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

Category: Phony soldiers

  • 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?

  • Kerry prepares for cut and run in Afghanistan

    Probably the last person I’d ever ask about military issues, John Kerry (lied, while better men died), has a blueprint for cut and run in Afghanistan in this morning’s Wall Street Journal entitled “Testing Afghanistan Assumptions“. Of course, as is his MO, be compares Afghanistan to Vietnam. Except Afghanistan isn’t anything like Vietnam, except in the mind of John Kerry who wants to remind us that he spent three months in Vietnam once.

    [O]ne of the lessons from Vietnam—applied in the first Gulf War and sadly forgotten for too long in Iraq—is that we should not commit troops to the battlefield without a clear understanding of what we expect them to accomplish, how long it will take, and how we maintain the consent of the American people. Otherwise, we risk bringing our troops home from a mission unachieved or poorly conceived. Gen. McChrystal offers no timetable or exit strategy, beyond warning that the next 12 months are critical. I agree that time is running out and that troops are dying without a sustainable strategy for victory. But we cannot rush to judgment.

    Timetabled withdrawals seem to be the Left’s way of saying that they don’t understand “exit strategies”. You think they would have learned their lesson when, in 1995, then-President promised the American people that we’d be out of Bosnia by October 1996. of course, we still have troops in Bosnia. The Democrats don’t understand victory – they seem to think that by just announcing an end date, all parties will comply. Kerry is no different. Kerry doesn’t bother in his missive to examine what would happen if we did withdraw. He’d rather pontificate about the judicious use of force – ignoring the indisputable fact that war and victory are necessary regardless of the cost. Navel-gazing in Congress will only result in more needless deaths among US forces while Kerry and his useless pals try to appear as if they know something about war and strategy;

    Mr. Obama promises not to send more troops to Afghanistan until he has absolute clarity on what the strategy will be. He is right to take the time he needs to define the mission. We should all follow his lead and debate all of the options. It may be that Gen. McChrystal has provided the road map to victory. Or it may be that some other strategy would work better, with fewer risks. We can’t know until we test every assumption and examine every option.

    In other words, Kerry, Congress and Obama is more than willing to let more US soldiers die while they campaign for the 2010 elections and stroke their anti-war base. This is what we get when Democrats have both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue – 535 armchair generals.

  • Watada given pass

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    Ehren Watada, Army lieutenant and son of a Vietnam-era draft dodger, was given a complete pass by the Army this week on his refusal to deploy with his unit to Iraq, according to CBS News;

    Fort Lewis spokesman Joseph Piek wouldn’t confirm Watada’s type of discharge, citing privacy rules. But he said late Friday that Watada’s manner of resignation is described in Army regulations as “resignation for the good of the service in lieu of general court martial.”

    Watada, 31, refused to deploy to Iraq with his Fort Lewis, Wash.-based unit in 2006, arguing the war is illegal and that he would be a party to war crimes if he served in Iraq.

    So, he’s in the wind and fair game. I’m just glad the POS didn’t deploy with soldiers in his charge.

    Thanks to defendUSA for the tip.

  • The torture report

    Like a dog with a bone, the ACLU thinks they have a winning hand with their FOIA releases from the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency. Along with their “partners”, Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense, and Veterans for Peace, they’ve been scratching through the documentation hoping that they’ll find a smoking gun that they can actually call torture.

    At Huffington Post, Jameel Jaffer, one of ACLU’s litigators, announced their new project “The Torture Report“.

    The goal is simple: to tell the whole story and to get it right. How to do this – how to bring together everything we know from tens of thousands of formerly secret documents, from official and independent investigations, from press reports and the many good books that have recently appeared, and from the growing number of first-hand accounts of those who witnessed, participated in, or suffered mistreatment, how to register it all so we can come to some conclusions – is a daunting challenge.

    At HuffPo, Jaffer names his stellar staff of writers;

    It will be a collaborative project. We have invited a group of expert contributors to offer comments and observations as new material appears. These contributors include Matthew Alexander, David Frakt, Glenn Greenwald, Joanne Mariner, Deborah Popowski, John Sifton, and Marcy Wheeler, as well as attorneys from the ACLU

    I inserted links to their bios – all except one. Mathew Alexander’s bio has yet to be written. I wrote about him a bit when he poked his head up at VoteVets last month. I didn’t know his real name then, but, as regular readers know, you can’t hide from the staff of This Ain’t Hell.

