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

Category: Iraq Veterans Against the War

  • PV2 Christopher Munoz: War? I could go to war?

    KXXV-TV reports that a young soldier who just enlisted this year is filing for Conscientious Objector status days before his unit is scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan;

    Munoz applied for a C.O. discharge on June 25, 2013, but the process can take anywhere from 6 to 8 months to complete.

    Munoz is scheduled to deploy within the next week even though he has made it clear to his commanders that he is not willing to go to war.

    Munoz’s wife, Breanna, says that he joined the Army to provide for his family including his 3-year-old daughter, Julissa, and that after his basic training ended in April, his beliefs and attitude toward the idea of being in combat completely changed.

    “After he got out of basic, once I was able to start talking to him again, he just seemed really different and had a different attitude about the army and everything versus when he went in, and, once he got here, we found out that he was going to be deployed and everything just kind of got more real, and he just felt like he couldn’t do it,” Breanna said.

    First of all, reporter people, there is no Private Second Class rank in the Army. You’d think a journalist in an Army town would know that. Yeah, and who would have thought that joining the Army in 2013 would result in a deployment to war?

    Munoz is being supported by multiple war-resistant groups, and an online petition has been set up to show him support with that petition currently having 164 signatures.

    Oh, yeah, Under the Hood found a cause…finally.

    It is important for his command to understand that people support his freedom of conscience.

    Call me cynical, but if a couple of months in BCT and AIT didn’t turn him against the war, but a few months with his wife did, it’s probably not his conscience that’s bothering him. Yeah, I’m pretty sure the Army doesn’t want the marshmallow any more, either. But let’s call it like it is.

    The good news is that he may end up in jail – guess who is representing him;

    “If deployed, PV2 Munoz will be at significant risk for harassment by his fellow soldiers since he will effectively be a ‘dead weight’ on the unit. Despite these very real risks, PV2 Munoz’s command has said that a delay of his deployment will not be considered,” said James M. Branum, an attorney who represents PV2 Munoz.

    Yeah, Branum manages to get every single one of his clients locked up, so there is hope for justice.

  • Graham Clumpner; phony Ranger who tossed medals had no medals

    We wrote about Graham Clumpner last year when he was with a group of IVAW hangers-on when they went to Chicago to protest something or other, I’m sure they didn’t even know;

    “I wanted so badly to believe in the idea of America. I wanted to believe that every war we ever fought, we won; that we were always just; that we were always doing the right thing, and trying to help, and save, and protect,” said former Army Ranger Graham Clumpner, who was deployed twice to Afghanistan. “And I bought into it hook, line, and sinker.”

    Clumpner was given a Global War on Terrorism Service Award for his service fighting against the Taliban.

    He said he was proud to join the military, but grew disillusioned, and ashamed of how operations were carried out.

    “We’d go into people’s houses and go through literally all of their things, open up every single drawer and dump stuff on the ground, push things over, kick things over, and … make absolutely no effort to apologize, or pay people, or explain,” Clumpner said. “That process, for me, was the most traumatizing.”

    Clumpner said he’s not happy with how troops were treated when they returned home, or how troops were trained to interact with native Afghans on the ground.

    Um, no. Any medals that Clumpner tossed weren’t his because according to the Army, he doesn’t have any medals. And since he doesn’t even have service medals, we have to assume he wasn’t deployed either. There isn’t even a National Defense Service Medal only a pair of jump wings. I heard from a fairly reliable source that Clumpner was supposed to deploy and refused which is probably why they stripped him of his service medals. Notice how his records say that he was supposed to be discharged in 2010, but he was actually discharged in 2007.

    Graham Clumpner FOIA

    For shits and grins, here’s one of his tales that he told to the Inter Press Service about his pretend deployment;

    Graham Clumpner, 27, is an ex Army Ranger who served in eastern Afghanistan. In February 2005 after a night raid in a village mistakenly stretched until dawn, Clumpner’s humvee was rocketed, and flipped. He was hurled into a wall and blacked out for what he describes as over ten minutes. When he regained consciousness he drove back to the base. “It was just actions, I was doing what I was told,” he says. He finished the remaining two months of his rotation.

    Clumpner says his company was asked to fill out forms evaluating their mental health before they returned to the U.S. He didn’t know what TBI was. “We were told if we replied ‘yes’ to the question, ‘are you angry?’ we would be kept in country,” he says. All the troops he was with marked ‘no’.

    Clumpner suffered short-term memory loss, mood swings, and depression. He is grateful for the understanding of his college professors, which enabled him to graduate college.

    He also credits Iraqi Veterans Against the War (IVAW), which provided him a strong support network. “We have developed good ways to keep people alive,” he says. “But when you get back to the U.S. there is no rehabilitation, especially as you are an individual, and removed from your unit.”

    IVAW – saving fake soldiers from their imaginary battles since 2006. His HMMV was rocketed and flipped, but he still drove back to base. What did he drive? I guess in an imaginary battle, you can imaginary fix your rocketed vehicle enough to imaginary drive it back to your imaginary base.

