Here’s one of the first signs I encountered this morning
Here’s the video;
Bill Perry and I aren’t friends any more. He introduced to his crowd of Vets For Peace as “That lying SOB from This Ain’t Hell”. Ward Reilly was polite, though, so was Michael MacPhearson. Jim Goodnow told me to keep up the good work. I guess he’s not a reader.
Free Republic is here;
They stalwartly followed the protest and got plenty of interviews through out the day’s fun.
The IRAQ VETERANS Against the War issued a press release last week about their opposition to increasing troop strength in Afghanistan. In the press release, they quoted two members, Jose Vasquez, the Executive Director and Donna Perdue. Vasquez’ quote;
“We’re entering our seventh year of war in Afghanistan,” said Jose Vasquez, IVAW’s executive director. “Casualties among the Afghan people are rising while U.S. and Coalition forces are facing their deadliest year since the invasion. This war dehumanizes the Afghan people and denies them their right to self-determination. We have members who serve in Iraq and in Afghanistan and we believe it’s time for them all to come home.”
And Perdue’s quote;
IVAW member Donna Perdue said she believes the war in Afghanistan is threatening our national security.
“The war becomes larger and more destructive, the number of necessary American forces will further increase, and the cycle will continue to rage on,” said Perdue. “This cycle will continue to strain the struggling economy and the already over-taxed military. It’s imperative that the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan end.”
The irony, of course, is that neither of the members have been to the war on terror. We’ve already discussed Jose Vasquez a 14-year veteran who suddenly became a conscientious objector when he had to go to war. So who is the Perdue chick? Here’s her profile at IVAW;
Perdue’s duty stations over 22 years of service; Albany, GA; Iwakuni, Japan; Indianapolis, IN; Camp Lejeune, NC; New Orleans, LA; Camp Pendleton, CA; Kansas City, MO; Baltimore, MD; Quantico, VA; Vienna, OH; Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia, Yemen, Uganda, Eritrea, Bahrain, Somalia, Tanzania, Sudan. She retired in 2006 yet still missed the war against terror and thinks she has some moral authority to influence US policy in the war.
Combined, Perdue and Vasquez have 36 years of military experience and neither have heard a shot fired in anger, yet that’s who IVAW quotes in their press releases. It makes me wonder if they have any iraq Veterans left in the IRAQ VETERANS Against the War.
The resolution states “there is no battlefield solution to terrorism, and any escalation of the war in Afghanistan will only serve to exacerbate the plight of the Afghan people, destabilize the region, and further the breakdown of our military.”
Says who? A bunch of COs and pogues?
By the way, I’ve got some conflicting information on Perdue and her career. What i have says she was an E-6 – can some of you guys who can get to Marine On Line check on that? Screen capture it and send it to me if you can. I keep a record of that stuff.
UPDATE: Thanks to CplUSMC93 who pulled her MOL file, we now know that Donna Perdue isn’t a Gunnery Sergeant like she claims. She retired as a Staff Sergeant.
It’s like they can’t help it.
Yes, Donna, I’ve now started a file on you, too.
As TSO wrote yesterday, Richard Strandlof aka Rick Duncan, our favorite VoteVets, IVAW member, is about to be arrested, but he remains at large. But all of the local news sources are putting his face out there. The feds shouldn’t have let him go, then they wouldn’t have to look for his goofy ass.
From the Denver Post;
Strandlof will be charged with one count of making false claims about receipt of military decorations or medals, a misdemeanor punishable by a year in jail and a $250,000 fine.
CBS Channel 4 finds a World Can’t Wait connection;
Besides Duncan, Strandlof also used the alias of Rick Pierson, according to the arrest affidavit. Strandloff was a war protester in Reno, Nev., and coordinator for the anti-war group the World Can’t Wait. While in Reno, Slater was part of an effort to bring a Grand Prix race there, according to the arrest affidavit.
A woman who answered a phone for a number listed for Strandlof in Incline Village, Nev., near Reno said it was a wrong number. No number was listed in Colorado Springs.
The Vail Daily writes that at least as an imposter he was worried about appearances;
When asked at one fundraiser why he wasn’t wearing his medals, Strandlof said wearing them “would appear egotistical,” according to the affidavit.
Our friends at KKTV Channel 11 have a video up of the story (but I can’t embed it here)
Here’s a picture of Strandlof from that video. I want the image burned into the brains of some of our Strandlof deniers;
Yeah, you might have joined after Jesse MacBeth, but you didn’t join after Rick Duncan.
Maybe they can get James Branum to defend him with the fake-but-accurate defense. Or maybe he can blame the Marine Corps for not giving classes on how to be a fake Marine with a reattached finger.
