Category: Antiwar crowd

  • Mothers’ Day Peace-nik (now with IVAW)

    I went to the Code Pink Mothers’ Day protest in front of the White House two years ago and they were able to scrape together a few hundred people;

    They even had giant puppets;

    But those heady days of yore are gone. Today, they couldn’t even get in front of the White House. The closest they could get was about twelve blocks away up Connecticut Avenue at DuPont Circle. On their website, they called it a Mother’s Day “Peace-nik” and they urged people to bring their children for fun and games. I expected a hundred or so, but, by my count they were a little over thirty;

    They had activities for the children, but not too many children showed up, so why waste all of that face paint stuff, huh?

    No media was there, it must’ve been tough for them. They couldn’t get the giant puppets, so they brought tall people instead;

    It was a little hard to tell who intentionally dressed like a clown and who didn’t;

    Nothing is sadder than a bunch of old hippies trying to recapture their respective youth by acting like they’re…well, hippies;

    [youtube x8OhqQeapnQ nolink]

    But since it was the only show in town the big guns were there;

    They started begging as soon as they got there. Apparently they thought the thirty or so people there were flush with cash.

    [youtube mB9J0bJk59c nolink]

    Geoff Millard (the guy who’s going to testify to Congress that our troops are all racist) from IVAW was there with his mother;

    He pleaded with the Code Pink to attend their testimony in Congress next Thursday and pack the room to keep out people that might disrupt the hearings. Like this I suppose;

    condi-hands.jpg

    He went on to say that Congress should hear about Iraq from soldiers on the ground, not just from “Generals and pundits”. Well, then I suppose he supports Veterans For Freedom because they tried to talk to Congressmen, and I doubt they got to talk to too many of the members of the Progressive Caucus. I also wonder what soldiers who haven’t been in Iraq in the last two to five years can tell the Progressive Caucus about what has happened there in the last year or so. So what Millard meant was that Congress should hear from the drama queens and sociopaths of the IVAW who haven’t been able to find their collective ass with both hands in the last year or so.

    [youtube Er9cCqGX2Xc nolink]

    Then it was time to leave. I thought they’d march on the White House but they went in the opposite direction. So I just filmed them leaving;

    [youtube 7_vBHYNNUh0 nolink]

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    The anti-war movement is coming undone. They’re unable to announce their events in a timely manner anymore without being countered. Their members are losing interest and their antics turn off more people than they can attract. They claim to have the support of the American people, but the reality is that they don’t. In a city with more than 30,000 college students, they couldn’t get any of them out for their lame showing. This “peace-nik” was nothing more than pan handling – and they were probably out numbered by the regular panhandlers in DuPont Circle today.

  • Code Pink (rhymes with witches)

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    Our favorite commies to hate have been at it again out in Berkeley, CA. Now that Medea Benjamin has come back from Syria, they’ve shifted into high gear. This time they’re casting spells on the marines recruiting there. Melanie Morgan has links and pictures here and here. And of course, my favorite photo blogger, Zombie, was there, too, and points us to a Fox news broadcast;

    [youtube tzTsC82qrDM nolink]

    I know they’re pretty hot about Mothers’ Day, so if you catch them loose in your town, snap some pictures and I’ll put them up here.

  • IVAW; Truth in Testimony

    I wrote early this morning about Thus Spake Ortner‘s discovery that the IVAW intend to take their fantasies to Congress. My new buddy, Coby has written a petition that I’d like ya’all to sign. It asks that the Congressional Progressive Caucus;

    * Make request of the Iraq Veterans Against the War that member(s) of the Caucus be provided video of the entire Winter Soldier Investigation “testimony” proceedings and be provided access to all those who testified,

    *That the Caucus require any testimony given by IVAW be presented in the following format:
    D: Date(s) – When did the incident occur?
    U: Unit(s) – What military units were involved?
    P: Personnel – What are the names of the participants and witnesses?
    E: Event(s) – What exactly happened exactly where?
    S: Signature(s) – Was this reported at the time or later and were reports, affidavits or depositions signed, or will they now be signed?

    * That in the event that staff determines that there has been testimony given that touches on areas where, in the words of Senator Warner, the members of the SASC “have a responsibility to establish where in the military chain of command rests the ‘accountability,’ depending of course, on the accuracy of the facts…”, the Caucus forward the information to the House Armed Services Committee (HASC),

    * That the Caucus request and all documents and records, signed statements and recordings, audio, video or digital, that bear on the claims made and being investigated,

    * That the Caucus demand that those making such claims or professing publicly to verify those claims be requested or subpoened to appear before the HASC under oath, to answer questions.

