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

Category: Iraq Veterans Against the War

  • Imagine my surprise

    Several weeks ago I wrote about the IVAW Convention and the vote to defeat a measure that would condemn members who incited violence against our troops. the actual wording went like this;

    Therefore be it hereby resolved that Iraq Veterans Against the War only uses, supports or endorses, non-violent and peaceful actions in seeking to accomplish its goals of ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; providing proper medical care to all returning veterans and repairing the damage done by the occupations.

    Additionally be it resolved that any member found promoting violence in pursuit of the goals of this organization, will be subject to immediate discipline, including the termination of his or her membership, in accordance with the procedures outlined in the policies governing termination of memberships.

    Back in August, that resolution was defeated among the membership and the organization was widely criticized not only by the staff and audience here at This Ain’t Hell, but also by their own membership. Many long time members left the organization because they refused to separate themselves from the more extreme elements who actually not only didn’t support the war, but supported the enemy’s goals as well.

    Well, imagine my surprise when I discovered this morning, from Army Sergeant, that the first vote was in error and now suddenly, the resolution has passed. Yes, that’s correct, it took two months to recount 79 votes – I guess they recounted one vote every day in order to keep it accurate.

    So now that the votes have miraculously cured one of the ills of IVAW, all 1700 of you can rest easy and remain in the organization. Jose Vasquez is coming by your house personally to renew your subscription to the Skittles-of-the-Month Club and to feed your unicorn.

    Unless, of course, you think that the vote was changed this week just to end the hemorrhaging of the membership.

    I’m just sayin’….

  • The irony of IVAW (Updated)

    The IRAQ VETERANS Against the War issued a press release last week about their opposition to increasing troop strength in Afghanistan. In the press release, they quoted two members, Jose Vasquez, the Executive Director and Donna Perdue. Vasquez’ quote;

    “We’re entering our seventh year of war in Afghanistan,” said Jose Vasquez, IVAW’s executive director. “Casualties among the Afghan people are rising while U.S. and Coalition forces are facing their deadliest year since the invasion. This war dehumanizes the Afghan people and denies them their right to self-determination. We have members who serve in Iraq and in Afghanistan and we believe it’s time for them all to come home.”

    And Perdue’s quote;

    IVAW member Donna Perdue said she believes the war in Afghanistan is threatening our national security.

    “The war becomes larger and more destructive, the number of necessary American forces will further increase, and the cycle will continue to rage on,” said Perdue. “This cycle will continue to strain the struggling economy and the already over-taxed military. It’s imperative that the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan end.”

    The irony, of course, is that neither of the members have been to the war on terror. We’ve already discussed Jose Vasquez a 14-year veteran who suddenly became a conscientious objector when he had to go to war. So who is the Perdue chick? Here’s her profile at IVAW;

    perdue-ivaw-profile

    Perdue’s duty stations over 22 years of service; Albany, GA; Iwakuni, Japan; Indianapolis, IN; Camp Lejeune, NC; New Orleans, LA; Camp Pendleton, CA; Kansas City, MO; Baltimore, MD; Quantico, VA; Vienna, OH; Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia, Yemen, Uganda, Eritrea, Bahrain, Somalia, Tanzania, Sudan. She retired in 2006 yet still missed the war against terror and thinks she has some moral authority to influence US policy in the war.

    Combined, Perdue and Vasquez have 36 years of military experience and neither have heard a shot fired in anger, yet that’s who IVAW quotes in their press releases. It makes me wonder if they have any iraq Veterans left in the IRAQ VETERANS Against the War.

    The resolution states “there is no battlefield solution to terrorism, and any escalation of the war in Afghanistan will only serve to exacerbate the plight of the Afghan people, destabilize the region, and further the breakdown of our military.”

    Says who? A bunch of COs and pogues?

    By the way, I’ve got some conflicting information on Perdue and her career. What i have says she was an E-6 – can some of you guys who can get to Marine On Line check on that? Screen capture it and send it to me if you can. I keep a record of that stuff.

    UPDATE: Thanks to CplUSMC93 who pulled her MOL file, we now know that Donna Perdue isn’t a Gunnery Sergeant like she claims. She retired as a Staff Sergeant.

    donna1

    It’s like they can’t help it.

    Yes, Donna, I’ve now started a file on you, too.

  • Strandlof still at large

    As TSO wrote yesterday, Richard Strandlof aka Rick Duncan, our favorite VoteVets, IVAW member, is about to be arrested, but he remains at large. But all of the local news sources are putting his face out there. The feds shouldn’t have let him go, then they wouldn’t have to look for his goofy ass.

