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

Category: Antiwar crowd

  • I agree. Let them stay.

    Those Canadians hippies are sticking their noses in our business again. They think that US deserters who have absconded to Canada should be allowed to remain there;

    On Thursday, Nov. 18, people from both sides of the border met at the Guild Hall to form the War Resisters Support Campaign of Niagara, Ontario. Joining concerned local residents were members from the Toronto-based War Resisters Support Campaign, including war resister Kimberly Rivera, as well as three members of the Buffalo Chapter of Veterans for Peace. We met in the Guild Hall in Port Colborne, Ontario as guests of Anglican Minister Rev. Rob Hurkmans, who, along with Fort Erie minister Rev. Mark Gladding, has been offering help to Iraq resister Jeremy Brockway and his family, now residents of Port Colborne.

    I agree, let them stay. They’ve been bad US citizens, let them live in Canada for the rest of their lives and do nothing for their new homes, too. Those Canadian hippies want to feel good about themselves and stick their collective finger in the eye of US imperialism, let them support these derelicts and their families. Especially deserters like Kimberly Rivera, the baby machine, Corey Glass who isn’t even wanted by the Army, Joshua Key, who makes up stories about the war, Bethany Smith, the lesbian who complains that the military WON’T boot her for DADT.

    You’re welcome to ’em, Canada. Why would we want to feed and clothe them for their year in prison. Who needs ’em?

  • Response to Tuft’s article

    Apparently, not everyone was taken by the article in Tuft’s Daily in which Matthis was interviewed. His father, Dr Chiroux, and a student took issue with the author’s inclusion of the interview with a Vietnam veteran. I’m also aware of another student who is writing an article for Tuft’s Daily largely drawn from TAH archives. But here’s the letters published in Tuft’s Daily today;
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  • “Veterans” to march against White House for Peace

    A group of anti-war veterans have signed on to march against the White House to demand peace on Thursday, December 16th, probably hoping to avoid counterprotesters who have jobs and can’t show up on a Thursday. They compare themselves to the Bonus Marchers of the last century who marched after World War One for their benefits;

    In the early thirties, WW1 vets descended on Washington, D.C., to demand their promised bonuses, it being the depths of the Depression. General Douglas MacArthur and his sidekick Dwight Eisenhower disregarded President Herbert Hoover’s order and burned their encampment down and drove the vets out of town at bayonet point.

    We are today’s bonus marchers, and we’ve coming to claim our bonus-PEACE.

    Well, here are some of the people who’ve signed on to the above statement and whom we’ve discussed over the past few years.

    Brian Becker, National Coordinator, ANSWER Coalition; as you can imagine, Brian isn’t a veteran, just a Maoist bomb thrower. He runs ANSWER along with his brother also not a veteran.

    Medea Benjamin, Co-Founder, CODEPINK for Peace; yeah, she’s not a veteran either – yet there she is listed with veterans.

    Elaine Brower, Anti-war Military Mom and World Can’t Wait; She’s not a veteran, but her son was deployed to the GWOT three times – voluntarily. She’s fond of calling soldiers “baby killers” and “murderers” but exempts her son from such caricaturization and throws her son’s service in the face of her detractors at every opportunity.

    Scott Camil, Veterans For Peace; Camil was known as Scott the Assassin during the Vietnam War days because it was his idea to assassinate politicians who didn’t oppose that war. He was also one of the Gainesville Eight who plotted to disrupt the 1972 Republican National Convention in Miami by attacking the police, disrupting utilities and firebombing stores. The plot was foiled by the FBI. He was also shot once while trying to sell drugs to the DEA.

    Matthis Chiroux, Iraq War Resister Veteran; What can I say about Matthis you don’t already know. He’s not a veteran of GWOT.

    Bill Perry, Vietnam Veterans Against the War; Bill Perry was one of the original VVAW members who testified at the first Winter Soldier hearings. He admitted to me last year that his testimony at those hearings was “bullshit” to please the hippie chicks and John Kerry.

    Mike Prysner, Co-Founder, March Forward; Mike ran for office in the Party for Socialism and Justice. He ran for the Board of IVAW even though he’d left the organization to form March Forward because IVAW wasn’t radical enough for him.

