I know you’ve been missing our “all-Matthis, all-the-time” format of recent months. We’ve had our highly-compensated staff of reporters and photographers following him day-in and day-out, waiting for something to report. Until now, there’s been nothing.
Finally, from their bunker in Manhattan, our crew reports that Matthis is engaged. A photo of Matthis and the comely lass that we here at This Ain’t Hell agree he richly deserves is below the fold.
You’ve probably been wondering who is defending these “resisters” who are being prosecuted by the military during their court cases. For Victor Agosto, Travis Bishop, Robin Long, Cliff Cornell, and pot smoking deserter Ryan Jackson, it’s been James M. Branum, who calls himself the GI Rights Lawyer. He’s also a co-chair of the Military Law Task Force branch of the communist National Lawyer’s Guild.
So who is James Branum? In his own words;
If you’re wondering where I was today, Uncle Jimbo and I went to harrass Lyndie England (the genital-pointing skank of Abu Ghraib fame) at the Library of Congress. Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on your view) she cancelled it. It was intended to be a veteran event and she was supposed to talk about the book she wrote about the incident, since now she can’t swing a job at MacDonald’s with that famous face – and who knows where those hands have been.
The tip came from Small Wars Journal by way of Greyhawk (who wanted us to remind her of this incident).
The event is sponsored by the Library of Congress Professional Association’s Veterans Forum and its leader LOC employee and Vietnam Veteran Bob Moore. Veteran Moore has weathered a wave of criticism in recent days, but he remains steadfast in his hatred for Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and his admiration for Lynndie England’s “guts.”
Well, he remained steadfast until today when they canceled the event. So Jimbo and I took the opportunity to drink a pitcher, eat grub and comment on every tourist and intern that passed our cafe table on South Capitol Street. Lyndie England still rots.
UPDATE: When I got home, someone emailed to say the event had been canceled out of “safety concerns” for the staff at the Library of Congress. I guess SPLC heard I was going.
Updated again: You get to see how much weight I put on after three months of sitting in my easy chair with my foot elevated. Look, Ma, I’m on SOG Media;
Greyhawk has more on the cancelation.
One of our resident IVAW refugees had an email exchange the other day with Geoff “Stolen Valor” Millard, Adrianne Kinne and TJ Buonomo in regards to the vote on the resolution to punish members who advocated violence against our deployed troops which I mentioned the other day.
From Millard;
The reason why this did not pass is because members disagreed on wording not the meaning or intent behind it. Therefore the Board will be drafting a different more inclusive policy that will be adopted by the Board and then voted on by the full membership at the next opportunity.
Ah, the law school grads of the IVAW membership were upset at the wording. What wording? Buonomo explains;
I voted against the resolution because the language has the effect of restricting free speech and asserts an explicit and unqualified moral judgement on the use of violence and sabotage, which I considered to be inappropriate.
Buonomo isn’t explicit about what wording he’s talking about, but I don’t see anything that would restrict free speech, as the Supreme Court defines free speech. Buonomo must be one of those super-legal eagles. Or maybe not. He continues;
First, my understanding is that part of the motivation for this resolution was provoked by Carl Webb’s vocal sympathy toward the use of violence by the occupied in opposition to their foreign occupiers. While he may have voiced this viewpoint in an unnecessarily inflammatory manner, I do not view it as controversial. In fact on numerous occasions I have heard and read military members and veterans- including non-IVAW members -say that were they in the same position they would likely do the same thing.
This is hardly a radical viewpoint.
In other words, Buonomo is defending his vote against the resolution by claiming that he has heard other members of the military say they’d resist an enemy who attacked the US. He makes some lame comment about how he’d willingly fight the Chinese if they invaded – I chuckle. Buonomo would be welcoming them on the drop zones with flowers and wine.
It’s important to understand that IVAW continues to call the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq “occupations” – that’s how they defend their votes against the resolution. As long as they can ignore that we fight the enemies of Afghans and Iraqis for their own benefit, they can advocate for sabotage against our troops.
Buonomo continues;
It is painful for me to read about our troops getting killed and maimed but this does not negate the fact that the U.S. military is a foreign occupier, that in the case of Iraq it had no real justification to be there in the first place, and that the political leadership under the Bush administration betrayed the trust of the Iraqi people at our troops’ expense.
So let Carl Webb advocate for their deaths. That’s how painful it is for him. Buonomo, being a blowhard, waxes endlessly about how brave he was for bailing out on the American people with his free Air Force Academy education.
Adrianne Kinne chimes in with her history lesson;
I don’t know about what Carl said exactly… but you do realize that in the history of GI resistance… soldiers sabotaged THEIR OWN equipment!!! They threw wrenches in engines to stop them from working and anything they could do to break transportation equipment to stop themselves from shipping and arms from shipping. Please do a little research about the history of the GI resistance movement…
Yes, that makes sense – the troops deployed in combat would sabotage their own equipment. Especially since they’d be the ones that either depended on it to save their lives or had to repair it.
