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

Category: Iraq Veterans Against the War

  • Politicizing Veterans Day

    Zedechek sent us a link to this article in the Burlington Free Press this morning about some dick by the name of Jon Hausrath who the mayor of Burlington, VT, Bob Kiss, allowed to speak for him at the local VFW yesterday;

    The event began at 11 a.m. and was organized by VFW Howard Plant Post 782 in Burlington. Post Commander Bob Colby said Wednesday after the event that he and many others were offended by Hausrath’s remarks.

    “He was basically saying that you shouldn’t serve your country; you should avoid being in the service; and there’s agencies and people out there that will help you dodge the draft or whatever,” Colby said. “It wasn’t an honorable position to be a veteran, I guess was pretty much what he was saying.”

    The remarks had no place at a Veterans Day event, Colby said. “It was terrible. It was very bad.”

    When I worked in Burlington, Bernie Sanders was the mayor. Apparently, it’s gone even further downhill there in the 18 years since I left. Mayor Kiss claims that he didn’t know that Jon Hausrath would crap all over a non-politcal event like Veterans Day, but he admits he knows that Hausrath was a local peace activist. Well, what did he think the pinhead say?

    Hausrath stood by his comments late Wednesday. “I was commemorating the conscientious objectors of the past, veterans who have resisted war and pretty much gone unspoken.”

    “Gone unspoken”? WTF does that mean? Did the illiterate bumpkin mean “unheard”? Because that’s a lie – it’s all we’ve heard in the last four decades. And if he meant unspoken, tell when they’ve ever shut up?

    Ask the people who emailed me tips yesterday how I thanked them for their tips but explained that I was keeping politics out of Veterans Day. But, the Vets For Peace can’t have the same consideration with their annual whine fest about not being allowed to march in veterans’ parades with their anti-war banners, and now this draft-dodging, hippie, flatlander mayor lets some other hippie speak for him at a VFW event. From Wikipedia about Kiss;

    Although called up by a draft board for military service, he was granted conscientious objector status and performed alternative service at a hospital in Boston.

    And then joined the Peace Corps. Although Jon Hausrath doesn’t appear in the members list of IVAW, a Google search turned up his participation in their “Combat Paper” project.

    Poor judgment all around. If I were the post commander, and I’m not, I would never invite another Burlington mayor to a Veterans Day or Memorial Day event. At least until the voters of Burlington quit electing flatlanders.

    Zedechek wrote that he saw some IVAW T-shirts in the crowd – I’d guess that Jan Michael Turner was one of them. Turner was the Vermonter who, at Winter Soldier II, tore off us medals and tossed them on the floor and proudly announced that his left hand wasn’t his “choking hand” anymore.

  • Dr Matthis on Fort Hood murders

    Matthis Chiroux, in his typically oblivious way, decided to politicize Veterans Day yesterday and sent emails to everyone he knows (I have the email addresses so I’ll be mailing this link to them) apparently for no other reason than to prove to the world that he’s a blowhard and he thinks he’s a lot smarter than the rest of us think of him (he also posted it on the IVAW website). Of course, he uses the opportunity to repeat his claim that he has PTSD from hearing war stories;

    We military few are carrying a burden larger than most in this country would care to comprehend. Blood has been spilt, and the only solution we’re given is more spilt blood. So we kill, like they do in combat, like they did in Fort Carson, Fort Benning, Fort Bragg, Fort Hood…Oklahoma City.

    We kill ourselves, like we do on every base, in every state, in my bedroom…all too close. I was called up for Iraq. Five years I survived to be discharged and recalled. While I never deployed, I was a journalist. I heard stories.

    As Maj. Hassan heard stories. The kinds of which nightmares are made of and then medicated. If they were like the ones I heard, memories have rubbed off on Maj. Hassan of murder, torture, racism, rabid aggression, sexual deviance, mutilation, brutalization and dehumanization.

    So we can expect that Chiroux will be knocking on the door of some poor overworked VA counselor pestering him about the horror…the horror of his six days (give or take) at the Bagram Air Base Baskin-Robbins.

    Notice how he says “we” like he’s one of us combat veterans and not a chickenshit coward who didn’t want to disrupt his life just because he promised?

    Oh, and he’s being persecuted like Black slaves;

    I chose the path of outright resistance. I did not end my life. I reclaimed it and refused deployment to Iraq. I was found guilty of misconduct, but I know from experience how often the Army’s dead wrong, as is our nation. Resisting slavery was once illegal too.