    Kit Bond has pulled out of the Congressional investigation of interogators’ techniques because he claims that Congress will hamstring future intelligence operations like they did in the 70s (Washington Times link);

    Sen. Christopher S. Bond, the panel’s vice chairman, said Mr. Holders decision to ignore President Obamas pledge to look forward – not back – has hampered the panels effort.

    The Department of Justice “sent a loud and clear message that previous decisions to decline prosecution mean nothing and old criminal charges can be brought anytime against anyone – against these odds, what current or former CIA employee would be willing to gamble his freedom by answering the committee’s questions?” the Missouri Republican said.

    His Democrat co-chair on the Commission, Dianne Feinstein says she’ll continue on without Bond. So it ought to be a real effective report like the 9-11 Commission’s report. I guess all of that talk about change and hope was just blather. Hope and Change are words that relate to the future not about dwelling in the past. So, we here at This Ain’t Hell are all about the future – anything we can do to short circuit ACLU’s Torture Report we’ll do.

    There are a lot of hints that the right reader can pick up on in this post. Those of you who don’t get it, stay tuned for the ensuing episodes.

  • 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.

  • Soltz shows his ignorance again

    Many of you probably remember the post TSO wrote on Jon Soltz, the irrepressible Executive Director of VoteVets, one of those pretend veteran organizations (the only veterans they help are themselves) a few months ago for Soltz’ inability to distinguish between the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and the Department of Defense in regards to their separate medical services.

    Well, Soltz stayed under the radar for awhile after that. He popped up in my lane last week.

    He wrote at VetsVoice about The Erratic Joe Wilson’s Shameful Record on Troops and Veterans Care.
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  • Why even have a Stolen Valor Act?

    This from some guy named MOTHAX at The Burn Pit;

    Why won’t the US Attorney for CO prosecute Stolen Valor Act cases?

    September 23rd, 2009 by MOTHAX

    DuncanDoJ

    Protect the warriors; go after the phonies.

    Rick Duncan was a Marine with a compelling story to tell, and tell it he did, to anyone who would listen. A graduate of the Naval Academy, Rick had been in the Pentagon when the plane hit on September 11, 2001. Volunteering for duty in Iraq, Duncan rose to the rank of Captain, and although openly gay, was assigned to lead a Marine Battalion in the battle of Fallujah. During the house to house battles there he had a finger shot off and suffered a severe head injury that required a plate be put in his head. He returned to the states disillusioned with the war and became executive director of the Colorado Veterans Alliance.

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  • Phony soldier in KY

    1stCavRVN11B sent me this link to a story about a guy who wants to be a state senator in Kentucky by the name of Mike Cope.

    Cope, 36, spoke to the Stanford Rotary back in August and before he talked to the lunchtime group, there was time for some questions. Cope’s bio says that he served in the Air Force during Desert Storm, and when asked what he did in the Air Force, he replied, “I was a PJ.”

    PJs are Air Force Pararescue – the Special Forces of the Air Force. It takes almost two years of training just to qualify to join a pararescue unit. Some studly stuff.

    Well, it turns out that Mike Cope completed Air Force basic training then injured his knee at the Pararescue Indoctrination Course. Nothing wrong with that, actually – since they wash out about 90 percent of their classes, it’s pretty common. But then to put in his bio that he was a PJ, well, that’s just disingenuous.

    Oh, and the “Desert Storm” part of his bio, well, that’s even more disingenuous;

    The other question, about Desert Storm, is trickier. The “war” part of Desert Storm lasted a very short time; it began on Jan. 16 1991 and ended on April 6, a full four years before Cope signed up with the Air Force. Cope’s claim of having served during Desert Storm is based on him beingeligible for the National Defense Service Medal (NDSM). The NDSM was awarded to those members of the armed forces that served anytime, anywhere, between Aug. 2, 1991 and Nov. 30, 1995. Cope’s military record indicates that he started active duty on Nov. 29, so he is eligible to claim Desert Storm era service for exactly one day.

    So with all of this information suddenly becoming public, you’d think that Cope would apologize and correct his bio, wouldn’t you?

    Cope said Saturday that he was sorry if there was any misunderstanding but he doesn’t intend to change his biography. “I was there, I don’t think it’s misrepresenting at all…I was never proud that I had to leave, but I did the best I could.”

    He should be proud that he served, he should be proud that he was selected, but he washed out before qualifying. And joining the military four years after the shooting stopped doesn’t make you a veteran of the war. Dingus.

    Oh, it looks like he changed his bio anyway. Now it simply states that “he was a member of the United States Air Force”. But I wouldn’t vote for him – do we have to investigate each part of his bio to get to the truth about him?