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

Category: Iraq Veterans Against the War

  • 4th of July thoughts from peawits

    Since the holiday is almost over, I figure I can’t ruin it for y’all with this conversation between Reagan Sullivan and Bobby Whittenberg. We first ran into Reagan Sullivan when TSO wrote about him last year. We featured Bobby Whittenberg as a potential winner of our Worst Memorial Day post – nice to know he doesn’t like the 4th of July, either.

    Here’s picture of Whittenberg;

    whittenberg

    Prepare yourselves for the moonbattery;

    wittenberg-sullivan-history-lesson

    And oh, yeah, if you’re wondering what their mutual friend Carl Webb is up to these days – he’s trying to get his friends to send “far left revolutionary” books to the troops in theater;

    carl-webb-books

    We all know that Webb won’t be sending any books himself because he’s too poor and cheap and mooching off of someone else like a good little Marxist/Leninist/Trotskyist – but he’ll encourage his “friends” to send books to undermine the military.

  • Who speaks for you?

    Do you support the release of those abuse photos that courts are trying to wrest from the Obama Administration? The Philadelphia Independent Media Center says you do;
    abuse-photos
    Yup, you’ve been lumped in with three organizations, the IVAW, Geezers for Sitting on Our Hands, and some rinky-dink organization I’ve never heard of before – Veterans for Common Sense.

    Here’s why they think the photos should be released;

    Iraq War veteran and Board Chair of Iraq Veterans Against the War Camilo Mejia stated, “Being open about our mistakes by releasing these pictures is not only a way to ensure this dark episode in our history will not be repeated, but also a crucial step in our healing process as a nation.”

    Veterans for Common Sense Executive and Gulf War veteran Director Paul Sullivan stated, “These documents must be made public and they must be turned over to a special war crimes prosecutor. Never again should our nation’s leaders order torture with impunity.”

    President of Veterans For Peace and former Navy Corpsman, Mike Ferner said, “The biggest threat to our service members and our Republic is that we forget what has happened and do it again,” He continued, “Withholding these photographs makes it more likely that the people of our country can push these horrendous acts to the edge of our collective memory. This will not serve our nation well.”

    These three tiny veteran organizations obviously don’t have veterans’ or active duty service members’ best interests in their hearts. Yet, the Philly Indy makes it look like they represent all veterans’s opinions in their headline.

    Camilo Mejia has been dealt a deadly blow in the recent past by our own TSO when he blogged at The Sniper (before I lured him away with the promise of free monkey porn and bottomless bags of Skittles). Also, our buddy, Denis Keohane at Obiter Dictum wrote quite extensively about Mejia. Does he speak for you?

    We know the stars of Vets For Peace (known here as Geezers for Sitting on Our Hands), but Veterans For Common Sense is a new one to me. As near as I can tell, VCS is made up of five members, three of whom are veterans. Apparently, they’re a couple of Gulf War Vets who are upset that they can’t get into IVAW. Their mission statement says;

    Our mission…is to raise the unique and powerful voices of veterans so that our military, veterans, freedom, and national security are protected and enhanced, for ourselves and for future generations.

    How would releasing those photos protect and enhance our military, veterans, freedom and national security?

    By the way, VCS claims they’re funded in part by the Plowshares Fund, which boasts the actor Michael Douglas and Chuck Hagel on their board – real intellectual heavyweights right there.

  • Kokesh, the voice of America

    TSO wrote yesterday about Adam Kokesh‘s campaign. But the bigger story is his attempt to drag TAH into his campaign. Apparently, he thinks that any publicity is good publicity. He’s even sent his flyers to Chris Hill from GOE who sent me a link yesterday to Kokesh’s blog entry about Hill pointing out the addition of the parenthetical comment under the original title. Apparently, Kokesh is trying to soften his image in preparation for his run at a congressional seat in Santa Fe.
    chris-hill

    It may have backfired on Kokesh, though. Just last week, a Phoenix newspaper linked to This Ain’t Hell in regards to Kokesh’s candidacy. They used all of our posts about Kokesh over the last two years to warn voters away from him.

    Poor Adam is still mired in his past thinking it will win him an election. His latest rants are about Donald Rumsfeld owning stock in the company that makes Tamaflu. I’m sure that’s why Democrats spent that money on flu prevention – to fill Rummy’s pockets.

    But the most disturbing part of Kokesh’s new personae is that he’s doing interviews with Russia Today in which they describe him as an “expert”. Here’s a sample entitled “Obama’s foreign policy is more aggressive than Bush’s” – expert;


    Adam Kokesh, the Expert. The Voice of America to Russia. Sweet.

  • Odd and Ends

    Today In Military History
    Battle of Civitate: Papal-Italian-Lombard Coalition Army Beaten By Normans
    Battle of Breed’s Hill (not Bunker): Whites of Lobsterbacks’ Eyes Discerned
    Last Public Execution in France by Guillotine: Crowd Goes Wild!

