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

Category: Antiwar crowd

  • Code Pink still stuck in Greece

    If you remember, the last time we heard from Code Pink on their flotilla to Gaza, the Greek coast Guard intercepted them because their boats didn’t have the proper authorization to leave the port. Apparently they’re still stuck there and they’ve threatened a fast in protest;

    Demand that U..S government pressure Greece to free their boat and captain, and allow boat to sail to Gaza

    Members of the U.S. Boat to Gaza have begun an open-ended fast calling on the U.S. government to defend our right to sail out of Greece. The fast has begun in front of the U.S. Embassy at 91 Vasilisis Sophias Avenue in Athens. Fasters delivered an urgent letter to the Embassy and plan to sleep overnight outside the Embassy gates.

    Passengers and U.S. boat organizers participating in the fast are: Medea Benjamin, Ken Mayers, Paki Wieland, Kathy Kelly, Ray McGovern, Helaine Meisler, Nic Abramson, and Carol Murry.

    And there’s no solidarity with the fasters, other members of the flotilla thought it was a little extreme, apparently;

    Nothing like trying to fast with a barbeque going on at the same time.

  • Ann Wright: Those Jooos tried to kill us

    You probably remember Ann Wright whom I’ve written about before. She’s a major drama queen and member of Code Pink, Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans For Peace. She also sat on the board of OpTruth, the precursor of Paul Rieckoff’s Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. Well today she’s in Greece awaiting her personal invasion of the Gaza Strip.

    Luckily for her, the Israelis warned Grecian authorities that the boats the hippies were about to sail were unsafe. Earlier today, Medea Benjamin said it was a trick to delay them. Now it turns out that the Israelis were right;

    “It was pure luck that the damage to the Irish boat was discovered,” said Ann Wright, a spokesman from “The Audacity of Hope”, an American activists’ boat also docked near Athens.

    “The damage to the propeller could have caused the ship to sink and those on board to drown. Quite simply it was act of terrorism.”

    Of course, the whole point of terrorism is to kill or injure people, ask those Palestinians you’re going to rescue, Ann. What would be the point of Israel’s sabotaging and then warning you about the damage? I’m no naval genius but, I’m still trying figure out how a propeller could sink the boat.

    [Israel] is offering to allow the flotilla to dock at the Israeli port of Ashdod and to escort the aid on board to Gaza by land.

    Damn sneaky Jooos, being all nice and everything letting the hippies have their way.

    The Turkish Mavi Marmara, which was due to be the flagship once again, pulled out at the last minute, under what appeared to be pressure from the government in Ankara.

    It must’ve been the Joos in Turkey thatpulled the boat out of the flotilla…oh, wait…

    “The delay has been orchestrated by the Israeli state and we urge the Greek government to exert itself as a sovereign country,” Mrs Wright, 64, a former colonel in the US army, said.

    “The Israeli state is doing everything within its capability to stop us from making this journey, from sabotage to tying us up in bureaucracy. Well it won’t work. We are determined.” She hinted that the flotilla might depart without the necessary paperwork.

    Delaying them by offering to escort them to port and distributing their cargo?

  • Voting present on the pullout

    Associated Press reports that the President gives Afghanistan commanders “leeway” on the pull out from Afghanistan;

    President Barack Obama is permitting his commanders to decide critical details, including the number of troops to depart first and whether any of those will be combat forces, administration and military officials said Sunday.

    Although this is probably the best case scenario for the pullout, given the circumstances, since the commanders should have control of which troops can leave first, it can also be viewed as Obama’s escape hatch for criticism if the war begins to go wrong – he can blame the commanders for making bad choices for the types and pace of the withdrawal.

    The Left will probably claim that the commanders did it on purpose to make Obama look bad just before the election.

    Meanwhile, The Hill reports that Nancy Pelosi reassures Democratic strategists that they won’t lose liberal voters over the pace of the withdrawal;

    “He has taken us on a course to end this war. He is finishing the war in Iraq. He is the president. He has a plan, and that’s something that we have not had before,” Pelosi added.