    See, how it all comes back to Matthis and how brave he thinks he is? And so what if Hasan yelled Allahu Akbar – everybody in the movies shouts stuff before they shoot, too. Well, Chiroux doesn’t say that, but that’s the only place he’s ever seen anyone shoot anyone else – in movies.

    But the usual suspects are asserting that it’s not the war, the guns, or the Army’s brand of illness and callousness at fault here. It’s Islam and the terrorists, they say, while their ethnocentricity goes unchecked by good people and knowledgeable veterans.

    So he screamed Allahu Akbar before he pulled the trigger. Ever hear what Soldiers scream in combat? It’s a combination of profane, blood-lustful jargon and cries for reassurance from the almighty. “Ain’t no such thing as an atheist in a fox-hole,” I’ve heard. What about Christians behind mass murder?

    They happen in Iraq and Afghanistan all the time. There’s a million dead, and they didn’t all kill themselves. Knowledge of this is what drove Maj. Hassan to the realization that our wars are genocidal. Lack of legal recourse is what drove him to violent madness, as it nearly did me.

    A lack of legal recourse? How many have walked away from this war so far? And he doesn’t have legal recourse. Chiroux wants everyone in the military to be a chickenshit coward like him amd walk away when the going gets too tough…or uncomfortable;

    Soldiers must be given the right to walk away as Maj. Hassan tried to do so many times. If half the military quits, so be it. We’ll rest assured knowing our truly volunteer force is getting twice the care and attention. But the first step in repairing trauma is curtailing the trauma, a luxury not afforded to our troops, many on their third and fourth tours. What better way to put needless war in check?

    Well, who better to address Chiroux than Chiroux the Elder, his father who emailed me this;

    Many of you have received an email from my son, Matthis Chiroux, titled “VET DAY OP ED: The violence within is the Veteran Without”. Matthis has taken the opportunity to write an opinion piece on the trajedy at Ft. Hood which reads more about himself than the gunman and murders that took place. I do not believe my son has any personal experience of PTSD nor does he have any formal training on PTSD, let alone knowledge of the facts surrounding the gunman and events at Ft. Hood beyond that which we all have access to through the media. Use of this tragedy to push his own point of view and dramatization of his own experience is inappropriate. As are all of us I am deeply troubled by the events that took place at Ft. Hood and in general the heavy burden carried by our Iraq and Afghanistan deployed forces and veterans and the innocent caught in the middle around the world. We Americans enjoy the right of free speech and we also enjoy the right to rebuke abuse of that right and I do so here. On behalf of my family I apologize for my son to any and all offended by his use of other’s tragedy for his own agenda. Most Humbly, Dr. Robert C. Chiroux

    And he sent me this in response to an interview Chiroux did about the Fort Hood tragedy;

    Recently Matthis Chiroux made the following comments to the media concerning the massacre at Ft. Hood: “There’s a lot more of this out there, potentially. Anyone coming back from war with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) could do the same thing,” said Matthis Chiroux, a former U.S. army sergeant who refused to go to Iraq. “We’re talking about nightmares yet unseen here.”

    To my knowledge,Matthis, a member of the Board of Directors of the IVAW, and thus a default spokesman for that oraganization, has absolutely no experience with PTSD and absolutely no formal training regarding PTSD.

    Matthis served for 5 years as a journalist in the U.S. Army, entirely at Camp Zama in Tokyo and Heidelberg, Germany, except for a short stint with the Marines to Palawan (Matthis’ own description at the time) that somehow morphed into an excursion with his “Army buddies” and a “felt-like” rape of a local and a one week trip to Kabul where he recounted a local boy stepping out into the street and pointing a boot at the Humvee he was in and just for a moment the occupants thought it was a weapon. Other than that I cannot recall anything that would qualify as a PTSD inducing experience.

    Granted Matthis may feel his “abuse” by his father was a source for PTSD but in fact Matthis was serious trouble and very manipulative as a child and when his father resorted to corporal punishment Matthis convinced his youth pastor to report it to the local child welfare office. The ensuing investigation totally exonerated his father, including the pastor of the church weighing in favor of the father. That did not stop Matthis from claiming abuse in his public confessional. If anyone has experienced abuse it has been his entire family and some of his fellow IVAW members, past & present. And I am still puzzled by his confession that he came from a “…poor, white southern family”. Matthis’ mother’s family is worth well in excess of 7 figures and his father has a Ph.D. The point being I respect the IVAW’s right to “peacefully” protest the war but with absolutely no basis for an opinion on PTSD one of your directors is grandstanding over the bodies of 13 murdered U.S. soldiers and the IVAW should have the good sense to reign him in and muzzle him or publically censure him if he does not comply.