    Thanks to Mary for riding herd on this one for more than a year. Yes, sometimes it takes that long to get these FOIAs back.

  • Kokesh cancels march on DC; wants to overthrow the government

    DSC_0108

    Yeah, shocker isn’t it. There’s a press release from Adam Kokesh announcing that he’s canceling his armed march on DC on July 4th. Instead he wants his minions to march on their State Capitols. He writes from his jail cell in Philadelphia where he was arrested for resisting arrest at a pot rally;

    “A new American revolution is long overdue. This revolution has been brewing in the hearts and minds of the people for many years, but this Independence Day, it shall take a new form as the American Revolutionary Army will march on each state capital to demand that the governors of these 50 states immediately initiate the process of an orderly dissolution of the federal government through secession and reclamation of federally held property. Should one whole year from this July 4th pass while the crimes of this government are allowed to continue, we may have passed the point at which non-violent revolution becomes impossible.

    “The time to sit idly by has passed. To remain neutral is to be complicit, just doing your job is not an excuse, and the line in the sand has been drawn between the people, and the criminals in Washington, D.C. While some timid souls will say that it is too early, that we can solve this problem through democratic means provided by government, that current levels of taxation are reasonable for the services provided, and that the crimes of this government are merely a tolerable nuisance, it may already be too late.

    “While there is risk in drastic action, the greater danger lies in allowing this government to continue unchallenged. So if you are content with the status quo, stay home, get fat, watch the fireworks from a safe distance, and allow this Independence Day to pass like any other. But if you see as we see, and feel as we feel, we will see you on the front lines of freedom on July 4th, 2013 for this, The Final American Revolution.”

    Signed, Adam Kokesh, May 23, 2013 from a cage in the Philadelphia federal prison.

    So, I’m not shocked that Kokesh canceled the march because people on both sides, Hell, all sides, were thinking he was nutty, so I guess he figures now that he can inspire crackpots across the country to get themselves arrested while he hides out somewhere.

    Oh, yeah, you IVAW-types can whine that I’m using a picture of Kokesh from his IVAW days, but I’ve never heard Kokesh say that he left IVAW, I haven’t heard IVAW disavow any of his latest political stunts. I watched one IVAW member get all screwed up over guns today n Facebook when Kokesh was mentioned, but it isn’t about guns – most gun-owners have condemned his locked-and-loaded march on DC – it’s all about Kokesh. IVAW created him, they should take responsibility for him.

  • Where’s Adam?

    Chief Tango sent us this video of Adam Kokesh’s arrest yesterday in Philadelphia at the pot rally. It appears that someone who is being arrested with Adam tries to stuff something in Adam’s clothes. Of course, the hippies say he’s a police spy. I think he’s just another hippie trying to get rid of his stash, but, whatever;

    But Carolyn sends us another video in which Alex Jones thinks that the Feds have “disappeared” Kokesh;

    Just having Alex Jones on Kokesh’s side makes it all suspicious, and knowing Kokesh like I do, it’s probably a big attention grab by that crowd. Jones even works the Bilderbergs into the scheme, and he says that the government is going to “disappear” us all. And, by the way, Alex, yes, I don’t HAVE to support Kokesh on this.

    Me? I’m stocking up on tin foil.

  • Police chief threatens to arrest Kokesh & Co.

    DSC_0108

    The other day, we talked about IVAW’s Adam Kokesh and his plan to march on DC with a mob who will, reportedly cross the bridge from Virginia into the District of Columbia with loaded weapons to protest the District’s gun laws. Yeah, it’s a bad idea…really bad. But the District’s police chief, Kathy Lanier has promised that she will lock them up says the Washington Times;

    On Tuesday, Chief Lanier said the police department has not been in contact with Mr. Kokesh or other organizers but supported coordination between the group and law enforcement in order to educate protesters about the laws they would be breaking and the punishment they could face.

    “We’ll make sure that they understand that if they want to pass through the District of Columbia with firearms, as long as they’re in compliance with the firearms laws for transportation of firearms through the District, we’re all for it. But passing into the District of Columbia with loaded firearms is a violation of the law, and we’ll have to treat it as such,” she said.

    According to the Washington Post, 2500 people have signed up on Kokesh’s Facebook page for the march, but Kokesh’s minions are notoriously bold until they have to put their feet on the ground. A “Vets for Ron Paul” march he organized a few years back had thousands of people promise to show up but he had barely 400 make it to DC.

    As I predicted in the initial post, the DC police plan to meet the armed protesters at the bridge from Arlington Cemetery in the district. Another flaw in Kokesh’s plan, since they plan to begin their march at Arlington National Cemetery, I’m pretty sure that since it’s federal property, the Park Police at Arlington aren’t going to let them open carry guns there either.

