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

Category: Antiwar crowd

  • Wikileaks in Baghdad trash dump

    There’s an article in The Nation written by Sarah Lazare and Ryan Harvey entitled “Wikileaks in Baghdad” that has really tested my strength to avoid punching my poor, innocent laptop. The article begins;

    One by one, soldiers just arriving in Baghdad were taken into a room and questioned by their commanding officers. “All questions led up to the big question,” explains former Army Spc. Josh Stieber. “If someone were to pull out a weapon in a marketplace full of unarmed civilians, would you open fire on that person, even if you knew you would hurt a lot of innocent people in the process?”

    It was a trick question. “Not only did you have to say yes, but you had to say yes without hesitating,” explains Stieber. “In refusing to go along with the crowd, it was not irregular for somebody to get beat up,” he adds. “They’ll take you in a room, close the door and knock you around if they didn’t like your answer,” says former Army Spc. Ray Corcoles, who deployed with Stieber.

    According to these former soldiers, this was a typical moment of training for Bravo Company 2-16 (2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment), the ground unit involved in the infamous “Collateral Murder” video, which captured global headlines when it was released in April by WikiLeaks….

    A few points that the least bit of research would have revealed about those first paragraphs; Beating a soldier won’t change his answer to that question. Just by slamming him around in room doesn’t make him react differently in the real situation. Soldiers aren’t dogs and have their own minds.

    Another point; Any “commanding officer” who took the least part in such ineffective conditioning would lose their jobs…and no such incident would go unreported. Give us the names of these “commanding officers” and watch how swiftly justice comes to them.

    A third point; In the video to which they refer, the soldiers of B 2/16 Infantry didn’t do anything out of line. It’s the actions of two helicopter crewmembers which led to the killing of those insurgents and journalists on the street corner. Those helicopter crew members aren’t on the roster of B 2/16, so they wouldn’t have had this supposed conditioning that Steiber describes. The soldiers of B 2/16 are the folks who showed up later and rushed the two children to medical treatment. So even if the above story was true, what could it possibly have to do with the events which unfolded in the video?

    We return to the article;

    Now three former soldiers from this unit have come forward to make the case that the incident is not a matter of a few bad-apple soldiers but rather just one example of US military protocol in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, where excessive acts of violence often stem from the chain of command.

    Except that the “excessive violence” came from the helicopter crew members, not members of B 2/16 – the unit from which those three former soldiers came. And there are about a hundred men in an infantry company – where are the other 97?

    The three go on to make vacuous charges against their leadership and peers without naming names, without providing dates and places. Lazare and Harvey were suckered – but I suspect it doesn’t bother either of them. Lazare writes with Dahr Jamail, the lead propagandist of the Left who completely disregards facts that get in his way and constructs mountains from molehills. Lazare also writes and works with Courage to Resist, so she’s pretty familiar with using hyperbole as facts.

  • Under the Hood rubs egos in Killeen

    Fort Hood Protest (32)
    So here’s the massive protest the gang from Under the Hood cafe staged at Fort Hood to protest the deployment of 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment’s deployment next month. I don’t know who sent me the pictures, they just fell into my inbox this afternoon.

    Here’s Under the Hood’s press release;

    Attending the rally will be Veterans of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, military family members, active-duty servicemembers and other local activists. Bobby Whittenberg, former Marine, Purple Heart recipient and an organizer of the rally said marchers are standing in solidarity with the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, and troops being deployed against their wills.

    “We need to send a strong message that these wars and occupations are wrong, and that officers sending Soldiers in need of medical care into combat is wrong, too,” said Whittenberg. “Unfortunately in the military, this is standard operating procedure.”

    This latest demonstration comes less than a month after a prior demonstration at the East Gate of Fort Hood opposing the wars. As the latest outrage unfolds in response to the 91,000 documents leaked by Wikileaks detailing numerous human rights violations in Afghanistan, activity in the local peace community is surging, with similar demonstrations planned for the near future.

    (more…)

  • Assange the wanker [BooRadley]

    Julian Assange seems to be one of those guys who thinks it’s all fun and games until the sites are set on HIM. He’s clearly afraid of the big, bad American government and facing accusations that he a co-conspiritor of espionage. The Telegraph quotes Assange calling the charge “serious.” Is he joking? The ACT of conspiring to commit espionage didn’t seem SERIOUS?
    This guy seems to have the same over inflated ego- devil-may-care– the-rules-don’t-apply-to-me attidute that you see in any low-level criminal– like the hacker, he is.