    From the Denver Post;

    Strandlof will be charged with one count of making false claims about receipt of military decorations or medals, a misdemeanor punishable by a year in jail and a $250,000 fine.

    CBS Channel 4 finds a World Can’t Wait connection;

    Besides Duncan, Strandlof also used the alias of Rick Pierson, according to the arrest affidavit. Strandloff was a war protester in Reno, Nev., and coordinator for the anti-war group the World Can’t Wait. While in Reno, Slater was part of an effort to bring a Grand Prix race there, according to the arrest affidavit.

    A woman who answered a phone for a number listed for Strandlof in Incline Village, Nev., near Reno said it was a wrong number. No number was listed in Colorado Springs.

    The Vail Daily writes that at least as an imposter he was worried about appearances;

    When asked at one fundraiser why he wasn’t wearing his medals, Strandlof said wearing them “would appear egotistical,” according to the affidavit.

    The Colorado Springs Gazette

    KRDO Channel 13

    Our friends at KKTV Channel 11 have a video up of the story (but I can’t embed it here)

    Here’s a picture of Strandlof from that video. I want the image burned into the brains of some of our Strandlof deniers;

    strandlof-winter-soldier1a

    Yeah, you might have joined after Jesse MacBeth, but you didn’t join after Rick Duncan.

    Maybe they can get James Branum to defend him with the fake-but-accurate defense. Or maybe he can blame the Marine Corps for not giving classes on how to be a fake Marine with a reattached finger.

  • It is to laugh

    I was perfectly happy to leave Jeff Bartos and IVAW alone after Bartos, the co-founder of the Connecticut Chapter of IVAW, was arrested at the G-20 protest in Pittsburgh last week. But I could hardly let this pass from another blog;

    …Jeff Bartos was arrested last week at G20 protests while attending to the medical needs of a reporter that had been teargassed by police. After hearing of this arrest, the antiwar movement managed to flood the Allegheny County Jail with enough phone calls to engineer his release.

    First of all, I’m pretty sure he was arrested for rendering medical attention – the police have nothing better to do than arrest people for stuff like that. I imagine he got mouthy with a cop and found himself unceremoniously tossed in the back of the paddy wagon.

    Secondly, the anti-war movement flooded the jailhouse with calls, but not money. The IVAW put out a call for money Saturday night to bail Jeff out – and they were able to tap their 1700 members’ pockets for over half of his $200 bail. TSO and I were joking about it the other night. Their 1700 members must’ve given over $.06 per person to get the more than $100 together. We’re so proud of them.

    In fact, if all of those people who called the police station had sent the cost of the phone call instead, they might have covered his whole bail. Phone calls don’t get people out of jail – money does.

  • James Branum; dolt

    We’ve written a bit about the “GI Rights Lawyer” and waah-bulance-chaser, James Branum. It’s satisfying to watch him descend into complete idiocy while he pretends to a successful attorney and gets his clients incarcerated. Now, he’s dragging more lawyers into his cocoon of lunacy.

    His client, Travis Bishop is Branum’s most recent contribution to prison overcrowding and he’s been sent to the Northwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility at Fort Lewis, Washington. And because Branum is one broke-ass lawyer (I could tell you stories about how poor he is, if I hadn’t promised someone else to keep it quiet for now), he can’t afford to visit his client half-way across the country, so he has designated LeGrand Jones, attorney to anarchists and socialists in Washington State and member of the National Lawyers Guild, to visit Bishop. Surprise! Jones is on a “watch list” and not allowed in the facility.

    So instead of just finding someone who doesn’t cavort with anarchist and socialist terrorists, Branum just whines to TSO’s favorite journalist, Dahr Jamail. So, of course, tossing arouond words like “prisoner of conscience” and “constitutional rights”, the Jamail-Branum Clown Car Cabal sound more like LeGrand Jones’ clientele than the educated professionals they profess to be;

    Branum told Truthout, “Fort Lewis authorities have a duty to tell LeGrande the reasons why he is being barred from Fort Lewis, and therefore [barred] from communicating with his client in the Fort Lewis brig.”

    A “duty”? Show me where. Numbskull. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bishop himself refused to talk to any more of the incompetent boobs from the NLG.

    Remember how Branum tried to change Army policy by charging that Bishop didn’t get “conscientious objector training” from his command? Well, now he wants to change rehab policy at the regional facility;

    “By participating in work programs and school classes, soldiers being held in brigs can get time cut off their sentences,” Branum explained to Truthout, “But these don’t exist at Fort Lewis, so that means Travis and Leo can’t get time taken off their sentences. Travis will do a minimum of 10 months, and could have theoretically worked an additional month off his sentence if Fort Lewis had these programs.”