    Ward Reilly, Veterans For Peace; Ward is a big fake. he walks around in boonie caps and tiger stripe uniforms to give the impression that he’s a Vietnam veteran, but his entire tour in the military was spent in Germany during Vietnam. He wears a Ranger tab on his boonie cap to give the impression that he’s a Ranger even though he’s never been to the school and wouldn’tmake a pimple on a real Ranger’s ass.

    He once questioned me on how I could justify my CIB since I earned it in Desert Storm. He was wearing a Ranger tab at the time. Hypocite.

    Cindy Sheehan, Founder, Peace of the Action; Not a veteran, just an old hag in the final throes of her fame.

    David Swanson, author; Swanson is professional crybaby. He founded AfterDowningStreet which has morphed into an Arrest Bush and Cheney organization. Mostly he whines that the Left isn’t Left enough. He’s not a veteran.

    Debra Sweet, National Director, World Can’t Wait; Sweet is everywhere a lame protest erupts. Lately, she’s taken to following Matthis around NYC-area schools. She’s not a veteran.

    Col. Ann Wright, Veterans For Peace; she famously resigned from the Bush State Department to protest the invasion of Iraq. She’s a liar, when it suits “the cause” and she alternates between Code Pink and Vets For Peace. You can see her service record at the link.

    Doug Zachary, Veterans For Peace; Zachary was booted from the USMC before he could be deployed to Vietnam, but, like Reilly, he plays the part of a Vietnam veteran. Imagine how screwed up you have to be to kicked out of the Marines in 1968. Zachary loots every anti-war cause he can get his grubby paws near.

    There are more signatories, most of whom I don’t recognize by name. I only saw a few IVAW members on the list, but I’m sure they’ll be there.

  • Matthis at Tufts

    For some pointless reason, Tufts Daily, a student newspaper at Tufts University (which for some reason I thought was a conservative, traditional college), published an article by Alexa Sasanow entitled “Veteran Matthis Chiroux speaks out against the US military“. Notice it’s not wars he “speaks out against” anymore.

    You can read the whole article for yourself and you’ll recognize they newest Matthis line that it’s the military that’s the problem now, not the wars. Probably because he can’t speak to the war anymore, since it’s been proven that he’s never seen a war. But that doesn’t stop from making people believe he’s been to one without saying he has;

    Chiroux enlisted in the army soon after he graduated from high school, but not because he wanted to: He got into trouble with the police and was given the choice between being prosecuted as an adult in federal court or enlisting.

    “I always say, I’m living proof that we do not have an all?volunteer army,” he said.

    Yeah, he volunteered – he had a choice whether he should sell drugs at a grade school playground or not, and then he had a choice whether he wanted to take responsibility for selling drugs and go to jail, or volunteer to join the Army. A lot of kids his age (18 so how else would he have prosecuted if not as an adult?) don’t get the opportunity to choose.

    After his five years in the army, during which he served as an army strategic communicator and journalist, touring in Japan, Germany, Afghanistan and the Philippines, Chiroux returned to the United States in 2007. He got an apartment in Brooklyn with the one person he knew in New York, a fellow veteran. The two engaged mostly in reckless behavior after returning to civilian life, Chiroux said.

    “I was drinking excessively and being very physically impulsive,” he said. “One Sunday morning, I’d been up all night with a couple of women I was hanging out with — it was around 9 a.m. — and somehow we managed to get up on top of a skyscraper right next to Ground Zero. I was wasted and I remember standing on the edge of that building and looking down at the ground and seeing the wall stretch down from the tips of my toes to the sidewalk, 68 stories and the wind blowing. I went off like a rocket and it took me a while until I finally realized I may be having a good time, but there’s something wrong with me.”

    Such self?awareness is difficult for many veterans to manage, Chiroux said, particularly if they’re dealing with post?traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as a reported 319,000 veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are. Chiroux’s New York apartment?mate is one of them.

    Yeah, PTSD put him on the roof edge. Even though he’d never witnessed a traumatic event that would cause PTSD. That’s why earlier he mentioned that everyone in the military has PTSD, so you could some sympathy for the ledge-balanced clown. Previously, he’s said that his PTSD was from interviewing real soldiers and hearing their stories. I guess he’s refined his condition.

    He continues on blaming TAH for IVAW booting his scrawney ass;

    While Chiroux had served for a year on the board of Iraq Veterans Against the War, he has since parted ways with the organization after receiving a lot of backlash from military communities for last March burning an American flag in Lafayette Park at an anti?war rally.