    I don’t believe for one minute this is a fundamental, idealistic issue with him. He’s a hacker. His gig is to expose or infiltrate information that someone else is trying to keep hidden. That’s what he gets off on. I say his position with Wikileaks is a hacker’s wet dream. You steal and expose people’s information, claim a philisophical reason to do it, and act like some kind of Robin Hood. When really, it’s all just video games to him. Dump tens of thousands of confidential docs–I WON!! But when the US government comes knocking at the door, Assange is ready to piss his pants.Additionally, Assange has said that “you can’t publish a paper on physics without the full experimental data and results; that should be the standard in journalism”.

    Notice is not the case in the Telegraph article when he is claiming to have been informed by White House insiders of talks to arrest him. Who are these “insiders”? Does the public have a right to know, NOW?

    Later he calls Kuwait a “second Guantanamo.” Where is the attribution for that.
    This guy’s just another low level criminal who fell face first into a pretty good gig.

  • Mullen: Assange/Manning have blood on their hands

    As Sporkmaster and Old Trooper Tanker have written in the last few days, it appears that the culprit for releasing those 91,000 documents related to the Afghanistan War is Bradley Manning. It’s not surprising really, since he said he did it.

    The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen told reporters yesterday that the leak may have put some soldiers and their Afghan allies at risk (Stars & Stripes link);

    “Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good of what he and his source are doing,” Mullen said. “But the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family.”

    Defense Secretary Robert Gates has asked FBI and Justice Department officials to help with the investigation into the release. He also said the incident would likely force changes in the way sensitive documents are handled in the combat zone, an area where he admitted restrictions have been lax in the past.

    Gates did not rule out criminal action against Assange, but said defense officials have not made any such moves so far.

    The Washington Times chose not to publish Wikileaks documents because of the potential harm to our troops. In today’s op/ed they write;

    The First Amendment does not protect publishing information likely to result in troops being killed or that directly hampers military operations. The government has an overriding interest in safeguarding such information, even to the point of justifying banning publication before the fact.

    Of course, since Manning is in custody, he won’t be so hard to find. In fact, the word is that he’s been moved from Kuwait to Quantico.

    There should be a worldwide manhunt for Assange with a shoot-to-wound order.

  • Another hippie scam

    Someone who would normally support Bradley Manning wrote to tell me that the folks at Courage to Resist are sponsoring the above campaign and they have no intention of sending the money to defend Bradley Manning. In fact, this someone tells me that Bradley Manning hasn’t even heard of Courage to Resist.

    Normally, I’d be happy to watch hippies being separated from their money with a scam…but Courage To Resist are the buffoons who support the clowns who abscond to Canada. I want to see deserters rotting in jail – and any money you send to save Bradley Manning will go towards feeding Kimberly Rivera’s fat face and her ever-growing brood of welfare recipients and housing Corey Glass who isn’t even wanted by the Army.

    It’s another money-raising scam, because, you know, Das “Cause” Uber Alles.

    Not a sermon, just a thought.

  • Adrienne Kinne, Blue Falcon

    Time reports that Spain’s National Court has decided to re-indict three American soldiers for killing a Spanish journalist in Baghdad’s Hotel Palestine during the last hours of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

    On April 8, 2003, one day before U.S. troops officially captured Baghdad, a U.S. tank fired a single incendiary shell on the hotel, killing Couso, a cameraman for Spain’s Telecinco television station, and Reuters journalist Taras Protsyuk. Since then, Couso’s colleagues and family have pursued a criminal investigation against the U.S. military. Their initial case, filed in May 2003, was eventually dismissed by Spain’s National Court, which cited a lack of jurisdiction. But when the higher Supreme Court reviewed the case in December 2006, it disagreed. The case was returned to the National Court, which in 2007 issued arrest warrants against Sgt. Thomas Gibson, the tank sergeant who fired the shell, Captain Philip Wolford, who ordered the attack, and commanding officer Colonel Philip deCamp.

    But on July 26, Spain’s Supreme Court again ruled that the case should continue. On Thursday morning, the National Court took up the investigation for the third time, again ordering the three men to appear in its courtroom or face extradition.