    Sometimes these posts just write themselves.

    Thanks to Dr. Chiroux and ArmyVet11B for the links.

  • Support veterans on Veterans Day

    Dear supporter

    We are asking you to make a donation on veterans day to Iraq Veterans Against the War. Not much thought is given to the actual veterans who have been to war on veterans day but we must realize that they are a community that has been deeply scared by war. These scars can not always be seen but they are always there and IVAW is working to empower veterans and GIs to stand up to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from within the military. So on veterans day please go to [our gay-ass website] and make a donation to a veterans group that is leading veterans!

    Geoff [Stolen Valor] Millard
    Chair
    [Wearing] Iraq Veterans [T-Shirts] Against the War
    National Board Of Directors

    Leading veterans? When? Where? It’s absolutely obscene that IVAW think they’re empowering veterans by undermining the wars “from within the military”. It’s even more obscene that Geoff Millard, the deserter and malingerer, uses a day set aside to honor veterans’ service to the nation to raise money for his inept band of pretenders. Millard couldn’t even bring his lame ass to use caps for Veterans Day in his fund raising letter.

  • Aaron Glantz; impervious to facts

    The leftist blogs are dragging out all of the PTSD crap the can find in reaction to last week’s shootings at Fort Hood. That’s how I found this interview from about six months ago by Aaron Glantz.

    Aaron Glantz calls himself a journalist, and I suppose he is, marginally in that the Left gives him a megaphone to broadcast his drivel. He’s written wildly successful books like “How America Lost Iraq”, “Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan, Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations” and lately “The War Comes Home; Washington’s War Against Veterans“.

    Some of the IVAW refugees tell me that he screwed them out of the money he promised them for their stories for the Winter Soldiers book, so that’s how I approached this interview he did on this Progressive.org radio interview; this interview he did on this Progressive.org radio interview;

    He begins by proving that he can’t count. He tells how he spent three years off and on in Iraq between March 2003 and February 2005. I dunno how he squeezed 3 years into 24 months, but apparently if you count 2003, 2004 and 2005 that makes three years, huh?

    The he goes into counting PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury cases in the military – he’s says there’s 300,000 TBIs and 300,000 PTSD cases in the military since 2003. Funny, but in May 2008, there were 40,000 PTSD cases across all of the services since 2003. So unless there have been 260,000 new PTSD cases in the last year or so, Glantz is lying. As for TBIs – that right wing propaganda outlet TruthOut says there were 10,000 at the end of 2008 across all of the services.

    In the interview, Glantz says that the Bush Administration hid these 600,000 casualties – both of the links above are to TruthOut, hardly a Bush mouthpiece. He says “the current administration” (he can’t seem to call it the Obama Administration as easily as he named the Bush Administration, for some reason) is continuing the practice.

    Then he goes on to recount how he was almost killed in Iraq because US soldiers target journalists. He said he was stopped by a soldier from “Alabama – possibly Mississippi” whose helmet was too big for his head…and, oh…he was a really skinny and stupid-looking redneck who couldn’t tell Glantz wasn’t an Iraqi because Glantz has Mediterranean features. because all of our troops are stupid, racist rednecks – is it any wonder they all have PTSD when they have to deal with idiots like Glantz as well as al Qaeda.

    Then, even though his books are about the war in Iraq, he says he avoided US troops (because they were killing more journalists than al Qaeda). How can he write a book about our war in Iraq if he avoided US troops…for three years compressed into two?

    Well, Aaron, since the first half of your interview was bullshit, how can I believe the rest of it? If you’re interested, I’ve seen all of Glantz’ books in the bargain bin at Amazon – shipping will cost you more than the books.

  • (IV)AW-TX weighs in on Fort Hood shootings

    Our reportage on the Fort Hood shootings wouldn’t complete if we excluded the (IV)AW view. The Under the Hood Cafe crowd takes Doug Zachary‘s advice and uses the incident as an excuse to raise money – and completely ignore the facts of the shooter;

    under-the-hood-hasan

    Now, the part that I would point out as patently false is this;

    …this shooting does not come as a shock. Eight years of senseless wars have taken a huge toll on our troops and their families. It’s time to admit that the wars in southwest Asia are in no one’s best interests. Bring the troops home now!