    Also, my brother sent me a picture of my niece, read the shirt she is wearing in southern New Jersey.  Maybe she’s the one that firebombed the IVAW bus.
    help

  • Pick a story, Millard

    I’m sure my regular readers will remember Geof Millard who I spent some bandwidth on last year. It seems he’s playing the part of my whack-a-mole again. Thanks to reader Mary who dropped off a link to a Salon.com story which warns that “Neo-Nazis Are in the Army Now“. It’s a fairly poorly researched article that ignores the facts to project fantastic stories – much like Jon Soltz and the rest of the Left does these days.

    But, of course, when they’re having a tough time finding someone to tattle on the military, the Leftists at Salon go to IVAW, and Geof Millard is IVAW’s self proclaimed expert on racism in the military. He’s been telling a story since before Winter Soldier, as quoted by Aaron Glatz;

    That evening, Millard said he was in a briefing where the chain of command was informed of the shooting.

    “After the officer in charge briefed it to the general in a very calm manner, a commander turned in his chair to the entire division-level staff, and he said—and I quote—‘If these f——g hajis learned to drive, this s–t wouldn’t happen.’”

    Millard said he looked around the room at the other officers and the other enlisted men, mostly higher ranking than himself. “I didn’t see one dissenting body language, one disagreeing head nod,” he said. “Everyone was in agreement that it’s true, if these f—–g hajis learned to drive, this s–t wouldn’t happen. I couldn’t believe it, but it was true. That stayed with me the rest of my tour.”

    Well, just for Salon, Millard changed the story a bit;

    Geoffrey Millard, an organizer for Iraq Veterans Against the War, served in Iraq for 13 months, beginning in 2004, as part of the 42nd Infantry Division. He recalls Gen. George Casey, who served as the commander in Iraq from 2004 to 2007, addressing a briefing he attended in the summer of 2005 at Forward Operating Base, outside Tikrit. “As he walked past, he was talking about some incident that had just happened, and he was talking about how ‘these stupid fucking hajjis couldn’t figure shit out.’ And I’m just like, Are you kidding me? This is Gen. Casey, the highest-ranking guy in Iraq, referring to the Iraqi people as ‘fucking hajjis.’” (A spokesperson for Casey, now the Army Chief of Staff, said the general “did not make this statement.”)

    “The military is attractive to white supremacists,” Millard says, “because the war itself is racist.”

    Now, it’s General Casey, and he just passed by Millard and made the statement. Funny how much better it sounds now that phony soldier Millard has had 18 months to work on his narrative, ain’t it? I know it didn’t happen because the General Casey version would have made it to the Winter Soldier testimony – and it didn’t.

    First of all, there’s nothing offensive about the word “hadji”. Proof? OK, here’s a picture I took in Bethesda, MD last year. Bethesda is the most politically-correct town in the country – would they tolerate this on Wisconsin Avenue (the main street that leads to Georgetown in DC)?

    Hadji's

    Secondly, Millard; pick a story and stick to it – this is too easy. can’t you give me a challenge? Millard began by lying about his backpain in the Army and when he couldn’t get a medical retirement, he went AWOL and got busted for it – then he promoted himself to sergeant again and gave himself a stack of medals all after he got out and forged his DD214 to reflect the cool stuff. He also broke the first rule of This Ain’t Hell – he awarded himself a CIB that he didn’t earn. So why is Salon bothering to interview him? Because he brings them the message they want to hear.

    We’ll have more on the Salon article later, I promise. It’s a pretty long piece, and I’ve got some links to find.

  • IVAW’s Duncan/Strandlof on AC 360

    Last night on CNN, Anderson Cooper interviewed phony soldier, IVAW member, VoteVets TV star, Richard Strandlof/Duncan. Somehow, he thinks that the good he did for veterans should outweigh his deception.

    Doug Sterner from Home of Heroes (who has also visited here at TAH) is also in the video and he sums it up well – John Wayne Gacy did some good too as a clown, but it hardly outweighs his serial killings.

    I don’t understand why none of these supposed news outlets won’t focus on the REAL issue here – the anti-war movement attracts an inordinate number of phonies and fakes and the anti-war types think they can just make excuses and make the whole thing go away until next time another one inevitably pops up. It’s been that way for decades – and the anti-war crowd doesn’t seem interested in vetting the messenger as long as the fake message they bring is compelling.

    While I commend CNN for finally facing up to the story, they only gave Strandlof an opportunity to be a sympathetic figure by blaming his undiagnosed mental disorder and announce that he in no way profited from his deception. He may not have benefited, but he certainly cost all veterans a measure of honor and credibility.

