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

Category: Antiwar crowd

  • Milwaukee disses Geezers for Sitting on Our Hands

    Every year, the Geezers for Sitting on Our Hands (in some circles known as Veterans For Peace) get mad because someone won’t let them march in a local parade on Veterans Day. This year it’s Milwaukee;

    Members of Veterans for Peace have again been barred from participation in Milwaukee’s Veterans Day Parade.

    Although the parade website says the event is “Honoring all Americans who have served,” it has refused to allow Veterans for Peace members – many of whom are combat veterans with Purple Hearts – from taking part in the observance on Saturday, Nov. 7.

    The parade committee said Veterans for Peace is “a politically motivated group,” and therefore not welcome to be in the parade.

    So much for “honoring all Americans who have served.”

    Yeah, I’m heartbroken. This is from the Milwaukee Veterans For Peace website (excuse the all caps – they’re a rowdy bunch, apparently);

    MILWAUKEE VFP MEMBERS PLEDGE TO RESTRAIN OUR GOVERNMENT FROM USING WAR AS A FOREIGN POLICY. THROUGH OUR COLLECTIVE EXPERIENCE WE SEEK TO BRING A PUBLIC AWARENESS OF THE REAL COSTS OF WAR. WITH JUSTICE AND HUMAN COMPASSION WE CAN LEARN TO LIVE IN A RESPONSIBLE AND NON-DESTRUCTIVE MANNER WITH OUR PLANET. OUR PURPOSE, GOALS AND WAY OF LIFE ARE DEDICATED TO ACHIEVING THIS.

    Now what that says to me is that they are necessarily a group that honors veterans, but rather a group of (dubious) veterans who want to use that status for political gain. Is that what Veterans Day is all about?

    According to reports, Chairman of the Milwaukee Veterans Day Committee, David Drent, answered VFP’s application for participation with this;

    “There is no doubt that your organization is a politically motivated group. One visit to the organization’s website makes your views perfectly clear.

    “We don’t make judgment on your purpose. End the war or escalate it carries the same weight with the board. A political statement is being made and there is no room in the parade for it.”

    “We thank you for your service in our Armed Forces, but our goal has always been to have a day of honor that is 100% politically free.”

    So VFP is outraged that other veterans groups are allowed to participate;

    Yet the Veterans of Foreign Wars is welcome to march in the parade, even though its commander, Thomas Tradewell of Sussex, WI, recently called on President Obama to “heed the assessment and advice of his military leaders” and send 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan, suggesting that as commander-in-chief Obama’s job is to do what the generals recommend.

    And politicians, some of whom are not even veterans, are invited to participate in the parade.

    Apparently the parade committee doesn’t consider pro-escalation positions or even politicians to be “political.” Veterans for Peace is in a class by itself.

    Yes, VFP is in a class by itself in this case. And that bonehead response proves it. The VFW commander doesn’t support the troops for political reasons – only VFP does that. The other VSOs that are participating in the parade support the troops using political means.

    VFP uses troops to support their politics. See the difference, Gomer?

    In addition to the official Veterans Day parade, a peace-focused event is being organized by Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War and Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Organizers say it will revive the traditional spirit of Veterans Day and the Armistice Day celebrations following World War I. The event will be held at 7 p.m. Nov. 11 in the City Hall Rotunda.

    Then what the hell are you bitching about?

  • Veterans lobbying Congress today

    While the dithererer-in-chief contemplates his inaction, veterans groups are stalking Congress in their offices this morning. Vets for Freedom are meeting as I type this to plan out their day in the halls of Congress in conjunction with Michelle Bachman’s troops.

    Meanwhile, VoteVets’ Executive Director focuses on the really important issues, according to Politico;

    In 2007, Veterans for Freedom supported the surge of U.S. forces in Iraq, and VoteVets.org opposed it, advocating a drawdown from Iraq instead. But for now, the organization is still debating its position on the war in Afghanistan, said VoteVets Chairman Jon Soltz, and it is concentrating its efforts on climate change.

    Don’t forget Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. While Obama fiddles over the war in Afghanistan, Jon Soltz prefers to focus his energies on social issues because whenever he shoots his big mouth off over actual military and veterans’ issues, somehow he always turns out to be wrong. It’s hard to believe that someone who has over three months experience in a combat motor pool could be wrong about military issues, but apparently it happens.

    How many things can you find wrong in this paragraph;

    The [VFF]’s founder, David Bellavia, who in 2008 ran unsuccessfully for Congress in New York, attacked Kerry and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy in 2005 for supporting statements that Iraqis wanted the United States to leave their country, claiming in an article on FrontPageMag.com that the comments were “a political attack on the troops, an attack that is aiding our enemy.” The publication is run by Holocaust denier David Horowitz.

