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

Category: Hugo Chavez

  • What did they expect?

    Chavez Ahmadinejad

    After Obama spent the weekend sucking up to the terrorist-supporting gang in Trinidad and Tobago, his administration seems surprised that Ahmadinejad went off on a tear today about Israel;

    Addressing a UN conference against racism, Ahmadinejad criticized the creation of a “totally racist government in occupied Palestine” in 1948, calling it “the most cruel and racist regime.”

    The remarks by Ahmadinejad — who has in the past denied the Holocaust — prompted 23 European Union delegations to walk out of the Geneva conference room in protest.

    The United States and Israel were among countries which had already boycotted the meeting, refusing to attend at all due to its anticipated tone regarding the Jewish state.

    So what did they expect? Obama spent the weekend glad handing with Daniel Ortega who ranted for 50 minutes about the US “aggression” in the last century. So what were the reactions of Obama and his staff? Hillary Clinton said “I thought the cultural performance was fascinating.”


    Obama? Well, he’s just glad that Ortega only ranted about the US and not Obama specifically, “To move forward, we cannot let ourselves be prisoners of past disagreements. I’m grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old.”

    Yeah, that’s our president, boys and girls. Only things that are directed at him are important. So Obama tells Israel that they need to withdraw from Jerusalem before the US gets involved in Iran’s nuclear program. So what does Ahmadinejad do? Takes full advantage of the weakling in the White House.

  • Suggest this

    Yeah, I remember Ronald Reagan suggesting that Gorbachov tear down the Berlin Wall;

    Here’s an idea, how about telling the Castros that he won’t let any remittances into Cuba until they release their political prisoners and lower the amount they tax residents on remittances? How about that?

    And why is Obama stooping and bowing to Chavez when Chavez is on the ropes. He’s squandered his windfall profits from oil on weapons and submarines instead of spending it on his people – and now he needs the US. Chavez should been stooping and bowing to the US.

    Our buddy, John, an American living near the Costa Rican frontier with Panama sends us this cartoon from Nicaragua;

    It’s Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Cuba’s Raoul Castro as monkeys. The sign Chavez is holding says “Cuba is the Paradise of Democracy”.  John writes that the artist of this cartoon is in hiding in Florida because of threats towards his family.
    ADDED: This is why I screen capture AP headlines these days. They seem to change;

  • Terrorist Chavez meets the black ignoramus

    The ignoramus meets the terrorist
    The ignoramus meets the terrorist

    Look at these two buddies clasping hands as if they’re old friends. I guess Obama forgot already that Hugo called him an ignoramus and refers to him as “the black man”, something that would probably get me a Secret Service visit if I said it. It was less than a month ago that Chavez called President Obama an ignoramus for mentioning that Chavez exports terrorism;


    That’s how we treat tin pot dictators these days, though. It’s been proven that this sort of treatment never comes back to bite us in the ass, hasn’t it? Look at the time we helped Saddam…oh, never mind. And when we gave the Canal to Panama…forget I said that. OK, all the help we supplied Stalin during WWII…oh, wait. Well, we helped the Afghans boot the Soviets…damn. Hmmm, well there must be an incident that proves stroking our enemy paid off. Isn’t there?
    Well, I’m sure Chavez will rethink his support of regional terrorist groups after that dap with Obama. If he doesn’t, Obama can do what seems to be the popular solution in Latin America among it’s leaders these days; go on a hunger strike like Chavez’ acolyte Evo Morales, the cocaine farmer turned President of Bolivia;

    Or Obama could hold his breath and stomp his feet – Chavez understands that, too.

    I guess we’ve gone from “You’re either with or you’re with the terrorists” to “You’re either with us or whatever.”

  • Terrorists threaten man-created disaster

    See how easily I adapt to the new administration’s lexicon? The Associated Press reports that they got a phone call the other day to warn us that we’re going to be in the midst of a man-created disaster (you can call them terrorist attacks if you want to be a gun-clinging wingnut. Me? I’m enlightened);

    Baitullah Mehsud, who has a $5 million bounty on his head from the U.S., said Monday’s attack outside the eastern city of Lahore was in retaliation for U.S. missile strikes against militants along the Afghan border.

    “Soon we will launch an attack in Washington that will amaze everyone in the world,” Mehsud told The Associated Press by phone. He provided no details.

    I don’t understand how this can happen. The North Koreans are getting ready to launch rockets, the Mahdi army and al Qaeda in Iraq are staging a comeback, Hugo Chavez is trying to undermine the dollar with a proposal for an oil-based currency and calls Obama an ignoramus. We’re still trying to figure out how to fight piracy. Russia is planning on stationing bombers in Cuba and Venezuela.And, oh, did I mention that Iran thinks it has a role in determining our troops strength in Afghanistan? British police arrested five under the Terrorist Act.

    Shouldn’t all of this stuff ended on Inauguration Day? Or is it just beginning now that we’ve had a change in the government that indicates to all of the thugs that we’re soft and weak? And where’s my damn unicorn?