    The Army has also repeatedly demonstrated that it is more interested in making soldiers “deployable” than it is in helping them fully recover from PTSD and other mental health issues. This often leaves soldiers with few options other than to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol.

    Yes, we’re not shocked because we’ve always fully expected that a doctor who had never been to the war, who didn’t “self-medicate with drugs and alcohol” would go berserk and it’s Bush’s fault. None of those soldiers who went to the war, have real PTSD as a result have gone berserk and shot scores of other soldiers – but we expected this. That’s what happens when you let Doug Zachary write your press releases. You’re all willing to perpetuate the “vet as a lunatic” image for own little selfish purposes – irrespective of the facts.

    Of course, Texas’ own Carl Webb who sees racism behind every scrub oak doesn’t blame Hasan either – it’s you white people (who by the way persecute poor Carl Webb, who also fully supports Hasan’s murder of American soldiers as a means of resistance);

    webb-hasan

    Now, I know of one instance of Hasan being persecuted a few months back, but it was off-base and being handled by local authorities.

    John Van de Walker, allegedly keyed Hasan’s car and also removed and tore up a bumper sticker that read “Allah is Love.” Thompson said Van de Walker had been in Iraq and was upset to learn that Hasan was Muslim.

    A report filed with Killeen police on Aug. 16 indicates that Hasan’s vehicle, a 2006 Honda Civic, had been scratched by an unknown object causing an estimated $1,000 worth of damage. The report indicates that Van de Walker, 30, was arrested on Oct. 21 and charged with criminal mischief. The matter has been referred for prosecution, according to the report.

    It certainly doesn’t explain why Hasan went on-base and shot 40 people. But, then Carl Webb likes to blame all of his problems on racism, too. He called the IVAW decision to curb his verbal support of violent action against soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan racist, too. He tried to call us racists. It was probably racist of the Texas National Guard to expect him to deploy with them. TXNG sure dodged that bullet.

  • Making excuses

    So now we’re left to clean up behind Nidal Hasan – and everybody wants to be an expert. He did it because he is an Arab, he did it because the Army trained him to do it, he did it because of his long hours of listening to disturbing stories from his patients, he did it because George Bush destroyed the military, he did it because Barack Obama destroyed the military.

    The Washington Post calls him a devout Muslim.

    He prayed every day at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, a devout Muslim who, despite asking to be discharged from the U.S. Army, was on the eve of his first deployment to war.

    His aunt told the Post that he was picked upon by his peers for his ethnicity;

    In an interview, his aunt, Noel Hasan of Falls Church, said he had endured name-calling and harassment about his Muslim faith for years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and had sought for several years to be discharged from the military.

    CAIR rushed out a statement that they condemn Hasan’s crime;

    A prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy group tonight condemned an attack on Fort Hood military base in Texas that left at least 12 people dead.

    In a statement, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said:

    “We condemn this cowardly attack in the strongest terms possible and ask that the perpetrators be punished to the full extent of the law. No religious or political ideology could ever justify or excuse such wanton and indiscriminate violence. The attack was particularly heinous in that it targeted the all-volunteer army that protects our nation. American Muslims stand with our fellow citizens in offering both prayers for the victims and sincere condolences to the families of those killed or injured.”

    Veterans with PTSD are more than willing to use this case to prove their own short fuses and the media is more than willing to make it about Hasan being a veteran – more than they’re willing to make it about him being a Muslim (Thanks to Just A Grunt for the video);

    ADDED: One of those studs at Fort Bragg sent us a link to the transcript if you can’t watch the video.

    The IVAW offers “heartfelt condolences” even though until just a few weeks ago, they harbored members who publicly encouraged these types of attacks (Carl Webb). Doug Zachary, a VVAW/VFP member says those murdered soldiers had it coming and that Hasan didn’t kill enough of his fellow soldiers. Dahr Jamail blames the military itself.

    Here’s a theory I have, that won’t be very popular; Hasan was/is a cheesy pogue pussy. He liked the amenities of being stationed near his home and living in the big city with a Major’s salary and suddenly he found himself at nasty-ass Fort Hood (I spent two years there and every minute trying to leave) looking at a deployment to a nastier place.

    I don’t think he did it because of his faith (but he’ll use it as an excuse), or because of PTSD (ditto). The Army doesn’t train their psychiatrists to shoot rooms full of people, so it’s not the Army’s fault. It’s this spoiled little rich kid (by the way, he ignored his father’s advice when he joined the Army – listen to your father), who couldn’t stand the thought of being uncomfortable.