    Bellavia was ONE of the founders of VFF, he didn’t unsuccessfully run for Congress (the party machine asked his to withdraw in favor of a candidate who could fund his own campaign) and I have no idea where the article’s author, Jen deMascio, got the idea that David Horowitz is a Holocaust denier – but I’ve got an email into her to get her source on that specious charge.

    Of course, deMascio, has found a group she likes out of the three she discusses – the new one that I introduced to you the other day “Veterans for Rethinking Afghanistan” and our new friend Jake Giliberto, who just happened to email me after the last piece I did on his. But DeMascio writes;

    “Listen, you’ve got to stop falling in love with the military solution; it’s not feasible,” said Jake Diliberto, one of the group’s founders. “This is a war of poverty and cultural misunderstanding, and it’s an Afghan problem that we don’t have the means or the wisdom to figure out.”

    So what’s Jake’s solution? Just let Afghanistan go back to being a stone age shit hole like we did in 1988. That worked out well for us the first time, didn’t it? Well, the “Rethinking Afghanistan” was started by a filmmaker and we know how much more intelligent filmmakers think they are than the rest of us – so let’s ask Hollywood to formulate our foreign and defense policy instead of generals.

    I like Jake, he’s real friendly and fairly bright, but he’s being used by the peace movement, just like all of those IVAW clowns. The peace movement doesn’t care about them or their opinions beyond the fact that they can wear T-shirts proclaiming the proper message.

  • Age doesn’t always bring wisdom

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    Nucsnipe sent us this article about some geezers who watched too many Mission Impossible TV shows in their long-past youth;

    Five protesters were arrested Monday after cutting through a security fence to enter Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor and through a double fence to reach Strategic Weapons Facility – Pacific, which stores and handles the nuclear missiles loaded on Trident subs at the base.

    Arrested on suspicion of trespass and destruction of government property were Bill Bischel, 81, a Catholic priest from Tacoma; Anne Montgomery, 83, a nun from New York; Susan Crane, 65, of Baltimore; Lynne Greenwald, 60, of Bremerton; and Steve Kelly, 60, of Oakland, Calif.

    The Navy reports;

    …the anti-war group entered the base at 6:30 a.m. An alarm went off when they cut the inside fence, and they were “apprehended in accordance with standing security procedures for incidents of this nature,”

    I wonder if they think they’re lucky they weren’t ventilated on the spot. Probably they never gave it a thought because that’s why the little chickenshits did it in the first place – they know that the military will protect them from their own stupidity. I’d like to see them try it Iran or Venezuela.

  • Huffpo nimroddery

    Some dolt who goes by the name of Ryan Grim did exactly no research or background on this article at Huffington Post about some IVAW schlubs schlepping through the halls of Congress spreading their halfwit opinions.These two IVAW members are new to me and don’t have profiles at IVAW; Brock McIntosh and Jake Diliberto. Neither has a DoD record at Military.com, so they’re probably new civilians. But this Grim guy is a dolt. He writes about Vets for Freedom;

    A new pro-war group calling itself Vets For Freedom plans to begin lobbying Congress Thursday, pushing for an escalation.

    Yeah, IVAW was formed 18 months before VFF, so VFF is a “new…group”. More than likely, Grim didn’t have the gumption or wherewithal to do a bit of googling and find out that VFF isn’t all that new. Just new to his ignorant ass. According to his bio at HuffPo Grim is “the senior congressional correspondent for the Huffington Post”. So much for any real news coming out of HuffPo’s congressional staff.

    So, master researcher Grim begins by taking shots at VFF’s Thomas Cotton with help from Diliberto;

    Diliberto went mano a mano on CNN with VFF rep Thomas Cotton. Cotton had a simple appeal to authority: He’s for whatever General Stanley McChrystal wants — and that’s more troops.

    Before they went on, says Diliberto, he could hear his opponent prepping himself. “He kept repeating, ‘General Stanley McChrystal. General Stanley McChrystal. General Stanley McChrystal.’ ”

    Backers of escalating the eight-year-old war present a variety of complex arguments, but at their heart is Cotton’s mantra: “General Stanley McChrystal. General Stanley McChrystal. General Stanley McChrystal.”

    Yeah, here’s a transcript of the interview. Cotton mentions McChrystal twice – the same number of times the interviewer, John Roberts, mentions McChrystal’s name. But that doesn’t make the pro-victory guys sound as bad as Grim likes them to sound.

