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

Category: Antiwar crowd

  • Albright; Iraq policy worst disaster in US foreign policy history

    The ugliest, and arguably the most worthless Secretary of State in history, Madeleine Albright, claims that Iraq may be the greatest US foreign policy failure in history;

    “I think that Iraq is going to go down in history as the greatest disaster in American foreign policy,” Albright said, with former President Jimmy Carter at her side in one of a series of “Conversations at the Carter Center.”

    “We have lost the element of goodness in American power, and we have lost our moral authority,” she said. “The job of the next president will be to restore the goodness of American power.”

    I guess she didn’t hear that Haiti is still going badly, the Somalis just now rid themselves, for however briefly, of the al Qaida influeces in their country after the Klintoons bailed on them nearly 13 years ago. How’s that Bosnia thing going, Maddy? Remember the one that you and the guys promised we’d be out of 11 years ago?

    And do you remember that Yassir Arafat was begging for a peace deal with Israel under President Bush 41, but by the end of your administration, he was strutting around rejecting the sweetheart deals you and your boss were offering?

    Since you had Jimmy Carter next to you, ask him how the hostage crisis went in Iran. Ask him about the 9,000 Soviet combat soldiers that were stationed in Cuba to prevent us from responding to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (as if Carter would have responded anyway). And I guess a reasonable person could draw a straight line from the policy failures of Carter and Clintoon to the troubles in Iraq and Afghanistan today, couldn’t they?

    Let’s talk about the “goodness” of American power. The truth is, Maddy, most Americans could give a tiny rat’s ass what the rest of the world thinks of us as long as we have food on the table, clothes on our backs and a roof over our heads. And we’re not worried that we might get blown to pieces on the way to the supermarket this morning. 

    Regardless of what you might think, the “goodness” of American power is in the eyes of the beholder. Countries who don’t see the goodness of America’s power today aren’t acting in the best interests of their own people, and they certainly don’t care a whit whether you, an American (I’m guessing you’re an American this week) are still breathing in the morning.

    Oh, and then, all pumped by Maddy, Jimmy Carter (my favorite pointer-outer of American failures) started yapping;

    Carter said all previous presidents have said the United States would go to war only if its security was endangered, but that President Bush made it clear that there is a new policy of pre-emptive war.

    Um, Jimmy, do you remember the Carter Doctrine? Do you remember that you pre-emptively stationed a couple of US warships in the Persian Gulf to protect the free flow of Gulf oil at market prices? Apparently not.

    This what is killing the Democrat Party. The people who claim to be the voice of the Democrat Party just act like they’re so damn smart – and there are enough syncophantic lunkheads out there who want to be thought of as smart, too. So they just nod and smile like a class full of college freshmen who just heard the first paragraph of The Odessey read to them in Greek.Then the lunkheads go forth and regurgitate this baseless, vile stuff everywhere across the internet on discussion boards – then they link to mierda like this as if it’s some sort of evidence of their towering intellect. And other lunkheads join the choir.

    Someone prove me wrong and tell me about one enduring foreign policy triumph of either Carter or Albright. Just one. Successfully forcing the Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1988 by boycotting the Moscow Olympics in 1980 doesn’t count, however.

  • “That’s fine and good, but this is about Iraq”

    The Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin and Michael Grunwald report that the nut…er…net-roots are eating their own DINOs;

    Progressive blogs — including two new ones, Ellen Tauscher Weekly and Dump Ellen Tauscher — were bashing her as a traitor to her party. A new liberal political action committee had just named her its “Worst Offender.” And in Tauscher’s East Bay district office that day in January, eight MoveOn.org activists were accusing her of helping President Bush send more troops to Iraq.

    Helping? Jennifer Barton, the lawmaker’s district director, played them a DVD of Tauscher blasting the increase as an awful idea in a floor speech eight days earlier.

    “The words are fine and good, but we are looking for leadership,” scoffed Susan Schaller, one of the activists.

    Leadership? Barton showed them the eight golden shovels Tauscher had received for bringing transportation projects to her suburban district, along with numerous awards she had won for her work protecting children, wetlands, affordable housing and abortion rights.

    “That’s fine and good,” Schaller repeated, “but this is about Iraq.”

    I guess we can’t expect the mindless drones of the Left to focus on more than one topic at a time. It just illustrates the fact that the Democrats think they can win the Presidential election in 2008 by focusing all of their energy on the war in Iraq. they think that their anti-war campaign is what won them the majority (despite the fact that the polls tell a different story – see Sister Toldya, Captain’s Quarters – despite what the Washington Post says).