    You can find the petition here.

    The members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus;

    Co-Chairs
    Hon. Lynn Woolsey (CA-6)
    Hon. Barbara Lee (CA-9)

    Vice Chairs
    Hon. Diane Watson (CA-33)
    Hon. Raul Grijalva (AZ-7)
    Hon. Emanuel Cleaver (MO-5)
    Hon. Hilda Solis (CA-32)
    Hon. Mazie Hirono (HI-2)
    Hon. Phil Hare (IL-17)

    Senate Members
    Hon. Bernie Sanders (VT)

    House Members
    Hon. Neil Abercrombie (HI-1)
    Hon. Tammy Baldwin (WI-2)
    Hon. Xavier Becerra (CA-31)
    Hon. Madeleine Bordallo (GU-AL)
    Hon. Robert Brady (PA-1)
    Hon. Corrine Brown (FL-3)
    Hon. Michael Capuano (MA-8)
    Hon. Donna Christensen (VI-AL)
    Hon. Yvette Clarke (NY-11)
    Hon. William “Lacy” Clay (MO-1)
    Hon. Steve Cohen (TN-9)
    Hon. John Conyers (MI-14)
    Hon. Elijah Cummings (MD-7)
    Hon. Danny Davis (IL-7)
    Hon. Peter DeFazio (OR-4)
    Hon. Rosa DeLauro (CT-3)
    Hon. Keith Ellison (MN-5)
    Hon. Sam Farr (CA-17)
    Hon. Chaka Fattah (PA-2)
    Hon. Bob Filner (CA-51)
    Hon. Barney Frank (MA-4)
    Hon. Luis Gutierrez (IL-4)
    Hon. John Hall (NY-19)
    Hon. Maurice Hinchey (NY-22)
    Hon. Michael Honda (CA-15)
    Hon. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (IL-2)
    Hon. Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX-18)
    Hon. Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-30)
    Hon. Hank Johnson (GA-4)
    Hon. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (OH-11)
    Hon. Marcy Kaptur (OH-9)
    Hon. Carolyn Kilpatrick (MI-13)
    Hon. Dennis Kucinich (OH-10)
    Hon. John Lewis (GA-5)
    Hon. David Loebsack (IA-2)
    Hon. Carolyn Maloney (NY-14)
    Hon. Ed Markey (MA-7)
    Hon. Jim McDermott (WA-7)
    Hon. James McGovern (MA-3)
    Hon. George Miller (CA-7)
    Hon. Gwen Moore (WI-4)
    Hon. Jerrold Nadler (NY-8)
    Hon. Eleanor Holmes-Norton (DC-AL)
    Hon. John Olver (MA-1)
    Hon. Ed Pastor (AZ-4)
    Hon. Donald Payne (NJ-10)
    Hon. Charles Rangel (NY-15)
    Hon. Laura Richardson (CA-37)
    Hon. Bobby Rush (IL-1)
    Hon. Linda Sanchez (CA-47)
    Hon. Jan Schakowsky (IL-9)
    Hon. Jose Serrano (NY-16)
    Hon. Louise Slaughter (NY-28)
    Hon. Pete Stark (CA-13)
    Hon. Bennie Thompson (MS-2)
    Hon. John Tierney (MA-6)
    Hon. Tom Udall (NM-3)
    Hon. Nydia Velazquez (NY-12)
    Hon. Maxine Waters (CA-35)
    Hon. Mel Watt (NC-12)
    Hon. Henry Waxman (CA-30)
    Hon. Peter Welch (VT-AL)
    Hon. Robert Wexler (FL-19)

    If you have the misfortune to live in one of those districts, please contact their offices and express your displeasure and what you expect from your elected representatives. If you don’t have your representative’s contact information you can find it on Congress.org. It’s been my experience that faxes and phone calls get a better response than email (which usually ends up in trash folder before anyone reads it).

  • Recreate 68 splits

    The Left is not only suffering the split of the Democrat Party between Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama, it seems the anti-war groups are having trouble keeping the various groups together as well (Denver Post link);

    A close ally with the local war protest group Re-create 68, which is organizing for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, is severing its ties, the group told R-68 today.

