Do you support the release of those abuse photos that courts are trying to wrest from the Obama Administration? The Philadelphia Independent Media Center says you do;
Yup, you’ve been lumped in with three organizations, the IVAW, Geezers for Sitting on Our Hands, and some rinky-dink organization I’ve never heard of before – Veterans for Common Sense.
Here’s why they think the photos should be released;
Iraq War veteran and Board Chair of Iraq Veterans Against the War Camilo Mejia stated, “Being open about our mistakes by releasing these pictures is not only a way to ensure this dark episode in our history will not be repeated, but also a crucial step in our healing process as a nation.”
Veterans for Common Sense Executive and Gulf War veteran Director Paul Sullivan stated, “These documents must be made public and they must be turned over to a special war crimes prosecutor. Never again should our nation’s leaders order torture with impunity.”
President of Veterans For Peace and former Navy Corpsman, Mike Ferner said, “The biggest threat to our service members and our Republic is that we forget what has happened and do it again,” He continued, “Withholding these photographs makes it more likely that the people of our country can push these horrendous acts to the edge of our collective memory. This will not serve our nation well.”
These three tiny veteran organizations obviously don’t have veterans’ or active duty service members’ best interests in their hearts. Yet, the Philly Indy makes it look like they represent all veterans’s opinions in their headline.
Camilo Mejia has been dealt a deadly blow in the recent past by our own TSO when he blogged at The Sniper (before I lured him away with the promise of free monkey porn and bottomless bags of Skittles). Also, our buddy, Denis Keohane at Obiter Dictum wrote quite extensively about Mejia. Does he speak for you?
We know the stars of Vets For Peace (known here as Geezers for Sitting on Our Hands), but Veterans For Common Sense is a new one to me. As near as I can tell, VCS is made up of five members, three of whom are veterans. Apparently, they’re a couple of Gulf War Vets who are upset that they can’t get into IVAW. Their mission statement says;
Our mission…is to raise the unique and powerful voices of veterans so that our military, veterans, freedom, and national security are protected and enhanced, for ourselves and for future generations.
How would releasing those photos protect and enhance our military, veterans, freedom and national security?
By the way, VCS claims they’re funded in part by the Plowshares Fund, which boasts the actor Michael Douglas and Chuck Hagel on their board – real intellectual heavyweights right there.
TSO wrote yesterday about Adam Kokesh‘s campaign. But the bigger story is his attempt to drag TAH into his campaign. Apparently, he thinks that any publicity is good publicity. He’s even sent his flyers to Chris Hill from GOE who sent me a link yesterday to Kokesh’s blog entry about Hill pointing out the addition of the parenthetical comment under the original title. Apparently, Kokesh is trying to soften his image in preparation for his run at a congressional seat in Santa Fe.
It may have backfired on Kokesh, though. Just last week, a Phoenix newspaper linked to This Ain’t Hell in regards to Kokesh’s candidacy. They used all of our posts about Kokesh over the last two years to warn voters away from him.
Poor Adam is still mired in his past thinking it will win him an election. His latest rants are about Donald Rumsfeld owning stock in the company that makes Tamaflu. I’m sure that’s why Democrats spent that money on flu prevention – to fill Rummy’s pockets.
But the most disturbing part of Kokesh’s new personae is that he’s doing interviews with Russia Today in which they describe him as an “expert”. Here’s a sample entitled “Obama’s foreign policy is more aggressive than Bush’s” – expert;
Adam Kokesh, the Expert. The Voice of America to Russia. Sweet.
We’ve all seen what the Democrats are pulling against Republicans who voted against the larded up bill for funding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We’ve seen it right here where commenters who have the intellectual depth of a mud puddle claim that the Republicans voted against the troops instead of the truth that they voted against more wasteful spending.
Well, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has started a campaign against seven Republicans in vulnerable districts who voted against the Defense Authorization Act.
They may have bit off more than they can chew on at least one of them, though. Joe Wilson of South Carolina’s 2d District spent 31 years in the reserves and SC National Guard leaving the service as a Colonel. He also has four sons who are tied to the military.
One is a reserve major who spent a year in Iraq, another is an Annapolis grad in med school, a third is a captain in the SC National Guard and the fourth is in the Clemson ROTC program and also in the SC Guard.
The only transcript I can find of these ads is the one the DCCC is running against Lee Terry in Nebraska from Politico;
Around here, we recognize Independence Day with parades … and picnics … maybe a few fireworks. But July Fourth is about more than that.
It’s about remembering those who fought for our freedoms. And those still fighting today.
Congressman Lee Terry used to understand that.
When George Bush asked, Congressman Terry voted to fully fund our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And, last year he said, quote, “We must give our military every resource it needs.”