    Their “10s of thousands” of protesters have given them the false bravado to start throwing their own under the bus. Despite what that intellectually vacant strategy did for Joe Lieberman.

    By the way, the Washington Post does their best to defend Ellen Tauscher by explaining that she used to support the war and she used to be against Pelosi, but, honest, she’s changed now.

  • Arkin’s Last Stand

    William Arkin, the cowardly lion in Vermont’s frozen interior has written for the last time (he says) on the subject of his blog piece last week in which he called our military “mercenaries”. He titles the latest piece “Demonization and Responsibility”, and I guess he’s not talking about his own demon behavior or taking responsibility for his ill-considered military bashing. 

    The many e-mails I’ve gotten privately from people serving in the military are, not surprisingly, the most respectful and reflective. Some correspondents are downright indignant, some are sarcastic, and most are hurt by the “mercenary” epithet and my commentary. But they are philosophical about their service and where we are in the war and the country today.

    The torrents of other mail — biting, fanatical, threatening — represent the worst of polarized and hate-filled America. I’m not complaining about being criticized or being made the latest punching bag for those who subsist off of high-volume conquest. Nor am I apologizing for addressing, however imperfectly, the questions I did last week, nor for being critical of the military.

    (Emphasis mine)

    We probably didn’t expect that you would, given your past “work” in the field of criticizing Republican Administrations and doing your best to obstruct any sort of functioning foreign policy.

    Note: On the advice of my editors, this is the last column I will post for awhile on this subject. My impulse would be to continue to fight back and answer the critics, but I see the wisdom in their observation that nothing new is being said here and the Internet frenzy is adding nothing to the debate or our understanding of our world. I also see that I cannot continue to write about humanity and difficult questions if indeed what I wish is to vanquish those who attack me.

    Your editors were wise in giving this advice, because you were getting your ass worn out worldwide. But you actually accomplished what you set out to do; you made it fashionable and acceptable to criticize the troops again. I’m sure that those who follow you will appreciate it. 

    I can see, in the military blogs and in the comments of those who have written about my posts last week, that those who refer to themselves as Vietnam veterans still yearn for the recognition and thanks that they believe they haven’t received. There is no question that Vietnam is still an open wound for them, and that they therefore only recognize the worth of fellow veterans, of those who have been through exactly the same experience.

    Yeah, the way you Leftists treated Viet Nam veterans was a crying-ass-shame, and I don’t imagine many will ever forgive. But I guess you feel slighted because you didn’t get your chance to criticize them then, so you’ll take your chance now. Take your chance to beat up on the generation of soldiers who served despite the criticism and abuse.

    A chickenshit, sideways glancing blow in another non-apology. When you’re ready to take responsibility and stop demonizing the troops, let us know.

    So Little Billy Arkin’s last stand on this subject is that we should all shut up and let the Vermont ski bum exercise his right to free speech.

  • Oh, give me strength

    Looks like the Left is so psyched about this last weekend’s protest, they’ve scheduled another for March 17th – starting at the Vietnam Memorialand marching on the Pentagon.

    I guess they figure that The Wall is their memorial, too. That’s where they’re wrong – it’s a memorial to their treason, it’s a memorial to the American troops that they killed with their incessant bleating.

    And I’m pretty sure that the Pentagon is going to be a little harder to march on than it was 40 years ago. It’s still a short walk over Memorial Bridge, but since 9/11, it’s a little harder to approach. See, the Pentagon understands the nature of the enemy a little better than ANSWER.

  • Veterans For Peace

    I don’t know about the rest of you, but just the name of this “Veterans For Peace” organization cheeses me off. It implies that the rest of us, who aren’t members, are veterans for war. Honestly, I don’t know any veterans or active duty soldiers who are “for war’, per se.

    We serve or served to preserve peace by being ready. There are more periods in our history when the defenders of peace and liberty trained for war than actually fought in wars – a tribute to their efforts actually.

    This Veterans For Peace was formed in 1985 according to it’s website. One question. Why? What was going on in 1985 that would have spawned such a group? And where were they during the Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti and earlier Iraq dust-ups? According to their website,  their history jumps straight from their founding in 1985 to their opposition of the Iraq War in 2003. What the Hell were doing in the interim?