    Actually, he left because he’d succeeded in alienating a large number of IVAW members with his behavior for more than two years. I mean if you alienate guys like TJ Buonomo and Geoff “Stolen Valor” Millard, you’ve really pissed a lot of people off.

    “They buried my friends under the flag and that’s why I burned it. That flag killed my friends; soldiers had that flag on their arm when torturing people at Abu Ghraib,” he continued. “The military, they get to give you a symbol, tell you what it means and send you off to die with it. They’re going to wrap your story in that and burn the truth beneath it — why wouldn’t I burn it?”

    I’m sure Matthis had friends buried with the flag. And if he did, he’d know that’s no way to honor their memory. But it all so much more about Matthis and his Ward Reilly image.

  • Rag Blog; a memorial to the fallen of the Global War on Terror is a waste of money.

    There were many reasons that I stopped reading the Rag Blog, this is one of them.

    GWOT LOVE

    By Marc Estrin / The Rag Blog / November 14, 2010

    BURLINGTON, Vermont — I hear on the news this Veterans Day that our thankfully exiting governor — cynically known as Governor Scissorhands for all his ribbon cutting — will be dedicating a new memorial to our Vermont dead in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    The “Vermont Global War on Terror Memorial,” planned and funded by the families of “Vermont’s 36 Fallen Global War on Terror Heroes” to the tune of $350,000, is aimed at “marking both the sacrifice of those who served and the heartbreak of the loved ones left behind.”

    A memorial to oneself?

    Yea I mean spending money on something that honors those who have giving everything when you cannot even be bothered to give a damn. But here are a few things from people that do.

    America paused to honor its veterans Thursday. And Vermonters gave a special tribute to its fallen heroes with the unveiling of a new memorial.

    From all across Vermont they came, flooding the entrance to the Randolph Veteran’s Cemetery. They came to honor the 40 Vermonters who have given their lives in the global war on terror.

    Paula Chapin came for her husband. Master Sgt. Chris Chapin was killed in Iraq in 2005.

    “It’s quite beautiful,” Paula Chapin said. “It’s a little overwhelming.”

    Gregory Murano came for his friend and fellow Wilmington Police Officer. Lt. Mark Dooley was also killed in Iraq in 2005.

    “It’s important that we take time to remember all those who have stood up for our country and fought for our country and for what we represent,” Murano said.

    But of course the fringe see it otherwise.

    It is hard to know where to begin reacting to all this. I cringe at the language — bathetic, maudlin, soupy, cloying, schmaltzy, large-P Patriotic — but the sentiments inscribed in this language are more problematical still.

    A guy stopped by at our peace vigil last night and said, “My nephew got back from Iraq and blew his brains out. He couldn’t deal with the stuff he had done — killing civilians and all that.”

    Great huh? I mean it going for broke on those stereotypes. I mean trying to label all Vets as crazy war criminals that are just a trigger pull from committing suicide. Not to mention trying desecrate the dedication of a memorial to the fallen on Veterans Day. Oh and the fact that the person saying this is namless, and impossible to track. Kinda like the story at McDonald’ that a mystery “Danny” that the Rag Blog was trying to push.

    If there was any doubt about this I leave you with this last quote.

    In any case, the language of the Vermont Global War On Terror Memorial is tired, empty, and ever less to any point. It perpetuates a sentimental, obscuring cloud-of-unknowing over the realities we currently face and must radically change.

    ADDED Yea it seems that the guy what was voted off of the Rag Blog island for his behavior has this little gem to add.

    richard jehn said…

    That is a tired (and false) argument. Sadly, the right wing doesn’t care about facts.

    The US is a hegemonic, invasive nation. If all we ever did was defend our own soil, rather than act as the world’s cop, what you say might have some truth to it.

    ADDEDx2 Speaking of not caring about the facts by Dennis Cunningham

    They are not defending our freedoms (such as they are). they are engaged in a gigantic war crime and crime against humanity, “the paramount international crime” under the Nuremburg Laws, and all the people they kill are murder victims. our country has no business putting armies and fighting wars all over the Earth; and you know it’s only for the sake of those who get rich from the way it’s done.

