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

Category: Iraq Veterans Against the War

  • Veterans lobbying Congress today

    While the dithererer-in-chief contemplates his inaction, veterans groups are stalking Congress in their offices this morning. Vets for Freedom are meeting as I type this to plan out their day in the halls of Congress in conjunction with Michelle Bachman’s troops.

    Meanwhile, VoteVets’ Executive Director focuses on the really important issues, according to Politico;

    In 2007, Veterans for Freedom supported the surge of U.S. forces in Iraq, and VoteVets.org opposed it, advocating a drawdown from Iraq instead. But for now, the organization is still debating its position on the war in Afghanistan, said VoteVets Chairman Jon Soltz, and it is concentrating its efforts on climate change.

    Don’t forget Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. While Obama fiddles over the war in Afghanistan, Jon Soltz prefers to focus his energies on social issues because whenever he shoots his big mouth off over actual military and veterans’ issues, somehow he always turns out to be wrong. It’s hard to believe that someone who has over three months experience in a combat motor pool could be wrong about military issues, but apparently it happens.

    How many things can you find wrong in this paragraph;

    The [VFF]’s founder, David Bellavia, who in 2008 ran unsuccessfully for Congress in New York, attacked Kerry and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy in 2005 for supporting statements that Iraqis wanted the United States to leave their country, claiming in an article on FrontPageMag.com that the comments were “a political attack on the troops, an attack that is aiding our enemy.” The publication is run by Holocaust denier David Horowitz.

    Bellavia was ONE of the founders of VFF, he didn’t unsuccessfully run for Congress (the party machine asked his to withdraw in favor of a candidate who could fund his own campaign) and I have no idea where the article’s author, Jen deMascio, got the idea that David Horowitz is a Holocaust denier – but I’ve got an email into her to get her source on that specious charge.

    Of course, deMascio, has found a group she likes out of the three she discusses – the new one that I introduced to you the other day “Veterans for Rethinking Afghanistan” and our new friend Jake Giliberto, who just happened to email me after the last piece I did on his. But DeMascio writes;

    “Listen, you’ve got to stop falling in love with the military solution; it’s not feasible,” said Jake Diliberto, one of the group’s founders. “This is a war of poverty and cultural misunderstanding, and it’s an Afghan problem that we don’t have the means or the wisdom to figure out.”

    So what’s Jake’s solution? Just let Afghanistan go back to being a stone age shit hole like we did in 1988. That worked out well for us the first time, didn’t it? Well, the “Rethinking Afghanistan” was started by a filmmaker and we know how much more intelligent filmmakers think they are than the rest of us – so let’s ask Hollywood to formulate our foreign and defense policy instead of generals.

    I like Jake, he’s real friendly and fairly bright, but he’s being used by the peace movement, just like all of those IVAW clowns. The peace movement doesn’t care about them or their opinions beyond the fact that they can wear T-shirts proclaiming the proper message.

  • Huffpo nimroddery

    Some dolt who goes by the name of Ryan Grim did exactly no research or background on this article at Huffington Post about some IVAW schlubs schlepping through the halls of Congress spreading their halfwit opinions.These two IVAW members are new to me and don’t have profiles at IVAW; Brock McIntosh and Jake Diliberto. Neither has a DoD record at Military.com, so they’re probably new civilians. But this Grim guy is a dolt. He writes about Vets for Freedom;

    A new pro-war group calling itself Vets For Freedom plans to begin lobbying Congress Thursday, pushing for an escalation.

    Yeah, IVAW was formed 18 months before VFF, so VFF is a “new…group”. More than likely, Grim didn’t have the gumption or wherewithal to do a bit of googling and find out that VFF isn’t all that new. Just new to his ignorant ass. According to his bio at HuffPo Grim is “the senior congressional correspondent for the Huffington Post”. So much for any real news coming out of HuffPo’s congressional staff.

    So, master researcher Grim begins by taking shots at VFF’s Thomas Cotton with help from Diliberto;

    Diliberto went mano a mano on CNN with VFF rep Thomas Cotton. Cotton had a simple appeal to authority: He’s for whatever General Stanley McChrystal wants — and that’s more troops.