    Yeah, the Left has only been worried about an end to this war, not a victory in this war, so since Obama has promised that the surge troops will be out weeks before the election regardless of what the situation on the ground looks like, they should be pleased – and that’s all that matters.

  • What I heard last night

    So I decided to listen to the President last night. I usually don’t because I always know exactly what he’s going to say, but I figured “ten minutes…what could it hurt?” He said exactly what I figured he would say;

    Blah, blah, blah…Bush’s fault…blah, blah, blah…eye off the ball…blah, blah, blah, if you Taliban guys can hold off for three years, we’ll be outa there and it’s all yours…blah, blah, blah, [insert pretty words to make us feel good about ourselves for cutting and running] blah, blah, ninja robot zombies will rule the world.

    And then this morning, I switched on the TV and the O’Reilly Show had VoteVet’s Wesley Clark on who tried to revise history by saying out loud that we went to Afghanistan, not to defeat the Taliban but to capture or kill bin Laden. What? Was Clark even paying attention. The initial phase of the war was to support the Northern Alliance so they could topple the Taliban from power because they created the environment in which al Qaeda and bin Laden could safely operate and launch their attacks on the world. Of course, that’s Clark’s way of revising events to excuse the President’s decision to cut and run slowly.

    Clark is a f**king moron. Speaking of morons and VoteVets, I had a brief exchange yesterday with Brian McGough, formerly of VoteVets, currently of the Veterans Affairs Department, like the rest of those unemployable VoteVets losers. Apparently he’s on a hair trigger whenever my name is mentioned because of the review I wrote for his wife’s book. But he tried to tell me that our war in Afghanistan was an emotional response from the beginning. Really? We went to Afghanistan solely for revenge? I thought it was to cleanse that which Clinton had allowed to fester for five years.

    Yeah, we can be happy for the troops who are coming home and getting some down time, but don’t forget that the burden of the war will fall on the shoulders of others who remain in that shit hole. The war isn’t over, there are just fewer Americans slated to be engaged…until the next attack in this country.

  • The Hypocrisy of Rethink Afghanistan in regards to the Officer Corp.

    In the past two years Rethink Afghanistan has been actively seeming to go after any General that seeks to combat the Taliban and al qaeda in Afghanistan. They have called for the firing of General McChrystal for complaining about not getting the support that was requested.

    McChrystal should have been fired for any number of reasons: his disrespect for the civilian leadership of the U.S., his working of the media to limit President Obama’s political space to adopt strategies in Afghanistan that didn’t include major troop surges, for his role in the Pat Tillman cover-up, etc.

    Remember that part because they sure do not remember it. Enter a nameless Colonel that does the exact same thing, except that the Officer sent in a letter directly to the Media. But surely that such a act would have the same reaction from Rethink Afghanistan by such comments. Right?

    TIME Magazine’s Battleland blog features an email from an active duty colonel ripping the war wonks at D.C. insider think tanks for pushing more militarism as the answer in Afghanistan. For those that aren’t familiar: there’s a whole cottage industry of think tanks and non-profits pushing for more war, often funded by those with deep ties to the war industry.

    Yea I am sure that they are more then willing keep this mystery Officer nameless considering how the last Officer that was used to attempt to get another General fired turned out to be a bust. But that has not stopped them from going after General Petraeus.

    The once-seemingly untouchable General David Petraeus is seeing his brainchild roundly rejected in Afghanistan. Counterinsurgency, the doctrine pushed by Petraeus and his protege, General Stanley McChrystal, as the “new” strategy for Afghanistan, has suddenly become the target of fierce criticism within the administration and without. And it’s about time, too: thanks to this failed strategy, U.S. taxpayers are being charged $2 billion a week for a war that’s not making us safer.

    Yea and we are the ones that are being accused of yellow journalism.

  • Right on Cue

    As soon as I read Jonn’s post about the draw down I knew that Rethink Afghanistan would not pass on it.

    NOT GOOD ENOUGH: President to announce withdrawal of fewer than 10 percent of troops from Afghanistan this year. According to various news reports, President Obama plans to withdraw fewer than 10 percent of U.S. troops from Afghanistan this year, despite promises to make this drawdown “significant.”