Seems like Congressman Terry is playing politics now …
Last month Congressman Terry voted AGAINST funding for those same troops.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee justifies it like this;
“Republicans never hesitated to criticize those who voted against the previous supplemental bills that included funding for the troops, but now that they are trying to score political points, Republicans’ votes have conveniently changed,” said DCCC executive director Jon Vogel.
Um, Republicans were trying to cut the useless pork out of the Defense Bill, Democrats were trying to purposely defund the war completely to make useless political points. See the difference, you clowns?
No, this is strictly to make political hay and smear an entire military family to buy a few votes. And since my idiot Congressman, white bread, yuppie, pretty boy Chrissy Van Hollen is the chairman of the DCCC, he’s going to get an earful come Monday morning.
Believe it or not, this was a tip sent to us by one of our liberal commenters, DC who thought we should address the hypocrisy.
The latest mind-drippings from Beaker Freidman at Vote Vets;
So what if everything we’ve paid for with with blood and treasure is in danger of being wasted? Well, if it is wasted, it’ll clearly be the fault of the anti-war crowd (that includes Mr. “The War I Always Wanted”). Iraq was in the win column until this crowd got their grubby mitts on it.
A loss would also vindicate the Bush policy of not establishing an arbitrary date for withdrawal that would allow an enemy to plan to fill the vacuum of displaced US forces. But that fact completely escapes Beaker – just so long as he can pay homage to his MoveOn masters and George Soros.
By the way, I have it on good authority that the Vote Vet clowns read every word on This Ain’t Hell, so feel free to unload on them. They have an awful persecution complex.
I’ll bet you think I’m crazy for putting up that picture of a disgusting old man with pale legs and blue hair on the front page early on Monday morning, don’t you? Well, that’s not half as crazy as what the House GOP is doing with that nutjob. According to Amanda Carpenter at the Washington Times;
Why were House Republicans holding an off-the record meeting on health care with the liberal Dr. Patch Adams Thursday morning?
An email about the meeting sent from Georgia Republican Rep. Jack Kingston’s office was obtained by the Washington Times from a disgrunteld GOP staffer who questioned why any Republican would seek Dr. Adam’s advice.
Dr. Adams’s unconventional approach to treating patients, like preparing a noodle bath for a sick woman for example, was made famous in the 1998 film “Patch Adams” in which he was portrayed by actor Robin Williams. Today, Dr. Adams leads the Gesundheit Institute that supports a single-payer health care system.
Yes, that’s Patch Adams in the photo – and that’s his preferred color for his hair all of the time, not just for last year’s Code Pink Mothers’ Day event in DuPont Circle where I took that picture.
I’ll admit that I’ve never seen the Robin Williams movie, mostly because I know that people who are tagged as “unconventional” these days are what we’d call crackpots a few decades ago. Adams is a crackpot.
Proof? Look at some of the people he hangs out with. Code Pink doesn’t have a rational solution to the war against terror, so why would the House Republicans think Patch Adams has a rational solution for healthcare? Is this what Republicans call presenting their own plan for healthcare – free government subsidized daily noodle baths for everyone?
A few hours ago, I mentioned the Code Pink statement made on Friday that Obama was doing the right thing by staying out of the Iranian protests. Of course, the following day Obama reversed course and issued his toughest statement on the situation to date.
That’s the way I’d do it – if Code Pink thought I was right about something, I’d change course, too. But I set out to look at what the far Left is saying about the protests and they all seem to think that President Bush is still pulling the strings.
I also mentioned Paul Craig Roberts’ piece seething with Bush Derangement Syndrome. As evidence that the Iranian protests are a CIA plot, Roberts cites Kenneth Timmerman of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran; (more…)
Finally, President Obama, after a week of trying to remain neutral in the conflict in Iran, summoned some testicular fortitude and stood up for freedom yesterday. The Washington Post called it a “cautious response”;
[T]he president called on the Iranian government “to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people.”
U.S. officials say Obama is intent on calibrating his comments to the mood of the hour. They say he is seeking to avoid having the demonstrators accused of being American stooges and is trying to preserve the possibility of negotiating directly with the Iranian government over its nuclear program, links to terrorism, Afghanistan and other issues.
I’d agree, if Obama made that statement after the first death in Tehran, but amid unsubstantiated reports of hundreds of casualties, the wording sounds weak. From the Washington Times;
An Iranian who asked to be identified only by his first name, Ali, told The Washington Times that he saw security forces near Azadi (Freedom) Square dropping tear-gas canisters into buildings sheltering demonstrators, driving motorcycles into crowds of people and firing tear gas into demonstrators’ eyes. As he spoke, continuous shooting could be heard in the background, along with cries and shouts.
A graphic video posted on Facebook by Goli Fassihian, a spokeswoman for the National Iranian American Council, showed the body of a young woman whose face was covered in blood. Another video showed a young man with blood on his chest lying on the street, with gunshots ringing out around him.