    Eighteen veterans a day commit suicide, why do you think? they cant forget what they did and saw being done to innocent people;     they know it’s all wrong, and their lives were ruined by it; better to end them.

    Our country is sliding down a moral chute into a sewer of barbarism, destitution and repression. Public indifference to torture and war crimes, and indulgence of the burgeoning police state, prepares the way. If you cant yet ‘throw your body on the gears, at least get off the fence…

  • Another Westboro protest thwarted

    The Westboro fags tried to protest in Lake Ridge, VA this morning, but they ran headlong into more than 200 counter-protesters (Inside NoVa.com link);

    The Westboro group — known for its anti-gay sentiments and picketing military funerals –planned to head over to the Coast Guard recruiting station by Potomac Mills Mall for another protest this morning. A counter-protest was planned there, too, spearheaded by the brother of a soldier killed in Iraq.

    That protest didn’t materialize, but many anti-Westboro picketers rallied along Smoketown Road near Prince William Parkway.

    Five protesters showed up for the protest at 7 AM, but I guess they figured they were out numbered and stayed away from the recruiting station. I wonder how they think it could worth it anymore. I guess they’re just waiting for that big legal pay-out they’ll get when someone loses control.

  • Westboro fags not welcome in Tulsa

    Apparently, folks are about fed up with the fags who call themselves the congregation of Westboro “Baptist” Church. Last week, one town took up all of the parking spaces near the funeral of one soldier forcing the fags to protest out of the view of the funeral. This weekend, folks in Tulsa took more drastic measures according to Tulsa World;

    To make matters worse, as their minivan slowly hobbled away on two flat tires, with a McAlester police car following behind, the protesters were unable to find anyone in town who would repair their vehicle, according to police.

    The minivan finally pulled over several blocks away in a shopping center parking lot, where AAA was called. A flatbed service truck arrived and loaded up the minivan. Assistant Police Chief Darrell Miller said the minivan was taken to Walmart for repairs.

    I don’t condone this kind of vandalism, but I can understand it.

  • That time again.

    The semi-annual gathering of protesters of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation closing off one of the main gates for a weekend. The SOA watch host these protests on regular dates. Also it seems that they get upset when people react to the protests that cause the gates to be closed. The God Bless Fort Benning Day is used as a counter protest to these guys showing up. It is interesting and not surprising to know that many of the SOA protesters try to get free food at the God Bless Fort Benning day event. My wife had to explain to a few of them that trying to close of both gates would be bad considering that many people live on base and need to get out to buy items not found on post.

    Over the seven years we’ve been doing the Friday nonviolence trainings, we’ve had to take into consideration a number of situations. The police have set up fences, increasingly restricting access to adjacent property. One year Fort Benning blasted “patriotic” music at us, attempting to drown out the speeches and music from our stage. “God Bless Fort Benning Day” has become a counter-event which has also grown over the past years. Fort Benning has also become a major base for soldiers going to and returning from Iraq, raising local people’s opposition to the presence of demonstrators.

    Or how about the punishments that they complain about when they try to enter the base they hey have done in the past.

    Trainings also take place to prepare people for roles such as Peacekeepers and Legal Observers. For those who engage in civil disobedience, sentences have been from 3 to 6 months. Therefore a strong support system has been created for those considering that risk ,to help them through the discernment process and during and after their time as prisoners.

    But of the mention about the concern about violence from the usual suspects.

    The 2nd Annual God Bless Fort Benning Rally got underway at the old fairgrounds Sunday, across from the Port Columbus National Civil War Naval Museum. The event features food and entertainment and is designed to counter the message of the SOA Watch protest at Fort Benning.

    Mayor Bob Poydacheff spoke to News Leader 9’s Jo Giles at the event and said he was pleased with the effort and the turn-out. He also indicated that event organizers did the right thing by relocating their rally away from the massive protest.

    Fears of violence or confrontations with “fringe groups” forced that relocation. Organizer Miriam Tidwell told News Leader 9 in a live interview that she didn’t want to risk any confrontation with the protestors that might result in injury to any of the people or children attending her event.

    There have been increased fears of possible violence surrounding the SOA protest this year, not because of the regular crowd of thousands of SOA Watch marchers but because of additional “fringe groups” attending this year’s event.

    But really the only people that really win are the people that rent parking spaces and sell food near the Victory Drive area.