    Tent State University, a national group represented locally by Adam Jung, says it is having trouble organizing support and bands to perform because of the violent imagery associated with R-68’s name, and with recent heated rhetoric from R-68 organizer Glenn Spagnuolo, who has been the face of the local effort to date.

    From the outset, Spagnuolo’s group has attracted criticism because of its name, which suggests for many the violence outside the convention hall in Chicago in 1968.

    “We don’t feel that Re-create-68 is working well with the anti-war left,” Jung said.

    Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the national group CodePink, seconded concerns over R-68’s message and image, saying she wanted to portray the anti-war message as positively as possible. But Benjamin didn’t rule out working with R-68, as long as the group’s message conformed with CodePink’s.

    But, that’s what you get you base an entire movement on egos and personalities with no other goal other than making money. The anti-war left is not interested in ending the war, they’d dissipate like the groups of the ’60s and the members, especially the so-called leaders, would have to get real jobs.

    They’re only extending our involvement in the Middle East with their rhetorical theater and that’s their intention. Why else would they be focused on protesting their hope for ending the war.

  • IVAW goes to the people

    Back on March 15th, the Iraq Veterans Against the War partnered with their philosophical brethren, the Veterans For Peace and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and with the support of the labor unions tried to repeat their performance of the 1971 VVAW’s Winter Soldier. Their goal was to turn back the clock to the 1970s and reestablish the myth that the American soldier (Marine, sailor, airman) is a pathological, unfeeling killer and encouraged by the government to murder innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan indiscriminately.

    Despite the huge presence of media types (about 30 different media entities by my estimate), including Al Jeezera and other traditionally anti-US journalists, the image of the American fighting men and women that IVAW was trying to portray just didn’t make it to the public.

    It could’ve been because their stories were being fact-checked as they testified and were therefore watered down, or that this time they were being protested against outside their own event. Or it could be that the stories were weak – one commenter on my own blog called the testimony “a wet firecracker”. Whatever the reason, it was a propaganda failure, utterly and completely.

    Not only did they fail in this endeavor, but because they’d asked other peace organizations to suspend their activities marking the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq, those other peace organizations couldn’t assemble more than a thousand people in DC for their own protest later in the week. The whole peace movement suffered because of the IVAW’s inability to deliver on their promise of the final blow against the Bush Administration.

    So the IVAW has taken their show on the road around the media directly to college campuses and high schools around the nation. This afternoon, Adam Kokesh spoke in Oakland, CA at the Federal Building, at Marin College and at local high schools. Two more spoke at Perdue University earlier in the week. They’re insinuating themselves into every issue on local TV programs. They’re “counter-recruiting” with Texas students.

    Back in March, Evan Knappenberger, the lunatic who threatened to “blow up” Gathering of Eagles events and issued a “fatwa” on the life of Michelle Malkin, talked to high school students about his experiences in the war. Can you imagine this sociopath talking to your own children?

    Two IVAW members even held an art show in Vermont depicting images of the war as they’d like us to think as what they saw in the war. As if there was a shortage of cameras to bring back actual images.

    VFP and IVAW are still in the game, too;

    Sandy Kelson, VFP, who organized two weeks of outreach at Ft. Stewart Army base, which is home to roughly 19,000 soldiers, of which approximately 15,000 are currently deployed, talked about direct outreach at the base. In February, 2008, he and others, stood at a traffic light right before the entrance and distributed 500 copies of “Sir, No Sir!”, the Dave Zieger film about GI resistance during Vietnam, and 385 copies of “The Ground Truth”, a film documenting resistance by the military against the war in Iraq, as well as 1300 packets of leaflets, including VFP and IVAW applications, Appeal for Redress, GI Rights pocket cards, and other materials. Sometime after they did this outreach they discovered that the PX and other locations on the base were discussing the materials that they had delivered.

    Thus Spake Ortner at The Sniper discovered the IVAW’s intention to testify in front of a Congressional committee next week to counter General Petreaus’ testimony last month – from veterans who haven’t been in the theater since General Petreaus took command. As it stands right now, both TSO and I intend to team up again and attend these festivities like we did at Winter Soldier to bring you the unvarnished truth.

    I guess the point of all this is that the battle for the minds of the people against this insidious campaign to pervert the truth and turn Americans against our returning soldiers, is not over and it may have just begun. We’ve scored some significant victories in the last 14 months, but the battle continues.