    I’ve been to several of the anti-war marches since 9/11 and all I’ve seen of them is a table with membership brochures usually manned by a Code Pink member. The only picture I saw of them this weekend was this close in shot of three guys in shorthair cuts and uniforms from AP;

    I didn’t see them at the march, so they must’ve gotten there after I lost my stomach to listen to any more tripe. And as near as I can tell, there only three guys in the organization because those are the first members I’ve ever seen – aside from a table with brochures.

    I’d love to ask one of them what gives them the right to call the rest of us Veterans For War.

    In fact, I wrote this blog entry in hopes that while googling or “Technorati-ing” their organization name (when I do my logs at night, I always come across some self-centered journalist or activist who uses search engines to see who is saying what about them. And they always try to register on this site with a fake email address and get rejected), they’ll come across this post and tell me why I’m a Veteran For War. 

    And what does “Veterans For Peace” mean? Peace at any cost?

  • Hippies in DC

    As I promised, I went to DC’s anti-war protest today. Apparently I went at the same time as all of the protesters, because my subway train was full. And they were mostly union thugs from SEIU Local 1199 which, according to their website is from Massachusetts. Here’s a picture of my subway train. I took it with my cellphone so excuse the quality;

    Notice all the purple – it’s the same color as their website. The two guys standing up in the middle of the train were the wranglers who told them when to stand up, sit down, get on and get off the train.

    Another passenger took a flash foto and as soon as they discovered he wasn’t one of them, they surrounded him and wouldn’t let him take any more pictures of them – that’s why I used my cell phone for these pictures.

    Two lovebird hippies;

    What a great date – impress your best girl with your total lack of regard for her security.

    Well, I got off the train and ran into some of these rocket scientists;

    Of course, when your committment to the cause is so great, who can’t forgive you a little football game with the girls;

    Or picking up a hairy-legged cutie who thinks we’ve already started a war on Iran for some reason;

    This guy was telling us all how putting this protest together wasn’t free and that we should fork over some cash for the privilege of standing in the cold with them;

    And I guess it’s still considered a protest if you hold two signs while you’re yapping your cell phone with your pals;

    All-in-all, I was impressed with their numbers. For a fairly cold January day, I guess it was alot. Although I’ve seen more people come to the 2001 and 2005 Inauguration on colder days. I’ll believe any number they claim, but mostly because, apparently the unions bused in membership from out-of-state and the area college students weren’t busy. There was a steady stream of witless drones heading for the Mall as I left.

    AP reports “tens of thousands” – I’d agree, there were two “tens-of-thousands”; probably about 20,000 – but I’m no expert on how many people fit on one block of the Mall. Just giving a rough estimate. But certainly NOT the 300,000 that some moonbats are claiming. the residen tpopulation of DC is only 550,000 – I’m sure we would have noticed the presence of half-again as many in this small city.

    I’ve been to a lot of anti-war protests in DC all the way back to 1999 when Martin Sheen was protesting the sanctions against Hussein, but this is the first time I’ve not seen the usual Communist gangs under a hammer-and-sickle flag, or Communist Party recruitment tables, or even the usual Che Guevara T-shirts.

    In, fact, I even saw some protesters carrying big American flags. I’m not saying that those Communist-types weren’t there, and that this is real patriots protesting real injustice. I’m just saying that it’s reminicient of the sudden disappearance of Mexican flags this past summer at the Latin protests. I think its an attempt to disassociate the anti-war movement from the socialist movement.

    There were ANSWER signs there (whom we all know have communist links), but they were less visible than usual.

    I only stayed about an hour or so, but the Muslim speakers calling for peace got to me after awile. I could feel my anger rising, so I beat a retreat to the nearest subway line, where they were still coming in.

    I guess Free Republic was there somewhere, but I didn’t see them. The Capitol was completely blocked off and they weren’t allowing anyone in (wonder why).

    I’ve got some crude videos of the participants, too, if you’ve a mind. They’re on Photobucket and I put them here, here and here.

    Sweetness and Light has wire photos up and wonders about the press coverage for the Right to Life march earlier in the week as compared to this one.

    UPDATE: Geez, I almost forgot these Webb-heads. I had to search my photos, crop and blow up these boneheads to show you how quickly the Left changes it’s Flavor of the Month – from Barack to Hillary to Webb in just one week;

    Crotchety Old Bastard has more Webb-fawning.

