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

Category: Antiwar crowd

  • Army gives tour of Manning’s new digs

    In an attempt to preclude criticism of Bradley Manning’s new accommodations at Fort Leavenworth, the Army conducted a tour for the press (USA Today link);

    The Fort Leavenworth prison, which opened late last year, was built near the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks, the military’s maximum-security prison for inmates sentenced to at least five years confinement, including those sentenced to death.

    About 150 inmates are at the medium-security prison, Collins said, including others awaiting military trial. The prison is the northern edge of the fort, which is also home to the Army’s Command and General Staff College.

    Manning was transferred to Fort Leavenworth amid international criticism about the 23-year-old’s treatment during his detention in the Washington area. At Quantico, Manning was held in maximum security in a single-occupancy cell and was allowed to wear only a suicide-proof smock to bed each night.

    Yeah, it doesn’t really matter if Manning was being kept at a country club with a fully furnished luxury apartment complete with cabana boys. Hasn’t the Army seen the signs? They say “Free Bradley Manning” not “Keep Bradley Manning in luxury”. Trying to get ahead of the criticism is futile.

    Speaking of Bradley Manning, our buddy, Jim Hanson, talked with IVAW’s Adam Kokesh about Manning last night on Russia TV. Hanson comes in at about 8 minutes into this video;

    Jimbo showed amazing restraint – I think about the time the fat hippie called the US military “the biggest disgrace”, i would have jabbed a pencil in his forehead.

  • Say what McCord?

    Recently a short film was released for a film festival in New York called “Incident in New Baghdad.” A short film about “Collateral Murder” video. While I have huge doubts when the producer, James Spione says that this is not a anti-military film. But what gets my attention is a sudden change in tone from Ethan McCord according to a article by military.com. The same one that has been reported about here many time.

    After the video was released in April of 2010, McCord – by then out of the Army – wrote a public letter of apology to those injured or who lost family members in the attack. McCord told Military.com at the time that the fault lay more with loose rules of engagement than with the Soldiers.

    He also criticized the video because it was presented out of context and failed to show what was happening elsewhere on the ground that might explain why the Apache crew responded as it did.

    “I was upset when the … video came out. I felt they [Wikileaks] were attacking the wrong people,” he told Military.com. McCord was assigned to Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 16th Regiment. The Apaches belonged to the 227th Aviation Regiment.

    Really that is totally different from what you said here.

    Asked if the Collateral Damage video put soldiers in harms way, (as the Pentagon claimed), without hesitation, McCord said, “That video release did not put anyone in harm’s way.”

    McCord attended the VFP Convention to give the video context:

    “What that video shows is not special in any way because it shows a daily occurrence in Iraq.

    “We’re killing innocent people daily in Iraq.

    “Killing children daily.

    “Women daily

    You mean innocent people with RPGs?

    While the video released by Wikileaks left open the question of whether or not the only “weapon” present was a camera carried by a Reuters photographer, the film documents that an AK-47 and an RPG were found at the scene of the initial attack – although Spione is quick to point out that the Apache crew did spot actual weapons before they fired onto the street from the skies above.

    In an interview in the movie, McCord also recalls seeing an RPG near the bodies when he reached the scene.

    “I enlarged the part [of the video] where you can see the weapons,” Spione said. Still photos taken by Soldiers at the time also show the weapons, he said.

  • Where Did All the Anti-War Protestors Go?

    John Stossel asks the same question that we here at TAH have been asking since 2008 “Where Did All the Anti-War Protestors Go?“;

    …the war in Afghanistan ramped up after Obama was elected. American fatalities shot up in 2009 and 2010.

    The protesters have remained silent over Libya.

    And I’m struck by the hypocrisy of the supposedly “anti-war” politicians who voted against Iraq, like Nancy Pelosi. Since Obama was elected, she has voted to continue the war in Afghanistan … and supported the attack on Libya.

    After the anemic Code Pink/IVAW/ANSWER protest in March of 2008, we asked where the protesters have been. It seems that they weren’t really anti-war at all, but more anti-Bush. The fact that the Geezers For Sitting On Our Hands (VFP) are still trying to impeach Bush (and Nixon apparently) more than two years after he left office is proof.
    Vets for Peace Archives 008

  • “Good morning, sir” scares stickboy professor

    Laura sent us a link today that she found on her Facebook page this morning. For those of you who can’t read the link it says;

    WORDS FROM Edward J. Vasquez POST

    “Greetings, I have been asked to create this group so that folks could follow this debacle that occured at Texarkana College in Texarkana, TX. As many of you may have read, I was booted from my Federal Government Class because the Professor, John Stuart, felt intimidated & was in fear when I said, “Good Morning Sir”, Due to my military bearing and confidence. I am a medically retired Marine, a father, husband, believer in GOD and a Mason. I stand by my integrity and my Corps Values of Honor, Courage and Commitment. GOD Speed and Semper Fidelis.”

