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

Category: Antiwar crowd

  • Antiwar activist loses home

    Just A Grunt sends us a link to a story today about anti-war activist Patricia Roberts who lost her son Jamaal Addison in the Iraq War in the same incident Jessica Lynch was captured.

    Roberts helped pay for the condo’s $513 a month mortgage, but her income also dropped when she left her job as a clerk at the DeKalb Sheriff’s Department in May.

    She said she receives about $600 a month in Social Security benefits through her adopted son, which is not enough to cover the mortgage and other expenses.

    Roberts had suffered from lung cancer, which is in remission, she said.

    She interrupted Donald Rumsfeld in Atlanta once. She tried to set up a peace camp in Atlanta using Cindy Sheehan’s as a model in 2005. She has shared a stage with Sheehan and when Sheehan resigned from her anti-war game-playing, Roberts kept on.

    So where is the anti-war movement for Roberts now? All that talk about solidarity and moral authority – what’s it worth? Just like the countless troops that they put in front of their marches and then abandoned by the wayside when they’d outlived their usefulness, Roberts falls to the curb, too.

    You mean to tell me that the millions of hippies can’t scrape together a few hundred bucks every month to help Roberts and her grandson.

    All of that concern for her loss of her son has dissipated in the shadow of Obama.

    And they can find a way to prop up Obama’s aunt in this country, but the Obama Administration has nothing to help Roberts keep her home after all of those promises before the election?

  • The IVAW coffee house dilemma

    The poor IVAW folks who are trying to influence the “GI resistance movement” have hit a brickwall called “the reality of operating socialist endeavors in a capitalist environment” – you have to make money;

    My name is Seth Manzel. I am the Executive Director of COFFEE STRONG, a GI coffee house located outside of Fort Lewis. I am sure you are familiar with the coffee house movement of the 1960’s and 70’s, that helped to foster GI resistance against the Vietnam War. You may also be familiar with the modern manifestations of those coffee houses that attempt to promote resistance amongst today’s soldiers.

    COFFEE STRONG at Fort Lewis, Different Drummer near Fort Drum, Under the Hood at Fort Hood and Off Base in Norfolk, VA were all created with a common goal; to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by fostering GI resistance. While we all operate independent of each other, and we all have different approaches to what we do, we all provide a comfortable atmosphere for soldiers to speak out against these wars.

    A couple of years ago The Different Drummer closed down for lack of support. Right now, we are in jeopardy of loosing Under the Hood for the same reason. We are all fund intensive operations, but we all work in a field that can’t be done from anywhere else. GI resistance can only be effectively promoted at military bases. It is not something that can be done from Manhattan or LA as effectively as it can from the depressed neighborhoods that surround military bases.

    This is what you can do. You can become a sustaining donor and support one or more of these coffee houses (especially Under the Hood). If you don’t have money, you can repost this and encourage others to do the same. If you live around these bases, donate your time. We all need experienced grant writers.

    There is something very rewarding in seeing the political consciousness of soldiers develop. When they relate the deaths of their brother and sister soldiers, not with the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan but with the corporate greed that drives American politics, it is clear that our efforts are not wasted. We are all working every day to help these soldiers end the wars. These are the trenches that our movement can directly engaging the military from.

    Yeah, so trying to operate their cafes where they’re not welcomed is confusing for the hippies.

    Ya know what though? These were supposed to places from which they could help soldiers at Forts Hood and Drum. But since they turned them into meeting places for covens of socialists and anarchists, the money and support dried up. Wonder why? Might be because socialist and anarchists really don’t want to help anyone but them-damn-selves.

    Adios, Under The Hood. Better luck next time.

  • On those new Wikileaks documents

    Sporkmaster scooped me yesterday on the reporting of the new Wikileaks documents. But I think I have a few things to say about it. If you look on the reporting of the documents, anyone who has spent a minute in the military will recognize that it’s all overreaction to absolutely nothing. People die in war normally, don’t they? And that’s what all the reporting boils down to – war is against the good nature of men. Who didn’t know that? Raise your hands…one…two…Two!

    And you know what? We really don’t know what is in the documents because we’re just reading about what the hyper-sensitive media thinks about them. Have the rest of us had the time read through the 91,000 documents yet? Remember the last time we heard from Wikileaks, they said a Hummer was a tank, who knows what the hell they’ll try to get away with this time.

    And, *surprise!*, John Kerry believes the hype without looking at the documents in question;

    Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., though, suggested the release could lead to a change in policy. He said in a written statement that “however illegally” the documents were released, they raise “serious questions” about U.S. policy toward the region.

    “Those policies are at a critical stage and these documents may very well underscore the stakes and make the calibrations needed to get the policy right more urgent,” he said.

    I remind you that this douchebag would still be President if he’d been elected in 2004.

    So there’s really nothing we didn’t know, minus the hyperventilating media’s description of the contents of the leaked documents. They’ve been waiting for this since April, so I’m sure most of their articles were written long befre they got to glance at the documents.

  • Wikileaks leaks part 2.

    Since it worked out so well the last time, they decided to try it again.

    A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.

    But given how many things were ignored out of the 2007 video from Iraq, just think of all the possible discrepancies that could be present with 90,000 records? Some of the claims have been as such:

    • How a secret “black” unit of special forces hunts down Taliban leaders for “kill or capture” without trial.

