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

Category: Iraq Veterans Against the War

  • Small and Strange World this is.

    I found out that one of the people that I went to Basic training at Fort Lenard Wood is/was part of the IVAW. I had found here back in 2007 when we had the exact same video about our Basic on MySpace. She was part of the 82d as a truck Driver. She went to Iraq in December 2006 at FOB Summerall with the Easy Company 1-505th, 3rd Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division. She stayed there until about May of 2007 when she was put on Rear Detachment for medical reasons. Later she gets outs and joins the IVAW’s 53 Chapter in Las Vegas. But this is were it starts to get interesting.

    She made a post on June 18, 2008 in the IVAW members speak out that could be seen in two ways. See for yourself.

    So this is the email I recieved today on Myspace from A guy that was in the Army back in the 90’s and has never deployed….

    “I’m deleting you from my friends list. I don’t dislike you, but I don’t need rubbish like this video being brought to my attention. It’s unfortunate you are so naive, even after all you have seen. It seems, after all, that some are unteachable.”

    So funny how he calls me “unteachable” yet he is the one who has never been to Iraq and doesn’t know anything other than what is in the news. He seems to think he knows so much about what is going on over there. Give me a break, he is just ignorant like a lot of Americans that think this War is for the better. I wish there was some kind of a program like a foreign exchange type deal where we can send these ignorant people to Iraq so they can see first hand what is exactly going on. My Own husband is on the fence on this subject he thinks that the war was started on lies which we all know it was. Yet he isn’t sure if we should leave yet or not….Now I love my husband but he was a 25 F and he spent a year in Iraq stuck on a Fob he wasn’t going out and doing missions in the city so he never saw the things most of us saw and I think that is why he thinks the way he does. I am trying to get it across to him that we need to end this occupation, maybe with some time he will be with me on this. If not oh well. I just pray that Iraq doesn’t end up like Kuwait that is now a duty station. If they ever turn Iraq into a duty station I am moving to Canada!

    Kinda takes it’s own perspective when considering the people in IVAW who have never seen Iraq. But this is the part that is confusing to me. In her blog she is very vocal about her dislike of the Army and her excitement about getting out with her new Husband. Not to mention that she was against the Iraq War in a comment she left to Casey Porter in August 31st of 2008.

    Thanks for the Add!! I Love your videos and the way you speak out against the occupation! IVAW all the way!

    So it is surprising that when I looked her up on AKO that it showed her being in the Army Reserves for Nevada. Her Blog also confirmed that her and her husband had re-enlisted in November of 2008.

    I am back in the Army reserves and that is going well, everyone in my unit is really nice. Nate joined to hahaha he couldn’t stay away. So I am changing my MOS from 88M truck driver to 42A Human resource spc….thank god because I don’t wanna drive anymore damn trucks lol.

    I just thought it odd considering that with the IVAW is vocal about supporting troops that do not want to deploy, why would you join the Army reserves? I mean the IVAW’s Las Vegas is using your photo as a poster picture for it’s MySpace page. The second thing is how was she able to get back in the Military if she was Med-Boardedout for a heart condition? I just do not get it.

    What a strange World.

  • Adrienne Kinne, Blue Falcon

    Time reports that Spain’s National Court has decided to re-indict three American soldiers for killing a Spanish journalist in Baghdad’s Hotel Palestine during the last hours of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

    On April 8, 2003, one day before U.S. troops officially captured Baghdad, a U.S. tank fired a single incendiary shell on the hotel, killing Couso, a cameraman for Spain’s Telecinco television station, and Reuters journalist Taras Protsyuk. Since then, Couso’s colleagues and family have pursued a criminal investigation against the U.S. military. Their initial case, filed in May 2003, was eventually dismissed by Spain’s National Court, which cited a lack of jurisdiction. But when the higher Supreme Court reviewed the case in December 2006, it disagreed. The case was returned to the National Court, which in 2007 issued arrest warrants against Sgt. Thomas Gibson, the tank sergeant who fired the shell, Captain Philip Wolford, who ordered the attack, and commanding officer Colonel Philip deCamp.

    But on July 26, Spain’s Supreme Court again ruled that the case should continue. On Thursday morning, the National Court took up the investigation for the third time, again ordering the three men to appear in its courtroom or face extradition.

    One of the main witnesses against the three Americans is Adrienne Kinne, co-chair of the IVAW board and hardcore member of the International Socialist Organization. Here’s her profile which I snapped several months ago before she removed it;

    Yep, she’s another of those Iraq veterans who never left the US. But somehow shr thinks her testimony about events halfway around the world is relevent in relation to the Palestine Hotel incident. Like Kinne told aging hippie, Amy Goodman at Democracy Now!;

    …there were journalists staying at the Palestine Hotel and this hotel was listed as a potential target, I went to my officer in charge, and I told him that there are journalists staying at this hotel who think they’re safe, and yet we have this hotel listed as a potential target, and somehow the dots are not being connected here, and shouldn’t we make an effort to make sure that the right people know the situation?