  • Miss Universe goes to Gitmo

    Yeah, I know, it looks like this blog is turning into the inside of my wall locker when I lived in the barracks, but it’s not really. I ran across a story about Miss Universe visiting Guantanamo Bay prison, and I just thought it was odd. The story was at the Army Times and written by Associated Press.

    Miss Universe and Miss USA have taken a firsthand look at the U.S. prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay.

    The beauty pageant winners took part in a VIP tour to entertain American military personnel at the prison in Cuba.

    The article also links to Dayana Mendoza’s blog where she writes;

    We visited the Detainees camps and we saw the jails, where they shower, how the recreate themselves with movies, classes of art, books. It was very interesting.

    I really appreciate Miss Universe and Miss USA visiting the troops at Guantanamo – more folks should do the same. She ought to watch herself, though. She has to return to Venezuela some time and Hugo Chavez is going to be pretty upset if she doesn’t take time to bash the imperialist Americans.

    She also wrote;

    I didn’t want to leave, it was such a relaxing place, so calm and beautiful.

    Ya know, Dayana, that can be arranged. It makes me wonder what the terrorists being held there are complaining about. But, seriously, thanks for visiting our troops and for not making some sort of political statement.

    Added: The Jawa Report has the outrage from the Left that she didn’t turn her trip into an anti-US rant (I didn’t know Venezuelans could be Republicans). Don Surber and Jules Crittenden have the New York Times article.

  • Post columnist: Obama’s not like me!

    Harold Meyerson, one of the columnists at the Washington Post writes today that Obama isn’t a socialist, and he should know, he claims, because Meyerson is a socialist. He begins his little instructive column by taking offense that anyone would even consider Obama a socialist;

    Well! Even as we all turn red, I’ve still encountered just two avowed democratic socialists in my daily rounds through the nation’s capital: Vermont’s Sen. Bernie Sanders . . . and the guy I see in the mirror when I shave. Bernie is quite capable of speaking for himself, so what follows is a report on the state of actual existing socialism from the other half of the D.C. Senators and Columnists Soviet.

    Yeah, “avowed” because there are very few people who wouldn’t admit it unless they have the protection that the Washington Post provides for their assembled crackpots and assorted lunatics.

    Meyerson continues that no one on the planet wants to nationalize industries anywhere in the world “not even Hugo Chávez” he says. No, not even Chávez…well except for the oil industry, the banking industry, the milk industry, the rice industry and the electricity and phone industries. Um, what else is left to nationalize – oh, yeah the media.

    Meyerson rambles on about “social justice”, national healthcare and all of the other blather about things he’ll never have to pay for as long as Conservatives stand firm against the socialist wave sweeping the country. After reading his lie about Chavez, I could hardly bring myself to read the rest.

  • Putin and Chavez shut off heat

    Does anyone else think it’s odd that Putin shuts off gas shipments to Europe the same week that Hugo Chavez shuts down the Joe-4-Oil program shipments to the US. and it all happens in January, just a week after Russian warships made a call to Venezuelan port?

    Let me be clear; I’m glad Chavez shut down the free or cheaper heating oil program – not only was it taking food from the mouths of poor Venezuelans, it was a huge propaganda ploy for the pudgy little red-shirted cholito. And it gets that mouthful of teeth, Joe Kennedy, off of my television. I guess no one thinks it’s funny that the program ends just as the Bush presidency ends, too.

    While the Russian Navy conducted exercises in our hemisphere, they’re reminding Europe who keeps them warm at night. All of this in the middle of a global economic “crisis”.  I’m pretty sure it all has something to do with Obama beginning his term and the little fellas are trying to put their own strengths on display for the world to see.

    It looks like Joe Biden’s prediction that the world will test Obama will come to pass a lot sooner than Biden thought. We’ll see how all of that bi-partisan feel good bluster and flourishes play in a theater production orchestrated by Russia, Venezuela and China.

    Updated: Kate tells me that Citgo started the cheap oil program back up. I guess I missed the news.

  • Geoff Millard; the latest IVAW phony soldier (Updated)

    The anti-war movement loves the Iraq Veterans Against the War. In an interview, Head Hag of Code Pink bragged that IVAW gives the anti-war movement credibility;

    “The vet groups are our street cred,” a California-based anti-war activist tells me at the group’s barbecue. Medea Benjamin, co-founder of feminist anti-war group Code Pink, says the veterans’ group appeals to the American glorification of the military, even within the anti-war movement. “People who have been part of a war that I consider immoral and illegal still have more legitimacy than people who were against the war from the very beginning and refused to fight in it,” she explains, sitting in the vets’ living room while her college-age cohorts chat with the veterans and eat hamburgers and sausages. “They command more of a sense of authority and more of a sense of understanding of what’s actually happening on the ground.”

    Let’s take a look at the credibility that Medea values so much, shall we?

    The president of the Washington, DC Chapter, Geoff Millard, for example, is a real gadfly on the Washington, DC Leftist scene. I saw him going into the William Ayers book signing last month. Here’s a picture of him sitting behind then-candidate Barack Obama at a speech leading up to the election in Pennsylvania;

    This is his profile on the IVAW website;

    In his profile, Millard brags “Along with a peace delegation Geoff became the first Iraq war veteran to meet with members of the Iraqi parliament about their 26-point peace plan. Also Geoff has traveled Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iran meeting with Iraqi refugees at every chance.”