    I think it’s hilarious. I think back to some of my professors who were threatened by my particular perspective and I find it totally believable. It’s been repeated on some of the forums, but I see a discussion of it was pulled from Free Republic.

  • Brad Manning goes to Leavenworth

    Poor little Bradley Manning the Wikileaker is getting a transfer from the meanies at Quantico to the much more comfortable medium-security facilities at Fort Leavenworth;

    The Marines claim they took his clothes to prevent him from injuring himself. Military and Pentagon officials insist the action was punishment for what the Marines considered disrespect from Manning. Such tactics for disciplinary reasons are against military regulations.

    Once at Leavenworth, he’ll be placed in a new medium-security facility. Although locked in a cell at night, he’ll have some freedom of movement in an open day room, have contact and take meals with fellow prisoners, shower when he wants and have access to books and TV. He will also have three hours a day of recreation time.

    This will make visits with his civilian attorney, family and some friends more difficult, but it’s the nearest such facility for pre-trial confinement the Army has. Manning will have to return to Fort Belvoir in Virginia for any court appearances. Putting him back into Quantico is “out of the question,” according to Pentagon and military officials, so the Army may make arrangements with a civilian detention facility to hold him temporarily as needed.

    Apparently, the Army is trying to give the impression that they’re more compassionate than the marines and it seems they think the hippies and lawyers will like the Army when they treat Manning with more humanitarian methods of confinement. I’m sure that will happen.

    On the upside, the hippies won’t be able to make a manning protest a side trip when they plan protests in Washington, DC now. It will take some actual effort on their part to protest for Manning in Kansas.

    Thanks to ROS for the link.

  • MFSO’s ED Oskar Castro, racist tool

    TSO sent us these links to Military Families Speak Out’s new executive director, Oskar Castro. To demonstrate that he has a keen grasp of military strategy, he tells the braindead how counterinsurgencies are fought;

    They send in the elite troops — they send in the Navy Seals, the Marine Corps, the Green Berets, the Army Rangers. They send in these folk, who are overwhelmingly white men, not even women of course. They go in and they make the early mess.

    But who comes back to the front line to maintain what these folks have done, or to continue moving, and it’s overwhelmingly people of color, poor people, African American, poor white. Latinos are overwhelmingly represented in combat positions, even though they’re under-represented in the military. So almost 18 percent of them who are in the military are in combat positions. And there’s a lot to say about that culturally and economically; you get more pay if you’re in those more dangerous roles.

    So i guess there are no white men who aren’t in SpecOps, huh? And apparently SpecOps weeds out the brown people. And how exactly do they “make the early mess”?

    Castro goes on to explain why shouldn’t allow yourself to be recruited by the evil military recruiters;

    Between The Lines: You said 65 percent of those who sign up don’t get the benefits they thought they were entitled to, like $50,000 for college, because they don’t fulfill all the requirements necessary, and military recruiters never tell them about those things. But is it spelled out in the contract, and it’s just that recruiters verbally are less than honest?

    Oskar Castro: It’s in the small print. It’s part of military regulations that enable that. And in order to get even the full $50,000, they say “up to $50,000,” some recruiters say, “You’re going to get $50,000, I guarantee it.” They won’t put it in writing. But they’re not told that in order to do that they also have to qualify for the Army Navy College Fund and very few people will qualify for the Army Navy College Fund and have the right test scores in order to get the full $50,000, and leave the military under honorable conditions, and serve the full four years. So, yeah, it’s in the fine print; military recruiters don’t usually read the fine print. You’d be challenged even to get a military enlistment contract for your parents to read. Why would you want your parents to read that? Just sign, you know.

    Between The Lines: And what percentage don’t get honorable discharges and what percent don’t serve their full hitch? You said both these things prevent enlistees from getting their benefits.

    Oskar Castro: It’s about 20-25 percent, I believe, who get discharged under less than honorable conditions. And therefore, even though they’ve put $1,200 of their hard-earned money into the GI package deal, they don’t get that back, they don’t get anything they might have accumulated in terms of the matching of the funds, so if you’re booted out of the military under a bad conduct discharge, other than honorable, even a general discharge, you don’t get the money for college. You have to get an honorable discharge. Otherwise, you don’t get anything at all.