    And unfortunately, my officer in charge, similarly to any time I raised concerns about things that we were collecting or intelligence that we were reporting, basically told me that it was not my job to analyze. It was my job to collect and pass on information and that someone somewhere higher up the chain knew what they were doing.

    Kinne claims that if her supervisor had listened to her, those Spanish journalists would have been saved. But, while everyone on Amy Goodman’s side of the discussion applauds Kinne for being a “whistleblower”, I think she’s a Blue Falcon because the Spanish National Court is ready to try three Americans for the death of two journalists in downtown Baghdad and she sides with the Spanish courts.

    SSG Shawn Gibson, the tanker who fired the shot into the hotel says he was receiving indirect fire at the same time he saw someone on the roof of the hotel with binoculars and he spent ten minutes getting permission to fire. Maybe if Adrienne Kinne had spent some time in Iraq, she’d understand why Gibson fired – but it’s much easier to be a Blue Falcon.

  • Moron

    Do you need proof that IVAW is chocked full of poseurs and fakers? No better example exists than Jeremy Stainthorp Berggren (WTF kind of name is Stainthorp anyway? What kind of pretentious set of parents would saddle their spawn with that moniker?) But, anyway, I wrote about the doofus back in March when he told us that you don’t have to deploy to suffer from PTSD because he got PTSD from his dreams while his unit was deployed to Iraq and he stayed in the States.

    I will not get too much into the guilt and shame that goes through a marine’s, or probably any servicemember’s, heart and head in a situation like this, but it is at a disturbing level to be stuck stateside while your friends, your peers, and unit are gone. Throughout my unit’s deployment I had a difficult time sleeping, had nightmares about what they were doing, but this made me feel more alienated so I never talked about it and just bid my time and got out as soon as my contract allowed me to.

    The Veterans Affairs Department defines PTSD like his;

    Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can occur after you have been through a traumatic event. A traumatic event is something horrible and scary that you see or that happens to you. During this type of event, you think that your life or others’ lives are in danger. You may feel afraid or feel that you have no control over what is happening.

    The DVA website goes on to give examples of what might cause PTSD;

    * Combat or military exposure
    * Child sexual or physical abuse
    * Terrorist attacks
    * Sexual or physical assault
    * Serious accidents, such as a car wreck.
    * Natural disasters, such as a fire, tornado, hurricane, flood, or earthquake.

    So you actually have to be present at an event in order to suffer from PTSD. Not like Matthis who claims he heard horrible stories, or Stained-drawers who had bad dreams.

    Well, I mention it today because Stained-drawers has what could be loosely described as a poem at the IVAW website about how tough his life is because of his PTSD (http://www.ivaw.org/membersspeak/please-try-something-different-ptsd). Now, I’m no medical expert but HEY, FUCKWAD, YOU DON’T HAVE PTSD! Nothing degrades the treatment of REAL PTSD victims like all of these half-witted pretenders.

    To me this new type of Stolen Valor is worse than wearing medals they didn’t earn, or calling themselves Iraq veterans when they haven’t deployed out of NY State. There ought to be a specialist at every DVA facility whose only job is to throat-punch these peawits. Hell, i’d do it on a volunteer basis.

  • Har-dee-har-har

    Like two-year-olds;

    I held my thoughts on Mike Kern for more than a year because someone told me he needs help. He doesn’t need help…he needs a playpen and a rattle. ANd this isn’t free speech…it’s grade school playground talk about pee-pee and wee-wee.

    Yeah, I’m not stalking anyone. Concerned people send me this stuff.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • VoteVets leads the charge into obscurity

    VoteVets, in keeping with their tradition of addressing issues which occur, at best, on the periphery of veterans’ issues has joined with a band of like-minded idiots in an $11 million ad buy opposing Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson (Huffington Post link);

    The spots, sponsored by SEIU, VoteVets.org, the League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club, are noteworthy for the extent to which they incorporate the oil spill crisis (and its more indelible images) into a somewhat tongue-in-cheek pitch for reform. The coalition isn’t doing solely negative advertisements. They are also releasing thank-you spots for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) for their support of climate change/energy legislation. Future ads are sure to be in the works, meanwhile, since the trio of organizations has set aside a large sum of money.

    Here’s the ad;

    What does SEIU, the League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club have to do veterans? Lately, the same question could be asked about VoteVets. VV and IVAW have both seemed to notice that the Left doesn’t care much about the wars or veterans so they chase the money to the environment, DADT, Gaza and immigration. to please their MoveOn and ANSWER masters.

    Well, that’s fine with me because the more they slide away from veterans, the less relevant they become – there are already organizations that do all of that shit, so who needs another bunch of vacuous sign wavers?

    Thanks to Operator Dan for the link.