I was perfectly happy to leave Jeff Bartos and IVAW alone after Bartos, the co-founder of the Connecticut Chapter of IVAW, was arrested at the G-20 protest in Pittsburgh last week. But I could hardly let this pass from another blog;
…Jeff Bartos was arrested last week at G20 protests while attending to the medical needs of a reporter that had been teargassed by police. After hearing of this arrest, the antiwar movement managed to flood the Allegheny County Jail with enough phone calls to engineer his release.
First of all, I’m pretty sure he was arrested for rendering medical attention – the police have nothing better to do than arrest people for stuff like that. I imagine he got mouthy with a cop and found himself unceremoniously tossed in the back of the paddy wagon.
Secondly, the anti-war movement flooded the jailhouse with calls, but not money. The IVAW put out a call for money Saturday night to bail Jeff out – and they were able to tap their 1700 members’ pockets for over half of his $200 bail. TSO and I were joking about it the other night. Their 1700 members must’ve given over $.06 per person to get the more than $100 together. We’re so proud of them.
In fact, if all of those people who called the police station had sent the cost of the phone call instead, they might have covered his whole bail. Phone calls don’t get people out of jail – money does.
We’ve written a bit about the “GI Rights Lawyer” and waah-bulance-chaser, James Branum. It’s satisfying to watch him descend into complete idiocy while he pretends to a successful attorney and gets his clients incarcerated. Now, he’s dragging more lawyers into his cocoon of lunacy.
His client, Travis Bishop is Branum’s most recent contribution to prison overcrowding and he’s been sent to the Northwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility at Fort Lewis, Washington. And because Branum is one broke-ass lawyer (I could tell you stories about how poor he is, if I hadn’t promised someone else to keep it quiet for now), he can’t afford to visit his client half-way across the country, so he has designated LeGrand Jones, attorney to anarchists and socialists in Washington State and member of the National Lawyers Guild, to visit Bishop. Surprise! Jones is on a “watch list” and not allowed in the facility.
So instead of just finding someone who doesn’t cavort with anarchist and socialist terrorists, Branum just whines to TSO’s favorite journalist, Dahr Jamail. So, of course, tossing arouond words like “prisoner of conscience” and “constitutional rights”, the Jamail-Branum Clown Car Cabal sound more like LeGrand Jones’ clientele than the educated professionals they profess to be;
Branum told Truthout, “Fort Lewis authorities have a duty to tell LeGrande the reasons why he is being barred from Fort Lewis, and therefore [barred] from communicating with his client in the Fort Lewis brig.”
A “duty”? Show me where. Numbskull. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bishop himself refused to talk to any more of the incompetent boobs from the NLG.
Remember how Branum tried to change Army policy by charging that Bishop didn’t get “conscientious objector training” from his command? Well, now he wants to change rehab policy at the regional facility;
“By participating in work programs and school classes, soldiers being held in brigs can get time cut off their sentences,” Branum explained to Truthout, “But these don’t exist at Fort Lewis, so that means Travis and Leo can’t get time taken off their sentences. Travis will do a minimum of 10 months, and could have theoretically worked an additional month off his sentence if Fort Lewis had these programs.”
They could have gotten time off their sentences if they’d had a different lawyer.
One good thing that comes out of this article is the truth about the “Under the Hood” and “Army Strong” cafes in Fort Hood and Fort Lewis, respectively. They used to be called “gathering places” for soldiers to talk about their problems with other GIs. however, in this article, the label applied to them changes;
Both soldiers are being supported by two GI resistance cafes: Under the Hood cafe (in Killeen, Texas, near Fort Hood) and Coffee Strong (in Tacoma, Washington, near Fort Lewis).
They finally decided to call them “resistance cafes” and be truthful about their purpose rather than hide behind benign labels. Anyone want to defend them now?
Last year, a new set of liars formed up their own organization, named March Forward, of people they call veterans. They are the veterans organization of the ANSWER coalition – as opposed to IVAW which affiliates itself with United For Peace and Justice. I guess ANSWER needed their own stalking horse instead of depending on IVAW. I see some old names in their group, but most interesting are the new names.
All of their profiles begin the same way “I was a poor child with no job skills and I wanted to go to college and the military lied to me….”
Reading through the member profiles, I found this one most interesting. About a guy who calls himself Eddie Pages.
Here’s what he writes in his profile;
[H]e served as an Intelligence Analyst for the 1st Marine Air Wing in support of U.S. Pacific Command. Two weeks after he arrived in Okinawa, he was sent to the Philippines. Three Typhoons had just devastated that country.