    But he’s being modest. He’s also addressed the Socialist World Forum in Venezuela and fawned over such luminaries as Hugo Chavez and Cindy Sheehan. Here’s a picture of him marching with Medea Benjamin and Cindy Sheehan a few years back exercising his “street cred” for the anti-war movement;

    My buddy/alter ego Robin at Chickenhawk Express did some extensive research on Millard a few years back when he first started making the IVAW scene while he was AWOL. Robin includes his history as a malingerer complaining constantly about his bouts of pain from a old wrestling injury  – he claimed an Iraqi doctor said he should go back to the States, but Army doctors disagreed.

    After he finished his tour of Iraq and the Army wouldn’t give him a medical discharge, he became a conscientious objector and went AWOL for nine months. Familiar story, isn’t it? It’s always some sort malfeasance on the part of IVAW members that preceeded their “conscientious objectors” or “resisters” status.

    Notice, like most of the other folks in IVAW, he lists himself as a Sergeant. In addition, he claims he served in Germany, Qatar, Kuwait and Iraq. It sounds more like a flight path than a career path.

    I got a hold of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on Geoffrey a few weeks back and it was a little light on information;

    It said that he is a specialist and not a sergeant as he claimed, and his awards were only two medals and ribbon – quite a bit different than what he sports in public;

    That’s a lot more than what’s in records, no? Need a closer look?

    That’s three awards of the Meritorious Service Medal (MSM) on top – but none of them are in the FOIA.

    Well, see, I’m a fair guy, so I decided before I posted anything, I wanted to give Geoffrey a chance to respond – actually, TSO and Uncle Jimbo advised me to proceed cautiously.

    Thanks to some prodding from  Army Sergeant, I’m sure, he responded the same day, and sent me one of his three DD214s – of course, he sent the best one of the three, the one that says he earned all of those medals and that he’s a sergeant. The only thing I’ve altered is his Social Security Number, his mother’s name and address and his home address;

    Now that would seem to settle it, right? Well, not quite. I sent the DD214 to my new friends at POW Net and, eagle eyes that they are, they noticed right off that even though he has awards for foreign service in block 13, there’s no foreign service time in block 12f.

    The folks at POW NET sent the FOIA request back through St Louis with the DD214 Millard sent me.

    Guess what? The Army sent the same FOIA information back even though they had his DD214. His form 2-1 doesn’t mention any service in Iraq.

    The folks at POW NET are forwarding the FOIA and the DD214 Millard sent me to the FBI for further investigation.

    1stCAVRVN11B emailed this picture of Millard wearing a CIB, which also isn’t in the DD214 or the FOIA report;

    He explained in his email to me;

    [The DD214] will not show a CIB that is a longer story of my being pined [sic] in Iraq but not having it on paper back home because of Army FUBAR.  I was unsure about wearing it and I admit I did once but never felt comfortable with it on.

    Well, the real reason he should have felt uncomfortable about wearing a CIB is because he never earned one no matter who “pinned” him – it wasn’t an Army FUBAR. To earn a CIB, a soldier has to be a qualified infantryman in the 11 or 18 series MOS and be serving in an infantry unit lower than brigade level. Millard was a 12B combat engineer not an 11 or 18 series, and he worked for a general – there are no generals below brigade level. I told him all of that in an email, but he didn’t see fit to respond.

    Millard wants the honors accorded an infantryman who served in combat without having to put up with the shit of actually being an infantryman. Stolen valor.

    So let’s recap the “street cred” of the anti-war movement; Millard claims to be a sergeant, the Army says he’s a specialist. He claims to have a chest full of medals, the Army says he has two and a ribbon. Millard claims to have been awarded the Combat Infantry Badge, even though he was never a combat infantryman and the Army disagrees with him. Millard claims to have served on the Mexican border, Germany, Qatar, Kuwait and in Iraq and the Army has no record of him ever leaving New York State except for basic training and advanced individual training.

    Oh, and the FBI will be investigating him for falsifying his military records.

    At least he’s got experience doing a perp walk – he may need that skill.

    Now, I’ll admit that I have a hard-on for Millard since he tried to intimidate TSO and me at Winter Soldier by asking us for our blog URLs so they could monitor what we were writing about them from the inside. I’m pretty sure he didn’t ask any of the friendlier bloggers for that same consideration.

    Later, he threatened to throw TSO, Rurik and me out of Winter Soldier because TSO talked to a Washington Post reporter. Oh, and he made one of his minions remove me from the Congressional hearing room for Winter Soldier after I filmed him playing general’s aide before the hearings checking mikes and shuffling paper.

    So this post is my pay back – and that’s why it’s languished for three weeks in my draft folder waiting to get the facts just right. It’s been rewritten countless times and a number of people have contributed to it and they’re all credited.

    I’ve got several other records requests being processed, so you may see a spate of “phony soldier” posts in the next few months. Ya’all phony soldiers had better adjust your narratives.

    UPDATED: For all of you sharpshooters, someone sent me a clearer picture of his medals;