95YYNY nolink]

    He begins by admitting that he’s not going to give any specifics about the use of depleted uranium in Iraq – it’s up to us to research for ourselves. He doesn’t even give any reliable sources where we can start doing our research. So what the hell is he testifying about? basically, he’s just telling us we’re a bunch of dumbasses because we don’t already know about the issue.

    I’ve had some email exchanges with some of these DU zealots – they are absolutely impervious to common sense. Howard seems to be their Grand Poobah.

    Howard says that the US is firing off tank rounds in Iraq just so we can dispose of our nuclear waste – he even mentions that we’ve got so much nuclear waste in the US, that we don’t know what else to do with it. He gets exercised because we’re “changing the genome” of the entire planet because we’re firing so many DU tank rounds in Iraq. Into what?

    He admits that there’s no purpose for using the rounds, since the enemy in Iraq has no tanks. So apparently we’re just firing the stuff off randomly just to get rid of nuclear waste. Um, if we were really going to dispose of nuclear waste in Iraq, Matt, wouldn’t it just be cheaper and easier to bring it over in barrels and bury it in the sand?

    Of course, bigger dumbasses than Matt Howard are in the room applauding like imbeciles on cue and you can see some of them in the video doing the famous VFP/VVAW bobble-head routine that tells everyone around them that they’re veterans and they’re not surprised that the government is poisoning the planet with tank rounds.

    How can the anti-war crowd expect to be taken seriously with performances like this? And how does it add to the credibility of Matt Howard when he makes idiot statements like this (as quoted from Obiter Dictum);

    “During the initial invasion we killed women. We killed children. We senselessly killed farm animals. We were the United States Marine Corps…and we left a swath of death and destruction in our wake all the way to Baghdad…”
    Matt Howard, Iraq Veterans Against the War

    “We would declare zones ‘weapons-free’…and shoot everything that moved…weapons-free means you can shoot anyone and that’s exactly what we did…tanks went in and shot everything that moved: men, women, children, donkeys—it was a turkey shoot.”
    Matt Howard, Iraq Veterans Against the War

    And he writes idiot essays about the “surge” last year when he hasn’t even been in Iraq for the last four years. How would he know the surge is failing? Just like how would a future “holistic healer” know that we’re changing the “genome” in Iraq by disposing of our nuclear waste with tank rounds?

  • WaPo calls Obama’s Iraq plan outdated

    The lead editorial in the Washington Post this morning characterizes Barack Obama’s position on the war in Iraq as “badly outdated”;

    SEN. BARACK OBAMA told Iraq’s foreign minister this week that he plans to visit the country between now and the presidential election. We think that’s a good thing, not because Sen. John McCain has been prodding the candidate to do it but because it will give Mr. Obama an opportunity to refresh his badly outdated plan for Iraq. To do that, the Democrat needs to listen more to dedicated Iraqi leaders like Hoshyar Zebari, the foreign minister — who, it seems, didn’t hold back during their telephone conversation.

    Mr. Obama laid out his current strategy for Iraq in November 2006, shortly before announcing his candidacy for president. At the time, Iraq appeared to be on the verge of a sectarian civilian war, and Mr. Obama was trying to distinguish himself in the Democratic primary race by offering a timetable for withdrawal. Nineteen months later, the situation in Iraq has changed dramatically, with violence down 75 percent from its peak and the Iraqi government and army in control of most of the country. But Mr. Obama has not altered his position:

    Not only is it outdated, it’s been wrong since he formulated his intellectually shallow “plan”. If Obama had the opportunity to enact this “plan”, Iraqis would be suffering the consequences of that wrong-headed and ill-conceived shot at pandering to his anti-war base. Of course, we wouldn’t know about it, just like many Americans are surprised when they discover that Somalia and Haiti are still embroiled in violence a decade after they stopped being newsworthy here in the US.

    Just as a few new commenters here haven’t updated their arguments on the legality of our involvement in Iraq, Obama’s current policy needs to be updated considering recent successes there. But I wouldn’t hold my breath awaiting any coherent thoughts coming from either our resident commenters or Obama and his acolytes. They seem to have super powers that make them impervious to facts.

    Earlier this week, Obama said that he hasn’t “seen any evidence” that tax cuts help the economy, nor has hr seen any evidence that we’re safer because of Iraq just yesterday. As long as the left fails to “see any evidence” that’s contrary to the party line, they’ll find themselves at odds with the truth and the actual facts. And in the minority in Congress…and not in the White House.