    Crossposted at Eagles Up! Talon

  • Gitmo alum strikes in Mosul

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    Amnesty International and the ACLU protest Guantanamo detention facilities in DC, January 2008

    (Click picture for more on that protest)

    Fox News reports that a recently released Guantanamo prisoner allegedly didn’t waste anytime blowing himself up in Mosul recently;

    Three years ago, Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi, a Kuwaiti soldier who deserted to fight in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban, sat in a detention cell at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, while lawyers argued whether he was an “enemy combatant.”

    Last week, a Dubai-based television channel reported that al-Ajmi was killed carrying out a homicide bombing in Mosul, Iraq.

    While the report did not specify which attack Abdullah carried out, Iraqi officials reported that Mosul was hit on April 26 by three homicide attacks, killing seven people.

    CBS News reported that al-Ajmi carried out an attack on Wednesday, April 30, according to an unconfirmed report posted on a jihadist Web site.

    Al-Ajmi’s cousin, Salem, reportedly told Al-Arabiya television that , “We were shocked by the painful news we received … from one of the friends of martyr Abdullah in Iraq.”

    James Taranto at WSJ’s Best of the Web quotes a blogger/law professor making excuses for the Left’s shallow position;

    Over at The Volokh Conspiracy, blogger and law professor Jonathan Adler makes a manful effort at evenhandedness:

    What does this prove? Nothing really, but I’m sure partisans in the debate over Guantanamo and the treatment and detention of alleged [sic] enemy combatants will see this as evidence that confirms their respective points of view. On the one hand, Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi may have been a dangerous enemy combatant all along, and should never have been released. On the other hand, he may have been wrongfully detained in the first place, only to become radicalized by his (mis)treatment by the U.S. military. In other words, we either had a terrorist and let him go, or we created one.

    So I guess the Left would have us release all of the Gitmo detainees because we can’t decided if the chicken or the egg came first. But that’s the Left’s main problem – we should find out why these creatures do what they do. They ignore the fact that these criminals are actually killing people while the Left gazes at it’s collective navel.

    As I’ve reminded readers a number of times, there was no outcry from these same people when the Clinton Administration detained hundreds of Haitians (who had committed no crimes) in Guantanamo in hastily erected tent cities under much worse conditions than the current residents suffer. The only difference was the political party of the Presidents.

  • Code Pink sponsors “weekly reality tour”

    Knowing Mothers’ Day is around the corner, I went looking for the usual suspects to start acting up and found the most amazing and wonderful page on the Code Pink website. It seems they’re sponsoring “reality tours” of DC this summer. Now, if anyone is unqualified to give a tour of anything resembling reality, it’d be Code Pink.

    But that won’t stop them from having lessons in “Yoga for Activists” or delightful “Pancakes and Peace” breakfast (you’ll be able to decorate your pancakes with your favorite ChimpyBushMcHitler slogan). Who can resist the siren’s temptation of “Songfest – learn all our songs and how to create your own”? Wednesday morning is time for “Mindful Muffins – peace with every bite”.

    Can’t wait for this summer to start your weekly reality tour? Well, stop by the Code Pink store and get your official Code Pink Activist package which includes;

    – classic “CODEPINK Women for Peace” woman tee in your choice of black, pink, or fuchsia

    – sheer fuchsia scarf, handmade by a women’s collective in Pakistan

    – Women Say NO to War DVD, includes 2 documentaries, Mother’s Day & Iraqi Women Speak Out

    – collection of CODEPINK buttons & bumper stickers

    Medea Benjamin is in Syria this week meeting with Iraqi refugees and bringing them the power of Pink;

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    So I guess they’ve got nothing planned for Sunday. if anyone hears of anything, please let me know. They’re a little reticent about putting stuff on the net these days.

  • IVAW’s misinformation campaign continues

    There’s a website I go to sometimes called the IVAW OneStop that IVAW uses to keep track of everything that shows up on the web about them so they can swoop in on the website and squelch the negative comments. However it works both ways. Whenever they type something about themselves, we can see it, too.

    Take for example Adam Kokesh. How many times have we heard him say that he only wants to end the war because he supports the troops. Well, from his website, how’s this for support for the troops;

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    He’s pretty proud of it, since it was made by his roommate. He supports the troops by insinuating that the troops are a bunch of retards.