    Yes, you read that right. Oskar says that 20-25% of enlistees don’t finish their commitment to the military with honorable discharges. And 65% of total recruits don’t qualify for education benefits after they’ve fulfilled their enlistment commitments. Who is the lying sack of shit now? Is that how you combat what you claim is massive disinformation – by pulling bogus statistics out of your ass?

  • The bi-polar Left

    When they were all draft-age, the left opposed the draft, naturally. But now, like some of our resident trolls, the draft seems to be the answer of all of our problems – like beer. From the same folks who brought yesterday’s discussion of sexual assault in the military, Miller-McCune brings us the myopic view that we should restore and reconstitute the draft to prevent war;

    West Point’s Lance Betros adds: “The military is losing contact with the wider society. And those who make the decisions about military force really don’t have any skin in the fight. We’ve reached the point where you have to wonder how well policy makers understand the consequences of their actions when it comes to national deterrence.”

    When the Gates Commission signed off on its report, the 91st Congress had nearly 400 veterans, from World War II and Korea. The just completed 111th Congress had far fewer, 121. Only seven members of the 110th Congress had family serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

    The fear is not that the military would attempt to usurp the government. “The real danger,” Betros says, “is that Americans reflexively move towards a military solution before they will try all the other elements of national power. For now, the country relies very, very heavily on its military, without asking if there is an alternative. When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.”

    Is there any half-wit bozo who thinks that the commitment of military forces to Afghanistan or Iraq in the war against terror would have been avoided if there was a draft? Seriously. There was only one solution when thousands of innocent Americans were murdered ten years ago.

    If the author of the above thinks that there was an alternative response, I wish he’d remove his skull from deep inside his anus and tell us. He called the Vietnam-era military a “conscript Army” but 648,500 men were draftees of the 2.6 million who served in Vietnam – that’s less than 25%. And having a draft didn’t keep us out of Vietnam.

    These anti-war nimnils are just rying to figure out why there is such resistance to their movements and they think if they can get selective service ramped up again, they can be popular again.

    Thanks to Finrod.

  • Skull and Bones got Russert

    Veterans Today lunatic, Captain Eric May, the man with such mad skills that he detected a neutron bomb detonation in Baghdad from his living room in Texas has linked Skull and Bones to the death of NBC anchor Tim Russert. the teaser was on his latest post about his own Ghost troop team of fact manufacturers when one jumped ship when Captain May announced his support for Donald Trump. This badge was in that article;

    So one of his readers asked about it;

    kelli says:
    April 18, 2011 at 6:02 am

    On the homepage, there is reference to Tim Russert, who you were acquainted with? Were you suggesting that his death was suspicious? NBC replaced him with a puke, David Gregory. I can no longer stomach that show.

    To which the phony and disgraced captain replied;

    In 1995 – 1996 I was the editorial writer for the Houston NBC affiliate, KPRC-TV. Tim and I were both intellectuals, so when he came to town I was invited to be his dinner companion. He thought I was bright, and I respected him as a model to emulate.

    If you watch the video in which he grills both candidates about Skull and Bones, you’ll notice Kerry saying that he wishes he could manifest something. It was a threat, though Tim probably didn’t know it.

    Fast forward to the 2008 campaign, when both parties wanted to emphasize the bogus progress of the SURGE (in order to skirt the issue until after the election). Tim was a problem, since he was not going along with the BS. TPTB decided that it was a good time for payback, and for a warning to other independent media figures.

    On Friday the 13th in May, 2008, there were two freak railway incidents that shut down the DC Metro, making the governmen

    Get that? They both worked for NBC (like a thousand other stringers in small stations across the country), and Russert may have told May he was bright, so that makes them soul mates. And then Russert crossed John Kerry and Skull and Bones manipulated the Washington Metro system so that thousands of dregs would be late for work (a Metro traffic slow down has never in the history of the world made people late for work before that date :eyeroll:) so that emergency services wouldn’t be available for the poor unsuspecting Mr Russert who should have scheduled his malfunction for another day.

    All because Mister Russert wouldn’t tell the truth that the “surge” was indeed working. let that be a warning to the rest of you independent journalists. Sadly, CPT May’s explanation was cut off by faulty blogging stuff before he had the opportunity to further embarrass himself.