Of that experience, Eddie writes: “I went there with the idea that I was there to help. I quickly learned that I was not there to help anyone. My job was to analyze intelligence collected against the people of the Philippines. The humanitarian aid was nothing but a front operation for intelligence collection. While there I witnessed high-ranking U.S. military members participating in human trafficking. I witnessed U.S. Marines buying french fries at McDonald’s and having the hungry children outside fight each other for them. I knew then that I was on the wrong side of the equation. I spent any free moment I had sneaking off to speak to these children about their conditions. I spoke to farmers about their government. It quickly became crystal clear to me that the suffering of these people was directly linked to the U.S. government. I was ashamed of wearing the uniform of the oppressor. I began to research the histories of oppressed nationalities and teaching these lessons to the analysts that worked directly under me.”
Eddie refused to go to Iraq two times, telling the military that he would not go to Iraq and fight against innocent people for U.S. corporations. His supervisor at the time did not want to pursue any legal actions, so he found a volunteer to go in Eddie’s place both times.
Yeah, he saw officers engaged inhuman trafficking – he saw some buck sergeants pay hookers. And can you imagine a Marine officer allowing a Marine to refuse deployment twice with no repercussions? Seriously?
And spying on the Filipinos? Really?
I can’t find a record on him at Military.com (which doesn’t mean much), but he sure does set off bells. He claims he got out last year. The Army has AKO, anyone know if the Navy or Marines have anything similar?
Last week, while the leaders of the world discussed the world’s economic problems in Pittsburgh, throngs of immature little spoiled rich kids trashed the city. From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review/Washington Times.;
Business owners in the Oakland area of Pittsburgh, host city of the G-20 summit of world leaders, spent much of Friday sweeping up glass and calling insurance adjusters after a throng of protesters smashed their storefronts less than 24 hours earlier.
Plywood and duct tape covered shattered windows and glass doors at about 20 Forbes Avenue shops vandals targeted Thursday night during a demonstration that, according to onlookers, some college students joined. Some business owners said they were hesitant to install new windows until the G-20 summit ended and out-of-town visitors left.
And, of course, IVAW was there to take part in the vandalism;
The Iraq Veterans Against War painted messages on the sidewalks of Fifth Avenue in Oakland with mud and chalk.
One IVAW member was arrested and the organization was able to raise almost half of his huge bail;
Me? I’m wondering what IVAW has to do with a protest at an economic summit. And, as a whole, what did this protest accomplish – except to expand the divisions in the country even further. They complain that the police were too aggressive and then they push back by destroying private property. That makes tons of sense, doesn’t it?
I wonder how they’ll react when private citizens start defending their property and the protesters no longer benefit from the protection of restraint under which we force our police to abide. They’ll be wishing for sonic cannons after they face an aluminum baseball bat.
From the Washington Times, one student shows a bit a common sense;
“This whole thing was just stupid,” said Pitt student Lindsey Westerbrook, 21, of Oakland, as she stared at an open but boarded-up McDonald’s. “Why would you trash your own neighborhood to make a point?”
The other day I linked to “testimony” of an IVAW member by the name of Eric T Orseske at the Oath Keepers website. Some of you went over there and engaged the Oath Keepers and called them on their hypocrisy in a battle that lasted for over 50 comments. Founder Stuart Rhodes defended his decision to leave the young man’s testimony on the website by using the words of Ron Paul who endorsed Adam Kokesh’s Congressional candidacy;
Adam Kokesh has been a tremendous supporter – of both me AND you! As a leader of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Adam has spent years traveling the country to spread our message of peace, a strong national defense and limited government. Adam has tremendous credibility because of his service in the United States Marine Corps and I have deep respect for his commitment to principle.
Of course, using Ron Paul to quell dissent in their ranks only tells you the level of discourse at Oath Keepers.
Well, finally, Rhodes and “the board” has capitulated and removed that particular testimony. During the discussion, Oath Keepers used phrases like “is our great nation afraid of a few communists?” Well, apparently Oath Keepers are afraid of a few communists;
IVAW in particular has direct connections with some radical left collectivist individuals and organizations, who would scrap this Republic in a heartbeat if they could, to replace it with their own collectivist vision. Such collectivism is incompatible with Oath Keepers, an organization dedicated to the preservation of this Republic. As Oath Keeper Vietnam Vet Lew Waters said: “IF someone shows and acknowledges a propensity to support the very views we are swearing to stand up against and openly admits to obeying those who would impose the very programs we say we will oppose, are we not leaving our flanks exposed?”
Those were the arguments you and I were making through out the discussion. Thanks to all of you who participated in the removal of this IVAW garbage from the internet. As long as IVAW refuses to silence the subversive voices in their ranks, we’ll be there to silence it for them.