    As you can imagine, since we’re the largest repository of Kokesh documentation on the internet, we’ve been a pretty popular destination since the story hit the national press. Adam introduces me as his stalker, but I’ve always known him to be a publicity hound. He even emails links to stuff that he wants us to talk about, but I get email from Jesse MacBeth, too, so, I’m kinda like the idiot-whisperer. I’m pretty sure my readership is smarter than to make a pointless statement like Kokesh is trying to do.

    As I’ve said before, Kokesh has been arrested countless times in DC and each time he’s walked away for those arrests without a record, but this time, I’m pretty sure the District will punish the shit out of him and anyone with him simply because they’re carrying loaded weapons. The district charges a $5000 fine for anyone improperly armed in the district. You can also be imprisoned for five years, so they ain’t goofin’. And I don’t think this plan is going to end up good for anyone, even those of us who aren’t going to be there.

  • IVAW’s Jorge Gonzalez; director of Coffee Strong

    Yeah, I haven’t done much with IVAW lately, but this one is just too good to ignore. A week or so ago, I found this. See, Jorge Gonzalez was a director of Coffee Strong, the “GI Coffee House” near Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State. They provide a place for soldiers to sit around and bitch about how the military sucks over free coffee. They also organize protests there, well, as much as those clusters of hippies can be organized. Gonzalez is a regular on local media as well as crap hippie radio and video shows like Democracy Now! and the International Socialist organization.

    Jorge Gonzalez Democracy Now

    Jorge Gonzalez pepper spray

    I don’t know about his career in the military, but I do know a little bit about what he’s done since he got out;

    Jorge Gonzalez - Coffee Strong

    It seems that he was convicted of lewd or lascivious exhibition with a minor under 16 years old when he was thirty years old. Florida law describes the offense like this;

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  • Jane Fonda’s “Unforgivable Mistake”

    Someone dropped off a link to our Facebook page to an idiot on another idiot’s TV show. Apparently, Jane Fonda thinks that she can still make up for what she did in Vietnam in 1972 when she supplied the North Vietnamese with some valuable propaganda footage of her visit there. Now, her story is that she was tired and didn’t realize what she was doing when she sat on the anti-aircraft gun and posed smiling and laughing with the NVA soldiers. She hints that she may have been “set up” – whatever that means. Then when she was walking away from the publicity photos she gasped “What did I do?” Yeah, I believe that story just like all of the other crap she’s said in the past.

    She calls it an “unforgivable mistake” and, ya know what? I don’t know anyone who has forgiven her, so she gets her wish. Obviously, she’s trying to be forgiven for those things she did so long ago, but if it’s “unforgivable”, I guess we can’t.

    In the 4 minute video linked above, she claims that she met some Vietnam veterans in 1988 and they talked about their feelings and she came away with a whole new perspective. I don’t know if they joined hands and sang Kum-Bay-Yah or not, but it sounds from the interview they almost reached that point. From News Max;

    “What I learned,” she said, “we have to listen to each other, even when we don’t agree, even when we think we hate each other. We have to listen to each other’s narratives, not interrupt defensively or with hostility, but really try to open our hearts and listen with empathy.”

    Yeah, well, it’s just too damn bad that she didn’t learn that 40 years ago. I don’t believe her lyin’ talkin’ ass anyway. In 2009, we caught her raising money for IVAW. We caught her hosting “upside down ribbons” Marine Captain Marlissa Grogan while Grogan perpetuated the myth that the troops are a bunch of criminals who have no choice but go to war.

    Yeah, that was all four years ago, but does anyone really believe that Hanoi Jane has changed since then? After all of these decades? The lesson here, kids, is that if you don’t want something to follow you around for the rest of your life, think before you act. It’s only fun today, if it’ll still be fun for you tomorrow.

    The 4-minute video is at the first link above, but I won’t think any less of you if you don’t watch it. I only did it because about 1% of you click the ads.

  • IVAW takes hard Left turn into obscurity

    We haven’t paid much attention to the IVAW lately, mostly because they were behaving themselves. Their focus was on returning veterans and healthcare and most of their really dangerous members were gone. And that Abdo dude who was planning to blow up parts of Killeen, Texas had sent a bunch of them into hiding. Or at least chased them off the front pages of local rags across the country. I’m sure there’s still a link between IVAW, Under the Hood Cafe and Abdo, and I’m still looking.

    But a few days ago, they decided to retool the IVAW. Here’s what they used to think they stood for;

    IVAW Old values

    Those were the things they thought were important. Until the other day when they took a vote to value these things instead;

    IVAW Values

    Notice that their values have changed to exclude the word “veterans” anywhere. Well until the end of the document;

    IVAW Mission

    So they voted to become exactly what I’ve said they were all along – a bunch of people wearing T-shirts that proclaim them as “veterans” to march in front of the hippies to lend the Code Pink, MoveOn, ANSWER folks a measure of the moral authority that other veterans have earned since the Vietnam War. Mannequins would do an equally adequate job. From all reports, despite their claims of over a thousand members, they had 50 total votes for this march left. Not all of their membership is happy about the direction that the International Socialist Organization has taken them;
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