    One of the main witnesses against the three Americans is Adrienne Kinne, co-chair of the IVAW board and hardcore member of the International Socialist Organization. Here’s her profile which I snapped several months ago before she removed it;

    Yep, she’s another of those Iraq veterans who never left the US. But somehow shr thinks her testimony about events halfway around the world is relevent in relation to the Palestine Hotel incident. Like Kinne told aging hippie, Amy Goodman at Democracy Now!;

    …there were journalists staying at the Palestine Hotel and this hotel was listed as a potential target, I went to my officer in charge, and I told him that there are journalists staying at this hotel who think they’re safe, and yet we have this hotel listed as a potential target, and somehow the dots are not being connected here, and shouldn’t we make an effort to make sure that the right people know the situation?

    And unfortunately, my officer in charge, similarly to any time I raised concerns about things that we were collecting or intelligence that we were reporting, basically told me that it was not my job to analyze. It was my job to collect and pass on information and that someone somewhere higher up the chain knew what they were doing.

    Kinne claims that if her supervisor had listened to her, those Spanish journalists would have been saved. But, while everyone on Amy Goodman’s side of the discussion applauds Kinne for being a “whistleblower”, I think she’s a Blue Falcon because the Spanish National Court is ready to try three Americans for the death of two journalists in downtown Baghdad and she sides with the Spanish courts.

    SSG Shawn Gibson, the tanker who fired the shot into the hotel says he was receiving indirect fire at the same time he saw someone on the roof of the hotel with binoculars and he spent ten minutes getting permission to fire. Maybe if Adrienne Kinne had spent some time in Iraq, she’d understand why Gibson fired – but it’s much easier to be a Blue Falcon.

  • Moron

    Do you need proof that IVAW is chocked full of poseurs and fakers? No better example exists than Jeremy Stainthorp Berggren (WTF kind of name is Stainthorp anyway? What kind of pretentious set of parents would saddle their spawn with that moniker?) But, anyway, I wrote about the doofus back in March when he told us that you don’t have to deploy to suffer from PTSD because he got PTSD from his dreams while his unit was deployed to Iraq and he stayed in the States.

    I will not get too much into the guilt and shame that goes through a marine’s, or probably any servicemember’s, heart and head in a situation like this, but it is at a disturbing level to be stuck stateside while your friends, your peers, and unit are gone. Throughout my unit’s deployment I had a difficult time sleeping, had nightmares about what they were doing, but this made me feel more alienated so I never talked about it and just bid my time and got out as soon as my contract allowed me to.

    The Veterans Affairs Department defines PTSD like his;

    Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can occur after you have been through a traumatic event. A traumatic event is something horrible and scary that you see or that happens to you. During this type of event, you think that your life or others’ lives are in danger. You may feel afraid or feel that you have no control over what is happening.

    The DVA website goes on to give examples of what might cause PTSD;

    * Combat or military exposure
    * Child sexual or physical abuse
    * Terrorist attacks
    * Sexual or physical assault
    * Serious accidents, such as a car wreck.
    * Natural disasters, such as a fire, tornado, hurricane, flood, or earthquake.

    So you actually have to be present at an event in order to suffer from PTSD. Not like Matthis who claims he heard horrible stories, or Stained-drawers who had bad dreams.

    Well, I mention it today because Stained-drawers has what could be loosely described as a poem at the IVAW website about how tough his life is because of his PTSD (http://www.ivaw.org/membersspeak/please-try-something-different-ptsd). Now, I’m no medical expert but HEY, FUCKWAD, YOU DON’T HAVE PTSD! Nothing degrades the treatment of REAL PTSD victims like all of these half-witted pretenders.

    To me this new type of Stolen Valor is worse than wearing medals they didn’t earn, or calling themselves Iraq veterans when they haven’t deployed out of NY State. There ought to be a specialist at every DVA facility whose only job is to throat-punch these peawits. Hell, i’d do it on a volunteer basis.

  • Har-dee-har-har

    Like two-year-olds;

    I held my thoughts on Mike Kern for more than a year because someone told me he needs help. He doesn’t need help…he needs a playpen and a rattle. ANd this isn’t free speech…it’s grade school playground talk about pee-pee and wee-wee.

    Yeah, I’m not stalking anyone. Concerned people send me this stuff.