    • How the US covered up evidence that the Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles.

    • How the coalition is increasingly using deadly Reaper drones to hunt and kill Taliban targets by remote control from a base in Nevada.

    • How the Taliban have caused growing carnage with a massive escalation of its roadside bombing campaign, which has killed more than 2,000 civilians to date.

    Yea except that if you look at each one there is not much there to see? We uses our troop to capture/kill any enemy leaders that we can. It is not the troops job to take that person to trial. Second the Taliban had Singer Missile launchers for awhile now paired with what weapons were left over during the fight with the Soviet Russia. Third we used them to provide air support and can stay in the air longer then any manned aircraft. Finally do you really think that the Taliban will reduce this if we were to leave?

    Oh this one is a keeper.

    2007 Polish troops mortared a village, killing a wedding party including a pregnant woman, in an apparent revenge attack.

    Apparent? Yea and that almost got three SEALs jail time, Apparent my ass,

    But don’t worry about double checking, Rethink Afghanistan is already running this and it is doing it’s paces around the net. Of course there is no one is even thinking about how this will effect those that are fighting in Afghanistan.

    ADDED Sporkmaster

    The White House has condemned the release stating what we already know.

    “The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organisations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk and threaten our national security,” he said in a statement.

  • Flag burner busted in Ohio

    Dr. Chiroux and TSO simultaneously sent me this article from Fox News about a 20-year-old in Ohio who was arrested for burning 19 US flags “out of boredom” on Memorial Day;

    Authorities say 20-year-old Samuel Sneller of Wooster used a lighter to set the first flag ablaze May 28 and burned 18 more in the early morning hours of Memorial Day. A local Rotary Club had placed about 1,000 flags in lawns around town.

    Detective Tony Lemmon says police used a search warrant to obtain copies of text messages that implicate Sneller in the case.

    So, I’ll pay for a video of Matthis yawning while he burns a flag. If you can get him to text you about it, so much the better.

  • Another reason to like Martin Luther King, Jr – Matthis doesn’t

    Remember when Matthis tried to convince all of us that by burning the flag we could liken him to the Reverend Doctor King?

    While I cannot say if within a year a bullet will lay my body to rest, I can imagine how lonely and heart-broken must have felt enduring the harsh criticism of people he loved for having taken what he saw as a righteous and timely stance.

    Well, now suddenly, he’s changed completely on the man.

    I think it’s funny that he complains that Eldridge Cleaver is now a Republican – Martin Luther King was also a Republican. But even though Cleaver is wrong now, as claimed by Matthis, somehow he’s correct when he says something with which Chiroux agrees. I guess we should ignore the fact that King actually effected change and go with something more radical that never works, radical fundamentalism as an engine for reform.

    Yeah, that’s the ticket, ignore the lessons of history and try to force failures to fit.

  • Prysner and Diliberto on Hillary

    Hillary Clinton has allocated a half-billion dollars for bribing the Pakistanis, and planning to do the same for the Taliban to switch sides – of course anyone who has any experience in Afghanistan knows that it’s only rent money because you can’t buy an Afghan’s loyalty.

    But our buddy, communist hero founder of ANSWER’s March Forward veteran group of mannequins Mike Prysner sees it as evidence that the US is losing in Afghanistan (Russia Today link);

    “This can be seen as a move of desperation on behalf of the United States,” said Prysner.

    The Taliban is winning, he argued. There is no need for the Taliban to negotiate with the US because they are winning the war and an offer to pay off the enemy is merely an admission the US cannot win militarily.

    Regarding Vice President Joe Biden’s remarks, which essentially said a drawdown to the war in 2011 could be very small, Prysner said the US was losing and they would not willingly withdraw in any manner that would resemble a defeat.

    “We can expect to see in another year more US casualties, more Afghan casualties and while the leaders in Washington and generals in the Pentagon still finding justifications to continue to fight there,” said Prysner.

    So says the E-4 radar operator who served in Iraq.

    Our own Jake Diliberto chimes in;

    “I think it’s all crazy talk,” said Diliberto. “Nobody has any clue how we are going to bring peace or stability to this whole thing if we don’t negotiate with the Taliban.”

    I guess Russia Times was just fishing for commentary they had already typed into the story why else would they talk to these two on statecraft. I’m no Hillary supporter (except in the Democrat primaries in 2012), but after the ass-kicking the Left took during the Iraq surge, I’d think there’s no one on the Left willing tomake wild-ass statements about the future of a military operation.

    Thanks to Ranger Off-Spring (ROS) for the link.

  • From the other end of the spectrum

    Bobby Whittenberg is doing his best to undermine the IVAW from his end of the political spectrum.

    Matthis expressed his support for Whittenberg and mentioned his desire to leave IVAW as well. Unfortunately, my ninja spy wasn’t fast enough to screen cap it – so you can believe me or not. I know it’s not likely Matthis will leave his latest abused girlfriend, the IVAW. He’s just butthurt because someone has been questioning his behavior – and he’s threatening to leave. The fact that he took his comment down shows all of the finger wagging is having an effect on him.

    I wonder if the IVAW will ban Whittenberg for life like they did to Casey Porter?

    Anyone who wants to greet Matthis, I guess he’ll be at Fort Hood soon;