    Before they went on, says Diliberto, he could hear his opponent prepping himself. “He kept repeating, ‘General Stanley McChrystal. General Stanley McChrystal. General Stanley McChrystal.’ ”

    Backers of escalating the eight-year-old war present a variety of complex arguments, but at their heart is Cotton’s mantra: “General Stanley McChrystal. General Stanley McChrystal. General Stanley McChrystal.”

    Yeah, here’s a transcript of the interview. Cotton mentions McChrystal twice – the same number of times the interviewer, John Roberts, mentions McChrystal’s name. But that doesn’t make the pro-victory guys sound as bad as Grim likes them to sound.

    Devon Read explains his child-like understanding of the conflict in Afghanistan;

    The kind of training Afghans don’t need, the soldiers say, is military. We’ve been training young men to fight in Afghanistan for decades, they note, and look where it’s gotten us. An overwhelming number of soldiers trained by the U.S. go on to fight for the Taliban instead, which was itself originally trained by the U.S., notes Read. “So if we train 400,000 soldiers and 200,000 go fight for the Taliban, what have we gained?”

    So, their solution? Just let Afghanistan go back to being an Islamist shit hole like we did in 1988.

    I watched Diliberto on Larry King last night to get his side straight from him since I can’t trust HuffPo. I’m beginning to wonder if Diliberto is even in IVAW. Larry King says he’s a member of “Veterans for Rethinking Afghanistan” which I suspect sprang from the intellectually vacuous, Leftist navel-gazing YouTube video entitled “Rethinking Afghanistan“. So apparently, Grim didn’t even get Diliberto’s affiliation right.

    But anyway, Diliberto’s plan for Afghanistan is to send cops out to arrest and imprison al Qaeda, I guess because no one is doing that already, huh? He claims more troops won’t solve our problem. He went up against that new VFF group’s ED, Pete Hegseth and Pete wore Diliberto’s ass out. I was hoping that Larry King would have video this morning, but alas, none.

    See I don’t get this; when Shinseki said we needed more troops in Iraq, the Left said we needed to listen to Shinseki. When Petreus said we needed more troops in Iraq, the Left said it was fruitless. Now McChrystal says we need more troops in Afghanistan, no one wants to listen to the generals.

    The thing about this Larry King interview is that no one mentioned IVAW, although this DIliberto has some kind of tie to IVAW, nor did they mention that Wes Clark (who was also on the show) is on the board of VoteVets. Funny, huh?

  • James Branum; incompetent boob

    I spent some time on the phone with one of the IVAW refugees last night and he verified some of the stories I’d heard from other places about our favorite lawyer, James Branum (more Branum background at this link). The person I talked to last night isn’t a lawyer, but he advocates for soldiers – free of charge. He’s also an actual combat veteran who left the IVAW because of the International Socialist Organization’s insurgency into IVAW.

    Well, anyway, this guy took up the cause of Fort Bragg’s Echo Platoon, which TSO and I have written about before. It’s a confinement facility for deserters and various malcontents. According to my source, the place was in deplorable condition – not that it concerns me very much how they’re treated – and he decided to help the knuckleheads. With Branum as their lawyer, the Army decided they’d try the members of Echo Platoon this coming April.

    When my source got involved, he was able to convince the Army leadership to give them all Chapter 10s (a dishonorable discharge in lieu of a court martial) which will probably save the tax payers a lot of money. Within minutes of the announcement of the Army’s decision, Branum put a “We won!” message on his Facebook page – as if he had a hand in the process.

    The other story my source told confirmed a story I’d heard some where else – Branum is living with his clients in Killeen, Texas. Apparently he drifts from apartment to apartment and stays rent free. Now, I’m no lawyer, but it seems to me that’s kind of unethical. He even borrowed $800 from one client and when that client got tossed from his apartment for not being able to pay the rent, Branum moved to another client’s apartment in Copperas Cove, TX – down the road from Fort Hood.

    Now, I don’t have much love for the malcontents Branum represents, but it seems to me that no one deserves this kind of treatment. We all know how stupid and easily manipulated privates stationed far from home can be – and Branum, like all of the other camp followers who suck soldiers dry, takes advantage of that and probably influence more misbehavior than there might be otherwise.