    They repeat the false McCain quote about staying in Iraq for a hundred years and the retarded mischaracterization of opposition to the Senator Webb version of the GI Bill because they won’t look at facts – and they don’t see any reason that Obama should look at the facts either. They’re comfortable finding easy and non-intellectual reasons for supporting Obama because it makes them feel good about themselves. To Hell with what damage they do to the country.

  • Flag Day in bitter West Chester, PA

    My buddy Skye from the blogs Midnight Blue and Flopping Aces has been pestering me to come up to West Chester, Pennsylvania to cover her pet project, the Victory Group that counters the Chester County Peace Vigil, so I finally relented (I hate driving back into DC after the peace and tranquility of Real America) and I wasn’t disappointed. I’m sure most of you remember that Skye was the blogger attacked by a member of the “Peace” vigil last month, but that hasn’t stopped her from being there every Saturday.

    So when Thus Spake Ortner and I met up there, we estimated there were probably 200 bitter, patriotic Pennsylvanians clinging to their flag, their guns and their faith facing about forty enlightened beings ready to surrender their safety and well-being for the sake of world peace. Guess which group is which of these two pictures;

    All of the old hippies were out with their tired bumpersticker politics;

    It’s no surprise that the peace movement in West Chester would hijack the image of West Chester’s favorite son, Smedley Butler, and quote from his writings in a socialist magazine;

    And more timely slogans;

    Of course, you can’t put a whole Supreme Court decision on a sign or in few enough words that a Leftist could pay attention all the way through – it’s just easier to call the whole thing illegal.

    Apparently the pro-Victory side are uberpatriots;

    I wonder to what lie she’s referring. Maybe the lie that the Left is patriotic and supports the troops. What the Tibetan flag had to do our Flag Day, I’ll never know.

    But luckily there was a bunch of people on the spot to raise my spirits again;

    Did I mention they had bagpipes?

    I think TSO almost wet himself.

    After the good guys sang the Star-Spangled Banner and recited the Pledge of Allegiance, the hippies figured their job was done and streamed off down the street pathetically chanting “Out of Iraq Now” in those weak little voices they have. In the meantime, we were treated to good food and beer at the Knights of Columbus Lodge up the street. There was speechifying, prayers and more bagpipes. And more Skye;

    I had a great time – usually I have to wait to see good Americans when they come to DC…but this time venturing out into the hinterlands paid off for me – I felt privileged to be surrounded by such dedicated and proud hardworking Americans.

    I threw together this video of parts of the event, so across America you can get the sense of how the bitter folks of West Chester, PA stand up to the malignant “peace” movement;

    [youtube OYi16QtMNHE nolink]

    I hope everyone understands that when I say “bitter”, I kid.

    And just so you know, when I got back to DC, I was stuck 6 miles from home in an hour-long traffic jam. Yay!

    UPDATE: TSO remembers the event a bit differently than I remember.

    Skye’s report is at Flopping Aces and Midnight Blue. From her group shot, I found TSO and me – well, the top of our heads, anyway. My head is the one that’s not reflecting sunlight.

    groupshot.jpg

  • Protesters worry about “Brown Note”

    Ray sends this article from Fox News. It seems the planned deployment of an infrasound weapon at the political conventions this year;

     Political activists planning protest rallies at the upcoming Democratic Convention in Denver have their stomachs in knots over a rumor about a crowd control weapon – known as the “crap cannon” – that might be unleashed against them.

    Also called “Brown Note,” it is believed to be an infrasound frequency that debilitates a person by making them defecate involuntarily.

    Mark Cohen, co-founder of Re-create 68, an alliance of local activists working for the protection of first amendment rights, said he believes this could be deployed at the convention in August to subdue crowds.

    Of course, the drama queens of the Left think a relatively passive weapon is unfair;

    “I think these weapons were mostly intended for military use and so their use for dealing with innocent protesters seems highly inappropriate,” he said. “The idea that they might be field testing them on people who are doing nothing more than exercising their first amendment rights is disturbing.”

    Yeah, I’m sure the police are going to just pick somebody minding their own business and make them crap their pants just for fun (I probably would, but I doubt the police would).

    The article highlights the fact that a person can avoid the discomfort experienced from the weapon’s use by moving away from the source. But I guess that’s unfair, too.

    This weapon seems especially dangerous to use around the Left since the only reason they’re Leftists is that they’re full of crap. The use of the weapon around the Left could result in serious injuries of “Family Guy” proportions.

    And the event would forever be known as “Defecate 68”.