    So I figured that I would hear something about concern about the troops or the families of those deployed. But what do they open up with?

    Under this plan, the U.S. would continue to charge taxpayers roughly $2 billion per week for this war for years. That’s unacceptable.

    So that is what it comes down to, money. The same theme that it has always been. It cost too much and that all our woes are the results of the conflicts abroad despite evidence suggesting otherwise. But lets move on.

    This war isn’t making us safer, and it’s not worth the human or economic costs.

    Even when they try to sound sympathetic those that are affected in Afghanistan or even Iraq it still comes back to money. The reason why I think that the first two statements are token is because it is the exact same phrase over and over like a planned script. Then they expect people to believe this is real concern since they are more then happy to speak for the fallen who have died since the SEAL mission. Really I mean do you know the views of each and everyone on that list? But hey why need to know that when using them in your articles. I know that if something happened to me and you used my name like that I would be pissed. But don’t worry because you mentioned the “Human Cost” totally means that you “care”.

    Facing a war-weary public, President Barack Obama is expected to call for a major withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan Wednesday night, with roughly 10,000 coming home to the U.S. in less than a year.

    Yea, were are so “War Wary” as a population that the we are shunning anything to do with War in our daily lives. Oh wait were not? Or those tough rationing and products restrictions, oh wait not that ether. Or it must be having to deal with being called up at any time to got to war. No, not that too. So exactly what is the reason that entire country outside the military community is affected? Really I mean how is the conflicts have drastically changed the daily lives of the general community of this country? I can wait.

    We need those troops and those dollars home, now.

    Like is said, all about the money.

    Oh Rethink Afghastan still thinks that those in Command who question or complain about the President should be fired. Unless that they agree with your own view point.

  • Flag burner opposes flag desecration legislation

    IVAW's Matthis Chiroux, Robyn Murray and MFSO's Elaine Brower burn the US flag "This is not my country!"

    Big surprise, huh? Robynn Murray, the IVAW member who stood on the stage with Elaine Brower and Matthis while Matthis set aflame an American flag last year, scolds the American Legion for supporting legislation currently winding it’s way through Congress that would make flag desecration a crime;

    Jimmy Foster, the American Legion’s National Commander wrote;

    The amendment itself would not ban flag burning; it will simply authorize Congress to pass a law which would prohibit the desecration of actual U.S. flags. Its entire text is “The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.”

    According to Foster, the legislatures of all 50 States have called upon Congress to pass this common-sense legislation to prevent the continued corruption of the use of the flag.

    I think it’s ironic that Murray is offended that “some politicians have reduced that flag to a cheap pin on their suits”, yet she doesn’t recognize that she and Brower and Matthis have reduced the flag to a cheap entry on their anti-war, anti-US credentials, such as they are.

    And she seems to be offended that “extremists” use the flag for their own political purposes, typical cognitive dissonance of the Left because she thinks that she is not an extremist using the flag for her own political purposes.

    And, oh, I guess this kinda disproves Army Sergeant’s contention that Murray only got caught up in the flag burning because she didn’t know what Matthis and Brower had planned.

    The ninja who sent the screenshot of Murray’s cheap post also sent this picture of Matthis doing his best imitation of Jay and/or Silent Bob;

    Added: For those of you who are wondering about Matthis’ tattoo, someone sent us this;

  • Who’s the RINO here?

    DSC_0108

    I quit watching that Judge Napolitano freak when he allowed Adam Kokesh on his show at least twice without mentioning even once that Kokesh was in IVAW. I turned against the Oathkeepers when they started making noises about supporting Kokesh’s election to Congress in New Mexico and when their “activist of the year”. Michael Maresco. was campaigning for Kokesh at the Oathkeepers’ table at CPAC last year. Now these so called “Liberty Candidates” are inviting Kokesh to speak at their 9-10 event in NYC to “vet” candidates so they can root out RINOs.

    Notice that Kokesh and Moresco are both listed as speakers.

    Here’s Liberty Candidates’ Mission Statement;

    Yeah, the Liberty Candidates are just a bunch of Ron Paul creeps in their constitutional disguises again.

    Thanks to JonP for the link.