Here’s some video from yesterday. Sporadic gunfire breaks out at about 3:00 into the video;
And another;
Actually, if Obama’s intent is to avoid being blamed for the riots, that ship has sailed. Last week, the mullahs had already blamed the US, the UK and the west in general for the protests. This morning, the Malaysian Insider published Ahmadinejad’s warning to the west;
Iranian authorities today blamed “terrorists” for clashes in which at least 10 people were killed and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the United States and Britain to stay out of unrest sparked by his disputed re-election.
Iran state television said 10 people were killed and more than 100 others injured in protests held in Tehran yesterday in defiance of a stern warning by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A separate report put the number of deaths at 13.
State television said the violence included the torching of a mosque, which it blamed on “rioters”.
“In the unrest leading to clashes 10 people were killed and more than 100 wounded,” it said. “The presence of terrorists … in yesterday’s event in Enghelab and Azadi avenues was tangible.”
The harshness of the language suggested the authorities could be preparing for a crackdown to end more than a week of protests.
Obama’s reliance on words to resolve the problem is fairly naive (Fox News link);
And Obama cited the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s, famous quote: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
“I believe that,” Obama said. “The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.”
In other words, if we just wait long enough, everything will shake out in the end. Unfortunately, Martin Luther King was talking about rational governments and rational societies. A rational government in Iran wouldn’t have let the current conditions there get this far. The mullahs would have suggested a power-sharing agreement with the opposition by now, if they were indeed committed to peace in the streets instead of the line about an 11 million-vote gap in the elections.
The Iranian government knows, after years of dealing with the pussy-footing West over their nuclear ambitions, their is little chance of a Gordon Brown/Barrack Obama insurgency into Iran. The mullahs can get away with anything, so the Iranian people are pretty much on their. Bullets against voices.
The blame for that can rest on the forlorn wailing of the anti-war crowd who have been protesting direct action against Iran for at least three years that I know of. As recently as this Spring, Code Pink has been praising the Ahmadinejad government and advocating for further suppression of women and minorities in Iran.
The American Left consistently comes down on the wrong side of history. Proof? How about the Code Pink press release from Friday;
CODEPINK calls on the Obama Administration to fulfill its commitment to pursue diplomacy with Iran through face-to-face talks without preconditions; as Obama promised during his campaign, “We should not just talk to our friends, we should be willing to engage our enemies as well. That is what diplomacy is all about.” CODEPINK also affirms the Obama administration’s decision to withhold comment on the Iranian election and its government’s decisions around conducting a recount or reelection.
Furthermore, CODEPINK calls on the United States to cease threats of new economic sanctions, remove existing sanctions, and end threats of war.
These affirmations will lend much needed credibility and legitimacy to Obama’s commitment to improve relations with Iran and the Arab-Muslim world, and uphold his campaign promise to meet with Iranian officials without preconditions.
Emphasis is mine. In other words, Code Pink supports the mullahs on their continued murder of gays and stoning of women as well as the current atrocities on the streets of Iranian cities. Peace at any cost.
In truth, it’s a repeat of the 1979 revolution – Jimmy Carter supported the Shah’s government and we became The Great Satan for three decades. Obama is tacitly supporting the Mullahs, so we’ll get another few decades of being The Great Satan to the rest of Iran.
I know you’re relieved like I am. One of those links goes to an article on Huffington Post by Ann Wright who describes the incident;
Israeli police and military violently shoved the group back into a wall. Delegation member Tighe Barry from Santa Monica, Cali. was struck in the face with the butt of a military rifle and pushed to the ground where he could barely breathe. He was taken by ambulance to the Trauma Center of Tal-Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv where he was treated for a concussion, an injured neck and an asthma attack. Benjamin and several other delegation members were bruised in the arms and upper body from being shoved and manhandled by the police and military.
The journalist was taken to a local police station and released an hour later without charges. Mr. Barry was treated overnight at the hospital.
Yeah, can someone show me the screen shot of Barry getting buttstroked? If there was one I’d have already blown it up wall poster size and put it in the window next to my son’s Blue Star. After reviewing the video a few times, none of the police involved in pushing the protesters back even had a long gun with which he could buttstroke Barry. I call BS. And who paid for his night in the hospital? George Soros?
“Is this the great democracy that the U.S. taxpayers pay for with $3 billion dollars a year?” Benjamin cried, as she was being dragged away by the police.
Did anyone see Benjamin getting dragged off by the police in the video? No she’s getting pushed back by the police.
If you watch the video at my first post about this (at this link), at about 1:30, you can see Wright screaming her ass off and she’s no where near the police – just screaming for dramatic effect. Then she runs around the small crowd and intentionally wedges her widebody between a pole and a barrier and starts flailing around like the police put her there.
There’s nothing in the video or Ann Wright’s account of the incident related to teargas, except in Barry’s email.