    The good news is that the Army is on the verge of banning Branum from military bases, with very limited access. The bad news is that he’s trying to get military members on Fort Hood to protest his banning. I hope that those soldiers realize soon that Branum is using them for his own personal gain. As I said, I don’t have much sympathy for these guys, but they certainly don’t deserve James Branum.

  • Branum protests Fort Lewis

    bridge-dorks

    One of the IVAW refugees sent me this video last night of legal leach James M. Branum, the lawyer responsible for the imprisonment of several high profile deserters and general malcontents.

    The other day, TSO wrote about Branum’s complaints and followed up with a call to the Fort Lewis Public Affairs Office. He found many of Branum’s complaints were baseless.

    In the video, Branum complains that Bishop is being denied his “Sixth Amendment” rights to counsel. Here’s the Sixth Amendment;

    In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

    Yeah, if Branum is finding out all of this stuff that’s happening to Travis inside the Fort Lewis facility, they’re talking. Guards are listening to conversations Travis is having because whoever he’s talking to isn’t considered his counsel.

    Besides, Travis’ counsel is what got him tossed in prison – along with Branum’s silly-assed defense that the Army should provide military members with “conscientious objector training”. In fact, every service member that Branum has represented got the maximum sentence allowable because of Branum’s stupid-ass strategies.

    Travis got a year in prison because he went AWOL the day his unit deployed to Iraq and came back a week later. Whether the former sergeant understood how to apply for CO status or not, he knew going AWOL was illegal – 12 months in prison illegal.

    Also in the video is chucklehead Gerry Condon. Condon is a member of VFP and Project Safe Haven which funnels money to people who’ve absconded from their military duties to Canada, encourages soldiers to go AWOL and is trying to convince the city of Bellingham, Washington to be a safe haven for the knuckleheads Canada boots.

    Condon says that Leo Church “considers himself a conscientious objector”. Yeah, now he does when it makes him a sympathetic character for the Left. Church went AWOL three times, one time for a year, and now complains that the Army didn’t care about him and his family. Maybe if he’d quit going AWOL he could have got some help.

    Condon also says Church has a wife and three kids – Church wasn’t married to the mother of his children – in fact she abandoned them and instead of asking for help from the Army, Church found it much easier to just go AWOL and find another job somewhere else.

    What’s an alligator got to do with anything?

    leo-gator

    It just reminds me that Branum gobbles up money from his clients and, in turn, gives them shit. The word on the street is that some of his clients gave him cash and never heard from him again – he left them hanging. Yeah, he’s as scummy as he looks.

  • What James Branum won’t tell you

    Yesterday, TSO wrote about Travis Bishop’s and Leo Church’s lawyer, James Branum and his claims that the Fort Lewis Regional Detention Facility is Guantanamo-on-Sequalitchew Lake. Like we do here at This Ain’t Hell, TSO followed up with an email to the Fort Lewis PAO to get the answers that Branum won’t provide to the media;

    Q1. James Branum, the civilian lawyer representing Sgt. Travis Bishop and Spc. Leo Church, said the two were put in a 10-day(ish) medical hold when they first arrived. During this hold, they were not allowed to make any phone calls, including to lawyers. Is the medical hold a standard procedure? And are inmates allowed to use the telephone to make calls during this hold?

    Answer. When new prisoners are assigned to the Northwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility (NWJRCF) they are segregated until they are medically cleared to join the general population, which can take 3-10 days. This is for the prisoners’ safety as well as the staff. The prisoners can still make phone calls during the segregation period, and they are visited daily by staff.

    Q2. Branum said the two couldn’t make calls to their lawyer without someone listening because a secure attorney/client room had yet to be completed. Can you confirm if an attorney room (with unmonitored phone lines) has yet to be completed?

    Answer. The NWJRCF was relocating some offices and facilities, and a private room was not readily available for private calls; however, at the time Mr. Branum was not the attorney-of record. Had he been, the prisoner(s) would have been afforded the privileges of a conversation with their attorney and not having it recorded; however, a guard is required to be present during the conversation to ensure additional phone calls are not made. If he was the attorney of record, the RCF would have made the provisions for them to have private phone calls in accordance with their rights.