    Devon Read explains his child-like understanding of the conflict in Afghanistan;

    The kind of training Afghans don’t need, the soldiers say, is military. We’ve been training young men to fight in Afghanistan for decades, they note, and look where it’s gotten us. An overwhelming number of soldiers trained by the U.S. go on to fight for the Taliban instead, which was itself originally trained by the U.S., notes Read. “So if we train 400,000 soldiers and 200,000 go fight for the Taliban, what have we gained?”

    So, their solution? Just let Afghanistan go back to being an Islamist shit hole like we did in 1988.

    I watched Diliberto on Larry King last night to get his side straight from him since I can’t trust HuffPo. I’m beginning to wonder if Diliberto is even in IVAW. Larry King says he’s a member of “Veterans for Rethinking Afghanistan” which I suspect sprang from the intellectually vacuous, Leftist navel-gazing YouTube video entitled “Rethinking Afghanistan“. So apparently, Grim didn’t even get Diliberto’s affiliation right.

    But anyway, Diliberto’s plan for Afghanistan is to send cops out to arrest and imprison al Qaeda, I guess because no one is doing that already, huh? He claims more troops won’t solve our problem. He went up against that new VFF group’s ED, Pete Hegseth and Pete wore Diliberto’s ass out. I was hoping that Larry King would have video this morning, but alas, none.

    See I don’t get this; when Shinseki said we needed more troops in Iraq, the Left said we needed to listen to Shinseki. When Petreus said we needed more troops in Iraq, the Left said it was fruitless. Now McChrystal says we need more troops in Afghanistan, no one wants to listen to the generals.

    The thing about this Larry King interview is that no one mentioned IVAW, although this DIliberto has some kind of tie to IVAW, nor did they mention that Wes Clark (who was also on the show) is on the board of VoteVets. Funny, huh?

  • Who wants to be the last to die for Kerry’s lies

    The Washington Post reports that John Kerry is satisfied to maintain the status quo in Afghanistan. Kerry is perfectly happy to let the Taliban and al Qaeda run around the country raising Hell and lowering Afghans’ trust in the US commitment to their security;

    “We do not yet have the critical guarantees of governance and development capacity” in Afghanistan, said Kerry (D-Mass.), who just returned from a trip there. “I also have serious concerns about the ability to produce effective Afghan forces to partner with, so we can ensure that when our troops make heroic sacrifices, the benefits to the Afghans are clear and sustainable.”

    So until we get these nebulous “critical guarentees of governance and development capacity”, the folks we have deployed there can just suck eggs.

    Kerry said he came away from his conversations with McChrystal in Afghanistan convinced “that he understands the necessity of conducting a smart counterinsurgency in a limited geographic area. But I believe his current plan reaches too far, too fast.”

    Of course, Kerry is drawing on his vast experience as a Navy lieutenant with three months in Vietnam who personally chased down an unarmed teenage Vietnamese boy and shot him in the back, much like he’s shooting our troops in the back now.

    But Kerry claims that more bureaucrats in Afghanistan are more important than more troops;

    The senator also said that the U.S. civilian presence in Afghanistan is “disgraceful compared to what it ought to be.” He said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton understood the urgency of dispatching civilians to help improve governance and provide services. “They’re trying to find people as fast as they can,” he said.

    Yeah, who is going to secure the area so those civilians can ply their trade? How many US civilian employees are going to die for John Kerry’s latest lies?

    Kerry also took time out to take some shots at the Bush Administration, according to the Washington Times;

    He said former Vice President Dick Cheney has no grounds on which to criticize the president after eight years of failed policy in Afghanistan.

    “This from a man who in 2002 told Americans, ‘The Taliban regime is out of business,’” said Mr. Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. “This is one time I wish he was right.”

    Another botched joke? The Taliban is out of business – they don’t run a country anymore. Of course, John Kerry can rectify that like we did in 1988.

    It’s almost funny (if it wasn’t so tragic) that the Democrats claim that we can’t afford to maintain the status quo with our health care system, but it’s perfectly OK to do so in Afghanistan. It’s no wonder the troops think we don’t give a shit.

  • Branum protests Fort Lewis

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    One of the IVAW refugees sent me this video last night of legal leach James M. Branum, the lawyer responsible for the imprisonment of several high profile deserters and general malcontents.

    The other day, TSO wrote about Branum’s complaints and followed up with a call to the Fort Lewis Public Affairs Office. He found many of Branum’s complaints were baseless.