  • That time of year again

    Parents have hustled their children off to college this month for their Spring semester, while the anti-war protesters groups have been recruiting participants for their rallies for the perpetuation of turmoil and Islamofacism. This Saturday, there’s an anti war rally planned here in the nation’s Capitol once again;

    United for Peace and Justice describes itself as a coalition of 1,400 local and national organizations. Among them are the National Organization for Women, United Church of Christ, the American Friends Service Committee, True Majority, Military Families Speak Out, Iraq Veterans Against the War, the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, CodePink, MoveOn.org, and September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows.

    Among the featured speakers will be Vietnam War-era protester Jane Fonda, according to the organizers. Others include actors Danny Glover, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, and Carlos Arredondo, who in 2004 set himself on fire after learning of the death in Iraq of his Marine Corps son, Alexander.

    Has anyone else noticed that these useless events are planned to occur during the time school is in session? You never see one during Summer vacation or Christmas holidays (I guess students are too busy to be bothered by their consciences while vacating their minds).

    I’ve been to a few of these just out of curiosity and I’ve noticed that most of the participants are away from the cameras and busy picking up members of the opposite sex rather than protesting. There’s always a thin line close to the cameras who raise enough ruckus for triple their number, but the large majority see these things as an opportunity to meet other college students.

    When the weather is cold, you can find most of the protesters huddled in the yuppie coffee shops that are scattered around the National Mall, the White House and the Capitol while in warmer weather, they’re stretched out on the grass in the numerous parks in the area.

    I’ll try to summon enough interest to get a few pictures Saturday and show you what I mean. maybe I’ll get to see some my favorite people;

    Among the featured speakers will be Vietnam War-era protester Jane Fonda, according to the organizers. Others include actors Danny Glover, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, and Carlos Arredondo, who in 2004 set himself on fire after learning of the death in Iraq of his Marine Corps son, Alexander.

    I’m all twittery.

  • More “US troops join war protests” stories [Updated]

    An article from the Hampton Roads Daily Press;

    Several dozen service members joined peace activists today to call for an end to the war in Iraq, part of a nationwide effort that links a growing group of active-duty protesters to the peace movement.

    An “appeal for redress” petition, signed by more than 1,000 active duty soldiers and sailors nationwide — many of whom served in Iraq — is to be delivered to Congress on Tuesday.

    On a day devoted to honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Norfolk-based Seaman Jonathan Hutto quoted the civil rights leader at a gathering of war protestors at the Unitarian Church of Norfolk.

    “Dissent is not disloyalty,” Hutto said, noting that King objected to the Vietnam War and insisted that protestors “were not fools or traitors.”

    Invoking the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. to defend their own cowardice, huh? I tend to think that Martin Luther King, Jr. would be more than pleased that the US has freed millions of Iraqis and Afghanis from their respective yokes of oppression, rather than defend the selfish desires of a few.

    Roughly 100 people attended the gathering to hear speeches and to rally support for veterans who are speaking out against the war.

    “Roughly 100” people? That’s hardly a surge of support in a town like Hampton Roads which is nearly half military and former military. If it was in support of the war, “roughly 100 people” wouldn’t even make the news.

    I checked the two complete names in the article against the publicly available records on Military.com’s Buddy Finder. Jonathan Hotto is indeed a member of the Navy, but the other fellow, Jabbar Magruder, doesn’t have a record there, although there is indeed a Jabbar Magruder in California. At the risk of being called “not terribly bright“, I have to assume that Magruder is another wannabe.

    “We served in combat and we’ve seen the futility of this war,” said Sgt. Jabbar Magruder of Los Angeles, a member of the National Guard who served 11 months in Tikrit, a town northwest of Baghdad. “The soldiers want to resist. The soldiers want to come home now. We need the citizens to back us.”

    Sorry, Jabbar, but 100 people or even 1000 people on a petition doesn’t justify bringing troops home from a legal war.

    Oh, and by the way, attending a political rally and representing yourself as a member of the military to lend credence to your cause is indeed a crime whether you’re in uniform or not. Please scroll down to page N-4 and N-5 at this link and read the prohibited activities sections like the one that mentions “no implied government position or involvement”.

    UPDATED: I bumped this back to the top because it turns out that my rudimentary research into Jonathan Hutto is juvenile in comparison with the research that the Mudville Gazette‘s Greyhawk has done here, here and here on the little communist and the rest of Petition for Redress crowd.

    I’ll just sit silently with my hands folded.