    What? Too simple? No room for anyone to use him as their poster boy?

    Exactly.

  • Doug Zachary smells a fund raising opportunity

    Doug Zachary is another one of those Vietnam Veterans Against the War who never went to Vietnam – he got booted from the Marines for being a derelict. Now he’s an IVAW straphanger – he hangs out where he smells money. Here’s the email he sent out to friends to raise money for “Under the Hood Cafe”, the anti-war coffee house in Killeeen, TX outside the Fort Hood gate;

    Really … ?!? … you don’t say!

    There has always been “something very bad afoot at Fort Hood”.

    Fort Hood is a place where people are taught to kill and to believe in killing.

    In the context of what Ft Hood has meant to innocent people around the planet, this is no mass killing.

    Donate to Under the Hood, a place where such brainwashing is deconstructed.

    doug

    Yeah, the psychiatrist who did the killing wasn’t trained by the Army to kill, so what’s your point, Doug? Are you saying that those folks who were shot deserved it? That’s how it reads to me.

  • Milwaukee disses Geezers for Sitting on Our Hands

    Every year, the Geezers for Sitting on Our Hands (in some circles known as Veterans For Peace) get mad because someone won’t let them march in a local parade on Veterans Day. This year it’s Milwaukee;

    Members of Veterans for Peace have again been barred from participation in Milwaukee’s Veterans Day Parade.

    Although the parade website says the event is “Honoring all Americans who have served,” it has refused to allow Veterans for Peace members – many of whom are combat veterans with Purple Hearts – from taking part in the observance on Saturday, Nov. 7.

    The parade committee said Veterans for Peace is “a politically motivated group,” and therefore not welcome to be in the parade.

    So much for “honoring all Americans who have served.”

    Yeah, I’m heartbroken. This is from the Milwaukee Veterans For Peace website (excuse the all caps – they’re a rowdy bunch, apparently);

    MILWAUKEE VFP MEMBERS PLEDGE TO RESTRAIN OUR GOVERNMENT FROM USING WAR AS A FOREIGN POLICY. THROUGH OUR COLLECTIVE EXPERIENCE WE SEEK TO BRING A PUBLIC AWARENESS OF THE REAL COSTS OF WAR. WITH JUSTICE AND HUMAN COMPASSION WE CAN LEARN TO LIVE IN A RESPONSIBLE AND NON-DESTRUCTIVE MANNER WITH OUR PLANET. OUR PURPOSE, GOALS AND WAY OF LIFE ARE DEDICATED TO ACHIEVING THIS.

    Now what that says to me is that they are necessarily a group that honors veterans, but rather a group of (dubious) veterans who want to use that status for political gain. Is that what Veterans Day is all about?

    According to reports, Chairman of the Milwaukee Veterans Day Committee, David Drent, answered VFP’s application for participation with this;

    “There is no doubt that your organization is a politically motivated group. One visit to the organization’s website makes your views perfectly clear.

    “We don’t make judgment on your purpose. End the war or escalate it carries the same weight with the board. A political statement is being made and there is no room in the parade for it.”

    “We thank you for your service in our Armed Forces, but our goal has always been to have a day of honor that is 100% politically free.”

    So VFP is outraged that other veterans groups are allowed to participate;

    Yet the Veterans of Foreign Wars is welcome to march in the parade, even though its commander, Thomas Tradewell of Sussex, WI, recently called on President Obama to “heed the assessment and advice of his military leaders” and send 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan, suggesting that as commander-in-chief Obama’s job is to do what the generals recommend.

    And politicians, some of whom are not even veterans, are invited to participate in the parade.

    Apparently the parade committee doesn’t consider pro-escalation positions or even politicians to be “political.” Veterans for Peace is in a class by itself.

    Yes, VFP is in a class by itself in this case. And that bonehead response proves it. The VFW commander doesn’t support the troops for political reasons – only VFP does that. The other VSOs that are participating in the parade support the troops using political means.

    VFP uses troops to support their politics. See the difference, Gomer?

    In addition to the official Veterans Day parade, a peace-focused event is being organized by Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War and Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Organizers say it will revive the traditional spirit of Veterans Day and the Armistice Day celebrations following World War I. The event will be held at 7 p.m. Nov. 11 in the City Hall Rotunda.

    Then what the hell are you bitching about?