    They could have gotten time off their sentences if they’d had a different lawyer.

    One good thing that comes out of this article is the truth about the “Under the Hood” and “Army Strong” cafes in Fort Hood and Fort Lewis, respectively. They used to be called “gathering places” for soldiers to talk about their problems with other GIs. however, in this article, the label applied to them changes;

    Both soldiers are being supported by two GI resistance cafes: Under the Hood cafe (in Killeen, Texas, near Fort Hood) and Coffee Strong (in Tacoma, Washington, near Fort Lewis).

    They finally decided to call them “resistance cafes” and be truthful about their purpose rather than hide behind benign labels. Anyone want to defend them now?

  • So what did they prove?

    infrontofpolicetruck
    Last week, while the leaders of the world discussed the world’s economic problems in Pittsburgh, throngs of immature little spoiled rich kids trashed the city. From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review/Washington Times.;

    Business owners in the Oakland area of Pittsburgh, host city of the G-20 summit of world leaders, spent much of Friday sweeping up glass and calling insurance adjusters after a throng of protesters smashed their storefronts less than 24 hours earlier.

    Plywood and duct tape covered shattered windows and glass doors at about 20 Forbes Avenue shops vandals targeted Thursday night during a demonstration that, according to onlookers, some college students joined. Some business owners said they were hesitant to install new windows until the G-20 summit ended and out-of-town visitors left.

    bmwsmashed
    And, of course, IVAW was there to take part in the vandalism;

    The Iraq Veterans Against War painted messages on the sidewalks of Fifth Avenue in Oakland with mud and chalk.

    One IVAW member was arrested and the organization was able to raise almost half of his huge bail;

    ivaw-arrested

    Me? I’m wondering what IVAW has to do with a protest at an economic summit. And, as a whole, what did this protest accomplish – except to expand the divisions in the country even further. They complain that the police were too aggressive and then they push back by destroying private property. That makes tons of sense, doesn’t it?

    I wonder how they’ll react when private citizens start defending their property and the protesters no longer benefit from the protection of restraint under which we force our police to abide. They’ll be wishing for sonic cannons after they face an aluminum baseball bat.

    From the Washington Times, one student shows a bit a common sense;

    “This whole thing was just stupid,” said Pitt student Lindsey Westerbrook, 21, of Oakland, as she stared at an open but boarded-up McDonald’s. “Why would you trash your own neighborhood to make a point?”

  • The long, cold night is over

    Jesse MacBeth’s book is finally out and here he is to hawk it;

    He claims it explains why he did what he did – but don’t get your hopes up. This is from his publisher’s bio;

    He was born in tucson arizona in 1984. I grew up in group homes. I was an orpan. A child that never knew his father, and unwanted by his mother. I married the love of my life in april of 2008. I just have to thank allah for making everything possiable for me. for getting me through my rough start and blessing me with everything i ever dreamed.

    Yeah, that’s the author’s bio just how it appears on the publisher’s website.

    Mala’ik the Fallen is overpriced at $20 for a 112 page paperback and it’s not on Kindle, so I’ll pass for now. It might be interesting, since it looks like what MacBeth writes best – total fiction. Here’s an excerpt;

    “It’s coming, my angel . . . the flames are coming”, Anya said fearfully as men stepped forward with torches. Their eyes sparkling in the torchlight, “be cleansed by the fires of heaven”, they said and lit the pyre. The flames sprung to life as if they were eager to consume us. I stared through the fiery haze and at the people cheering in the night. I knew it could only be a moment before the flames touched us. I could hear Anya’s heart beat in her chest, could feel her fear as the fire got…

    His YouTube site says;

    like i said befor 10 % of every book sold will be donated to a wounded soldiers program of your choice so leave comments on wich one u would like me to make the donation to. the more book u all buy the more i can donate so lets make it happen.

    I’d rather give directly to a charity.

    For those of you who don’t want to buy the book, TSO has thrown himself on the grenade for us and he’s already ordered it.

    PS: Caroline – TSO tells me that your birthday gift book is still #2 on the list to be read.

  • Hot Chicks with Douchebags; TAH Edition

    You’ve probably heard of the Hot Chicks with Douchebags blog. Well this is the This Ain’t Hell version.

    This was actually TSO’s idea, but the line and the picture are just too good to pass up, so here it is below the fold.

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