    In the video, Branum complains that Bishop is being denied his “Sixth Amendment” rights to counsel. Here’s the Sixth Amendment;

    In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

    Yeah, if Branum is finding out all of this stuff that’s happening to Travis inside the Fort Lewis facility, they’re talking. Guards are listening to conversations Travis is having because whoever he’s talking to isn’t considered his counsel.

    Besides, Travis’ counsel is what got him tossed in prison – along with Branum’s silly-assed defense that the Army should provide military members with “conscientious objector training”. In fact, every service member that Branum has represented got the maximum sentence allowable because of Branum’s stupid-ass strategies.

    Travis got a year in prison because he went AWOL the day his unit deployed to Iraq and came back a week later. Whether the former sergeant understood how to apply for CO status or not, he knew going AWOL was illegal – 12 months in prison illegal.

    Also in the video is chucklehead Gerry Condon. Condon is a member of VFP and Project Safe Haven which funnels money to people who’ve absconded from their military duties to Canada, encourages soldiers to go AWOL and is trying to convince the city of Bellingham, Washington to be a safe haven for the knuckleheads Canada boots.

    Condon says that Leo Church “considers himself a conscientious objector”. Yeah, now he does when it makes him a sympathetic character for the Left. Church went AWOL three times, one time for a year, and now complains that the Army didn’t care about him and his family. Maybe if he’d quit going AWOL he could have got some help.

    Condon also says Church has a wife and three kids – Church wasn’t married to the mother of his children – in fact she abandoned them and instead of asking for help from the Army, Church found it much easier to just go AWOL and find another job somewhere else.

    What’s an alligator got to do with anything?

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    It just reminds me that Branum gobbles up money from his clients and, in turn, gives them shit. The word on the street is that some of his clients gave him cash and never heard from him again – he left them hanging. Yeah, he’s as scummy as he looks.

  • What James Branum won’t tell you

    Yesterday, TSO wrote about Travis Bishop’s and Leo Church’s lawyer, James Branum and his claims that the Fort Lewis Regional Detention Facility is Guantanamo-on-Sequalitchew Lake. Like we do here at This Ain’t Hell, TSO followed up with an email to the Fort Lewis PAO to get the answers that Branum won’t provide to the media;

    Q1. James Branum, the civilian lawyer representing Sgt. Travis Bishop and Spc. Leo Church, said the two were put in a 10-day(ish) medical hold when they first arrived. During this hold, they were not allowed to make any phone calls, including to lawyers. Is the medical hold a standard procedure? And are inmates allowed to use the telephone to make calls during this hold?

    Answer. When new prisoners are assigned to the Northwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility (NWJRCF) they are segregated until they are medically cleared to join the general population, which can take 3-10 days. This is for the prisoners’ safety as well as the staff. The prisoners can still make phone calls during the segregation period, and they are visited daily by staff.

    Q2. Branum said the two couldn’t make calls to their lawyer without someone listening because a secure attorney/client room had yet to be completed. Can you confirm if an attorney room (with unmonitored phone lines) has yet to be completed?

    Answer. The NWJRCF was relocating some offices and facilities, and a private room was not readily available for private calls; however, at the time Mr. Branum was not the attorney-of record. Had he been, the prisoner(s) would have been afforded the privileges of a conversation with their attorney and not having it recorded; however, a guard is required to be present during the conversation to ensure additional phone calls are not made. If he was the attorney of record, the RCF would have made the provisions for them to have private phone calls in accordance with their rights.

    Q3. Branum said his clients made calls from elsewhere in the building, and that guards stood close by a violation of attorney/client privilege. If someone is required to make a phone call from elsewhere, are guards still required to remain nearby?

    Answer. The prisoner(s) were allowed to take calls in one of the counselor’s offices, but could not be permitted to remain there unescorted. Since then, a private area has been reestablished for private calls between prisoners and attorneys [of record]. In other words, if it’s a conversation with an attorney, the prisoners will be put in a private room and it’s confidential, as long as it is with the attorney of record.

    Otherwise, phone calls are made at a designated time on the prisoner phone system, and these calls are recorded. If a prisoner needs for some reason to make a call on a phone other than the prisoner phone system, then a guard will remain nearby.

    Q4. Branum said female guards watched his (male) clients use the restroom and shower. Are there rules prohibiting this?

    Answer. In accordance with Army Regulation 190-47, female correctional specialists are allowed to supervise male prisoners. When female correctional specialists walk through the facility, it is possible that they could see a male prisoner in the restroom or shower, but that is not a violation.

    Q5. Branum said his clients were strip-searched in a room that had cameras (though he was unsure if they were running at the time). Is there a standard operating procedure to turn off the cameras during this time?