    Q3. Branum said his clients made calls from elsewhere in the building, and that guards stood close by a violation of attorney/client privilege. If someone is required to make a phone call from elsewhere, are guards still required to remain nearby?

    Answer. The prisoner(s) were allowed to take calls in one of the counselor’s offices, but could not be permitted to remain there unescorted. Since then, a private area has been reestablished for private calls between prisoners and attorneys [of record]. In other words, if it’s a conversation with an attorney, the prisoners will be put in a private room and it’s confidential, as long as it is with the attorney of record.

    Otherwise, phone calls are made at a designated time on the prisoner phone system, and these calls are recorded. If a prisoner needs for some reason to make a call on a phone other than the prisoner phone system, then a guard will remain nearby.

    Q4. Branum said female guards watched his (male) clients use the restroom and shower. Are there rules prohibiting this?

    Answer. In accordance with Army Regulation 190-47, female correctional specialists are allowed to supervise male prisoners. When female correctional specialists walk through the facility, it is possible that they could see a male prisoner in the restroom or shower, but that is not a violation.

    Q5. Branum said his clients were strip-searched in a room that had cameras (though he was unsure if they were running at the time). Is there a standard operating procedure to turn off the cameras during this time?

    Answer. The NWJRCF is continuously monitored by cameras for security and safety reasons. It was recently brought to the staff’s attention that prisoners were being strip searched in the range of cameras. Since all cameras are on sensors that record motion, it is possible that this event may have been recorded. A review of facility procedures was conducted, and strip searches are now being conducted in areas without security cameras. Strip searches are conducted for security reasons and by no means were intended to humiliate the prisoner(s). The allegation that female guards watch strip searches is not true. Females guards are strictly prohibited from conducting frisk searches and strip searches of male prisoners. There are always adequate male personnel on duty to conduct searches.

    Q6. Are the guards MPs, contractors or GS employees?

    Answer. Military Police Correctional Specialists.

    Q7. The prisoners’ local counsel, Legrand Jones, says he was turned away last month at the gate even though he’s their legal representation. He says he’s on some list of folks not let past the gate.

    Answer. Mr. Legrand Jones, a local representative for Mr. Branum, arrived at the Fort Lewis Visitors Center unannounced, without prior notification and without an escort arranged, and attempted to gain access to Fort Lewis but was denied access by the installation security forces. At the time, he was not listed as Bishop or Church’s attorney of record. The security forces contacted the NWJRCF, and out of respect for Travis Bishop’s right to counsel a van was dispatched to make contact with Mr. Jones, but he had departed.

    Legrand Jones is designated as having limited access to Fort Lewis. Because of his prior encounters with law enforcement, he is regarded as a potential threat to good order and discipline on the installation. Nonetheless, as Travis Bishop’s lawyer, he has been afforded access to his client.

    Arrangements have been made to provide him with an escort to meet with Bishop, and he has visited his clients in person and telephonically.

    In closing, we can’t lose sight of the fact that these are prisoners who are serving a sentence. They may be afforded privileges of phone calls, access to mail, visitors, etc., but there is no absolute privacy except during face-to-face prisoner-attorney visits. All of the information in my responses is in accordance with Army policy and is applicable to all prisoners in the Northwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility. The NWJRCF is an accredited facility by the American Corrections Association, and the procedures for running the NWJRCF are comparable to civilian correctional facilities and prisons.

    This morning one of our IVAW refugees sent this YouTube video that Branum took of his laptop while it played a Radio Havana broadcast that expresses sympathy for Travis Bishop from the government of Cuba.

    That’s a real feather in your cap, James. Hugs from Fidel. Next thing you know, you’ll be getting Valentine’s Day cards from Kim Jong Il…ya twit.

  • Military Rape Awareness Week

    The Veterans for Peace have declared this “Military Rape Awareness Week” and announce that they’re so enlightened, that they actually oppose rape in the military.

    Actually, I oppose rape, too. But can anyone doubt that Veterans For Peace oppose rape because they can use it to smear the troops? In, fact, if you heard that this crowd of anti-troops organizations were protesting at a military recruiting station in Times Square, would you really think they were protesting rape?