    Thanks to all of the people who reminded me in my email this morning about the interview. Especially the IVAW refugees.

    In other phony soldier news, last night, the daughter of our fake general came by and somehow turned around her father’s fakery into something that I did. Apparently, I “dig up dirt”. She’s upset that her picture is posted “surounded [sic] by all this negativity” – never mind that she’s standing next to a Private First Class dressed as a general in the picture.

    It seems she ought to be more upset at her father for putting her in the position of defending the indefensible. She’s asked that I remove her picture, and I’ll do it, just because she asked and out of respect for her rank and her service, but not out of fear of a lawsuit. I don’t have to be sued to get me to do the right thing. Next time ask nicely, El-Tee.

    For the record, I’ve always known she’s an officer along with her brother, but I never mentioned their names or their duty stations, or their units since it was their father that’s the criminal. Her threats and demeaning language towards me won’t stop the FBI and DVA OIG investigations against her father. Nor will it stop me from busting the next phony.

  • Strandlof/Duncan out of jail

    Everyone’s favorite IVAW member/VoteVets blogger this year, Rick Strandlof-Duncan, is up for a breath of fresh air today according to the Denver Post;

    The man now known as the fake veteran for duping politicians, veterans and advocate groups into believing he’s a wounded Iraq veteran will be released from jail Tuesday after pleading guilty to two misdemeanor traffic citations.

    Judge Jonathan L. Walker sentenced Rick Strandlof to 20 days in jail with credit for time served and one year of unsupervised probation. Strandlof must also pay a $150 in court fines.

    Strandlof was being held on a $1,000 misdemeanor traffic warrant since his arrest May 12.

    Does this sound like contrition?

    In a previous interview with 9Wants to Know, Strandlof admitted he did not always tell the truth when he fought for veterans’ rights and claimed to have served three tours of duty in Iraq.

    “Always tell the truth”? How about “ever told the truth”? Even his name was a lie. He probably wasn’t even gay…well, until now.

    In another Denver Post story earlier in the week, they claimed he was still being investigated by the FBI;

    …while the FBI is investigating possible fraud, no charges have been filed.

    That’s probably because “his heart was in the right place” to use IVAW’s Garret Reppenhagen’s words;

    Besides, Duncan’s intentions seemed straightforward. He sent care packages to troops in Iraq. He stood up for homeless veterans in Colorado Springs. He advanced his anti-war politics by connecting with like-minded candidates.

    He even launched his own organization, the Colorado Veterans Alliance, which he said represented 32,000 veterans on a massive mailing list — though the only visible members seemed to be a cadre of local vets.

    He certainly talked the talk. Duncan mingled easily in the military milieu. And in some ways, he walked the walk.

    “It seems like his heart was in the right place,” said Reppenhagen, 33. “He was a really hard worker. He did a lot of good by raising a lot of awareness, but then you find out that he’s a fraud.”

    “Talked the talk”, “walked the walk”? Yeah, as long as it was anti-war gibberish, he fit right in with the rest of them. But, that’s the IVAW we’ve all come to know. And apparently the Colorado Springs justice system. Maybe there are two Americas.

    Even Common Ills, the anti-war blog can add two and two;

    This ain’t Hell, but you can see it from here is a right wing website and, if you click here, you will be taken to their post on Rick Duncan and see him at the top of the post wearing his Winter Soldier IVAW t-shirt. Scroll down and you will see his bio at the Iraq Veterans Against the War website. Scroll down just a bit further and you will see how they disappeared it after it turned out Rick Duncan was Rick Strandlof and not a veteran or ever a member of the military. Only members would have the ability to post to IVAW’s website. There’s your answer. He posted there and he posted that he was a member. So he’s a member.

    Thanks to Mr Wolf for the tip.

  • Of Threats and Pseudonyms

    “KEEP MY NAME OFF YOUR BLOG OR WE SETTLE UP IN PERSON.”

    That was the call I got this morning, at work, at 10:04 am. The caller immediately hung up of course, being the coward he is. But, who could it be? My initial thought was it has to be Casey Affleck, pissed off that I didn’t IMDB his name the other day. Maybe it was Richard Gabriel, my favorite historian, pissed off that I once goofed on Candians. Nah, probably not him either. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Fred Downs. Well, I don’t know who it was, but I can guess. And I will, but first…

    I blog pseudonymously. I know, Shocker! My mother never yelled into the back yard “TSO [or the longer more pissed off Thus Spake Ortner]get your ass in here and clean your room!” Not once. Because that isn’t my name. When I started blogging every reader I had was in the 3rd Batt, 116th Infantry, and everyone both knew who I really was, and knew that Ortner was our Battalion Commander. Looking back now, I wish I chose another name, since I have come to peace with the BC, and he’s probably confused why I took his name.

    (more…)