    Answer. The NWJRCF is continuously monitored by cameras for security and safety reasons. It was recently brought to the staff’s attention that prisoners were being strip searched in the range of cameras. Since all cameras are on sensors that record motion, it is possible that this event may have been recorded. A review of facility procedures was conducted, and strip searches are now being conducted in areas without security cameras. Strip searches are conducted for security reasons and by no means were intended to humiliate the prisoner(s). The allegation that female guards watch strip searches is not true. Females guards are strictly prohibited from conducting frisk searches and strip searches of male prisoners. There are always adequate male personnel on duty to conduct searches.

    Q6. Are the guards MPs, contractors or GS employees?

    Answer. Military Police Correctional Specialists.

    Q7. The prisoners’ local counsel, Legrand Jones, says he was turned away last month at the gate even though he’s their legal representation. He says he’s on some list of folks not let past the gate.

    Answer. Mr. Legrand Jones, a local representative for Mr. Branum, arrived at the Fort Lewis Visitors Center unannounced, without prior notification and without an escort arranged, and attempted to gain access to Fort Lewis but was denied access by the installation security forces. At the time, he was not listed as Bishop or Church’s attorney of record. The security forces contacted the NWJRCF, and out of respect for Travis Bishop’s right to counsel a van was dispatched to make contact with Mr. Jones, but he had departed.

    Legrand Jones is designated as having limited access to Fort Lewis. Because of his prior encounters with law enforcement, he is regarded as a potential threat to good order and discipline on the installation. Nonetheless, as Travis Bishop’s lawyer, he has been afforded access to his client.

    Arrangements have been made to provide him with an escort to meet with Bishop, and he has visited his clients in person and telephonically.

    In closing, we can’t lose sight of the fact that these are prisoners who are serving a sentence. They may be afforded privileges of phone calls, access to mail, visitors, etc., but there is no absolute privacy except during face-to-face prisoner-attorney visits. All of the information in my responses is in accordance with Army policy and is applicable to all prisoners in the Northwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility. The NWJRCF is an accredited facility by the American Corrections Association, and the procedures for running the NWJRCF are comparable to civilian correctional facilities and prisons.

    This morning one of our IVAW refugees sent this YouTube video that Branum took of his laptop while it played a Radio Havana broadcast that expresses sympathy for Travis Bishop from the government of Cuba.

    That’s a real feather in your cap, James. Hugs from Fidel. Next thing you know, you’ll be getting Valentine’s Day cards from Kim Jong Il…ya twit.

  • Military Rape Awareness Week

    The Veterans for Peace have declared this “Military Rape Awareness Week” and announce that they’re so enlightened, that they actually oppose rape in the military.

    Actually, I oppose rape, too. But can anyone doubt that Veterans For Peace oppose rape because they can use it to smear the troops? In, fact, if you heard that this crowd of anti-troops organizations were protesting at a military recruiting station in Times Square, would you really think they were protesting rape?

    In New York City on Tuesday, October 13th members of VFP, Iraq Veterans against the War, Granny Peace Brigade, Codepink: Women for Peace, World Can’t Wait, Artists Response Team, We will not be Silent, and V-Day will gather at the Armed Forces Recruiting Station in Times Square to warn potential women recruits about the alarming rates of sexual assault and rape of women in the military.

    Of course, they really had to dig to find a “scientific” study (link is to a .pdf file) that would back their charge that 1-in-3 women in the military are raped. If you look at the sampling for the “study”, the “researchers” sent out questionnaires to more than 2100 women and less than a third replied. I guess it never entered their pointy heads that women who had suffered rape while in the military would be more likely to reply, huh?

    I don’t doubt that rape is a problem in the military – even if there was only one rape in twenty years, it’s a problem. But 1-in-3 women? Of course, the study further prostitutes itself by pointing out that 75% of the victims never report those rapes. Oh, and did I mention that the report was done in 1996 and the women were in the military in the previous twenty years?

    But no corrupted study will prevent the forces of peace and enlightenment from standing their unwashed asses in front of a recruiting station and accusing recruiters of facilitating rape.

    The other day, we saw a video of Matthis Chiroux who charged the military with “dehumanizing” foreigners. The anti-war crowd “dehumanizes” the entire military by making specious charges like this. This is the 21st Century version of spitting on the troops.

    I remember the anti-war protests ended during the Vietnam War when once, in New York City, construction workers got tired of the hippies protesting one day. The construction workers climbed down off of their steel perches and proceeded to pound the protesters.

    I’m just sayin’….