    In New York City on Tuesday, October 13th members of VFP, Iraq Veterans against the War, Granny Peace Brigade, Codepink: Women for Peace, World Can’t Wait, Artists Response Team, We will not be Silent, and V-Day will gather at the Armed Forces Recruiting Station in Times Square to warn potential women recruits about the alarming rates of sexual assault and rape of women in the military.

    Of course, they really had to dig to find a “scientific” study (link is to a .pdf file) that would back their charge that 1-in-3 women in the military are raped. If you look at the sampling for the “study”, the “researchers” sent out questionnaires to more than 2100 women and less than a third replied. I guess it never entered their pointy heads that women who had suffered rape while in the military would be more likely to reply, huh?

    I don’t doubt that rape is a problem in the military – even if there was only one rape in twenty years, it’s a problem. But 1-in-3 women? Of course, the study further prostitutes itself by pointing out that 75% of the victims never report those rapes. Oh, and did I mention that the report was done in 1996 and the women were in the military in the previous twenty years?

    But no corrupted study will prevent the forces of peace and enlightenment from standing their unwashed asses in front of a recruiting station and accusing recruiters of facilitating rape.

    The other day, we saw a video of Matthis Chiroux who charged the military with “dehumanizing” foreigners. The anti-war crowd “dehumanizes” the entire military by making specious charges like this. This is the 21st Century version of spitting on the troops.

    I remember the anti-war protests ended during the Vietnam War when once, in New York City, construction workers got tired of the hippies protesting one day. The construction workers climbed down off of their steel perches and proceeded to pound the protesters.

    I’m just sayin’….

  • Moscow Matthis on Russia Today

    Matthis Chiroux, our favorite punching bag, is sticking his face out in public again. Russia Today seems to be stalking the IVAW these days and since Adam Kokesh doesn’t see the value in anti-war propaganda anymore, Chiroux is their new darling.

    Chiroux does what Chiroux does best – he uses the language to pump up his image. He calls himself a deserter now – even though he’s just a coward who wouldn’t answer the Army when they called him to duty. He isn’t even as brave as a deserter.

    In the opening scene of him on the porch of the IVAW club house in DC, there are at least two people with him that have since repudiated him as a messenger of veterans.

    He says the Army “dehumanizes” foreigners, yet he does the same thing – he dehumanizes the military like it’s not full of people who are doing their best to defend the interests of the country. He claims that we’re only in Afghanistan for the resources – I guess we’re running out of sand and rocks. He calls the US military a “public relations hoax” that spreads death around the world. Two competing concepts, in my opinion. I’m guessing that the folks in Samoa are pretty happy to see US forces there.

    Chiroux claims that the military taught him to approach all foreigners as potential enemies – I guess that’s why he raped the underaged Filipino girl and why he kicked his German girlfriend to the curb when she ran out of money supporting his useless ass.

    By the way, yet another IVAW refugee sent me this video – one who has never participated here before. I wonder if I have 1700 IVAW members yet.

  • IVAW: October is Afghanistan Awareness Month

    I really don’t know what their point is, but the IVAW has named October Afghanistan Awareness Month. Their stated goal;

    We hope to bury the myth, once-and-for-all, that Afghanistan is “the Good War,” because too many Amercans are still on the fence about it.

    Now is the time to sharpen debate and broaden consensus that the U.S. must get out of Afghanistan.

    That’s funny because even the Executive Director, Jose Vasquez, has said that he wouldn’t have filed conscientious objector paperwork if only the Army had decided to send him to Afghanistan instead of Iraq. I guess he’s had a reawakening since then.

    IVAW chapters around the country also will be holding college teach-ins and other educational events to share what they know about the Afghanistan occupation.

    “…to share what they know”? Based on things like Matthis Chiroux’s six days inside the wire at Bagram? Actual Afghanistan veterans must be few and far between at this point in their organizational history. “What they know” must be limited to things they’ve read in Facebook. In fact, their knowledge base is so narrow these days, Dahr Jamail, journalist to the fakers, is forced to write books with interviews he obtained five or six years ago and reports it as today’s news.

    I’m sure that VFP will be able to find one of their members who served with Rudyard Kipling to round out the analysis, though.