    Well, I found the cute little picture above on his website since there was a press release on the IVAW One Stop that he’d taken Winter Soldier on the road because the real Winter Soldier event was such a disappointment both to the participants and the media.

    “We are happy to host Sergeant Kokesh. His efforts to end the occupation and war have been tireless. He shows that the best way to support the troops, and the people of Iraq, is by the immediate and unequivocal end to the illegal U.S. invasion and war.” said Carolyn S. Scarr of the Ecumenical Peace Institute, organizer of the weekly vigils.

    Kokesh will also encourage students at East Bay high schools and the College of Marin not to enlist for military service. Thousands of service members are involuntarily having their tours of duty extended through the military’s stop loss program, keeping them in harms way and increasing the mental and emotional strain on each soldier. According to a study by the Rand Corporation, 1 in 5 U.S. soldiers who served in Iraq or Afghanistan – nearly 300,000 individuals – suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. And documents released in a San Francisco Federal class action lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs reveal that 18 veterans kill themselves everyday. For the sake of the troops, and the people of Iraq, the war must end now.

    He still calls himself “Segeant Kokesh” even though he was busted from the rank of sergeant years before he was discharged for smuggling an Iraqi pistol back from Iraq. His DD214 says he’s a private – that’s his rank for life, not sergeant.

    Oh, yeah and that little blurb about “He shows that the best way to support the troops, and the people of Iraq, is by the immediate and unequivocal end to the illegal U.S. invasion and war.” Well that and making fun of troops by calling them stupid and glue-eating retards.

    Across the country, IVAW took their roadshow to UMASS;

    Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) held an event Wednesday night to voice their opposition to United States involvement in Iraq.

    Since its inception in 2004, IVAW has made three demands: the immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces in Iraq, reparations for the human and structural damages Iraq has suffered and full benefits, like adequate health care (including mental health) and other supports for returning servicemen and women.

    The evening started off with film clips from “Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan,” an event held in Washington, D.C., last March. The footage served to set the tone as veterans discussed the ineffectiveness of U.S. forces in urban areas, racial issues, a disregard for the rules of engagement and a lack of leadership from the higher-ups in the chain of command. All of these problems would be further expounded upon by the IVAW panel from the Amherst chapter.

    Apparently, since the media decided their Winter Soldier theater was pedestrian, and since there were veterans in the room who could call bullshit on them, IVAW has decided to go around the Truth, and take their lies straight to the minds of mush – and maybe score some hairy-legged hippie chics in the process.

    But there’s more.

    I found a website called “We Move To Canada” ostensibly for and by war resisters in Canada. they spread propaganda like this;

    At this week’s meeting of the War Resisters Support Campaign, a new resister joined the circle. Also present was a resister who is back in Canada after serving time in a US military brig. He went back to the US to visit his family and was picked up on a traffic violation. A license check revealed his AWOL status, and it went from there.

    Both of these young men told us that the US military jails are overflowing with “UA”s, as they called them – servicepeople who went AWOL and were caught. Jail conditions are horrible, although our newest resister told us he didn’t care, as it was suicide to do anything else.

    By some reports from very credible sources, there are as many as 25,000 AWOL US soldiers out there. I can’t substantiate that, but even if that figure is slightly inflated, it’s clear that large numbers of US military personnel are resisting this terrible, useless war.

    Yeah, the jails are teaming with war resisters. Does anyone honestly think there are 25,000 mothers keeping their mouths shut about their sons and daughters being shut up in horrible conditions in prisons across the country? I mean please.

    Then there’s this little blurb on the Socialist Worker in a movie review of “Stop-Loss”, which the reviewer, IVAW member Martin Smith. claims isn’t anti-war enough (I’m shocked he’d think that);

    In a dramatic confrontation, King tells his lieutenant commander, “With all due respect, ***k the president.” It is a moment that brought standing ovations and cheers from active-duty service people at a theater outside Fort Carson, according to Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) members who had passed out copies of Sit-Rep, the IVAW newsletter, at the film’s premiere.

    Yeah, the IVAW members who were passing out anti-war propaganda at the theater said it happened, so it must’ve happened. I mean it was reported in that most reputable periodical the Socialist Worker by another IVAW member.

    That’s why they continue this behavior – they live in an echo chamber of sociopaths where the same rumors and the same sick jokes get passed around and get the seal of approval from the other sociopaths. But they still support the troops and they still claim to love this country. Their actions speak louder than their words.