The consensus seems to be that the best thing IVAW can do for the troops is to end the war, and that sabotage speeds them to that end. To quote Buonomo;
As for helping veterans, in my opinion the best thing we can possibly do is to help bring an end to these occupations so that they don’t have to go on three or more deployments and suffer from PTSD, TBI, etc. I’d say our approach is reventative, though certainly not as effective as we’d like. That distinguishes us from most other veterans organizations
Yes, it certainly does, TJ. I have a text file of the entire exchange that I’ll gladly share with anyone who asks by email. Buonomo is a real blow hard and I just don’t want to waste the bandwidth on him, but his yammering is certainly instructive. I’ve cut the text of the responses of our refugee out, so all you get is pure loon.
Their defense of Carl Webb’s unrestricted free speech makes them all Carl Webb, now. There’s nothing in the resolution that restricted constructive discussion. Buonomo and the 40 others who voted against the resolution can gaze at their navels and pat themselves on their backs, but at the end of the day, they are complicit in Carl Webb’s treasonous preachings.
How soon do you think they’ll have another resolution ready to put to a vote? I suspect they’re just biding their time hoping everyone forgets about it. Not if I can help it.
And if IVAW has 1700 members, why are there just 70 people voting on these things?
Editor’s Note; Bob King passed away Monday, April 28, 2014.
You might remember the book review I did earlier in the month on Spooky 8; the final mission, and the review of the author that I wrote earlier this week. I mentioned that I’d emailed the author, Bob King to see if he had anything to add. Well he answered last night;
I didn’t sense him on the blog, so I figured he really used a remote viewer to do the recon instead of putting himself in danger. Well, at least he didn’t use the old “feds changed my records” ploy.
Amazon isn’t publishing my review of the book, I really don’t understand that – after they soaked me for $5.50 on the Kindle version of the book? Ingrates.
One of the resolutions that were up for a vote this last weekend at the IVAW convention was a resolution to declare that IVAW was a peaceful organization that didn’t advocate killing and sabotage of US forces deployed overseas. It read like this;
Resolution proposing that IVAW only use, supports or endorses, non-violent and peaceful actions
Whereas there is no official statement regarding Iraq Veterans Against the War’s stand on methodology for achieving our goals; namely, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, ensuring all returning veterans have adequate health care, and repairing the damage done in Iraq and Afghanistan by the occupations;
Whereas calls for violence and sabotage are both illegal and immoral, and will only serve to do great damage to Iraq Veterans Against the War’s efforts to end the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan;
Whereas any endorsement, passive or active, of violence would lead to IVAW being banned from active duty bases, Reserve centers and National Guard armories; being declared an extremist organization and thereby making it illegal for a member of the military to become a member of IVAW;
Whereas, the Board of Directors has stated that it is the position of IVAW that only non-violent, peaceful methods are to be used to accomplish our goals;
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.”
It was written specifically to deal with the Carl Webb question. For those of you who may not know, Carl Webb advocates for sabotage and the killing of US troops among IVAW members who are deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Mostly, he’s a 43-year-old pervert who preys on youngsters, bums their money, bums rides and generally sucks canal water. Several members of IVAW left the organization specifically because of Webb’s behavior – and the refusal of IVAW to remove him from their ranks.
Anyway, the resolution needed 40 votes to pass and it only got 39 votes – so Carl Webb is free to promote his vile and despicable advocacy for the injury and death of US troops. The majority of IVAW is content to have Webb among them – they’re content to support his violent strain of the movement. Did I mention that Webb isn’t even qualified to be in the IVAW?
Here’s Webb’s Google profile;
Sweet. Marxist revolutionary fixin’ your kids’ food at college. He’s claimed that he’s been enrolled in Austin Community College for about four years now. Tough-ass two year school, huh?
This one I thought was strange;
Why would a self-professed Marxist belong to a group called”Democracy for America”?
But, oh, well, there you have it – the Iraq Veterans Against the War once again put the “Against the War” part ahead of the “Iraq Veterans” part. Which would follow because not very many of them are Iraq Veterans anymore, either.
Editor’s Note; Bob King passed away Monday, April 28, 2014.
You may remember that Blackfive and Uncle Jimbo talked me into reviewing a POS book titled Spooky 8; the Final Mission which was supposed to be true-to-life thriller of Army-trained professional killer, Bob King. Well, from pieces of the book, and with the exhaustive sleuthing of our friends at POW Net, we were able to track down his military records.
Now, this might not be the guy, but it’s just too coincidental to be anyone else. Aside from the same name, both Bob Kings (the Bob King in the book and the Bob King from the military records) grew up in, and currently live in WenatchiWenatchee, Washington, they were both born in 1952, both joined the Army in 1972, both went to basic training in June 1972 at Fort Ord, California. And then they both went to the Basic Airborne Course.
In the book, he joined the Army with a buddy to go to the 82d Airborne Division, so did this Bob King;
But that’s where their paths diverge. Somehow, actual Bob King didn’t make it through jump school. Two weeks after he got there, he was on his way to Fort Sill, OK to be a cannon cocker, but he ends up being a colonel’s driver.
Book Bob King, of course, graduated from jump school, was recruited by a nameless covert operations organization while he attended BAC (weren’t we all?) and went on to be the studly killer and mayhem-organizer of Spooky 8 fame. Being a colonel’s driver would be perfect cover for a deadly killer like either Bob King. Those two days AWOL, though, would probably make someone think twice about putting some trust in him. But then, that’s the kind of rebellious behavior we’d expect from Book Bob.
Book Bob King became a Master Sergeant in three short years, but actual Bob King only made it as far as a Specialist;
I’m kind of surprised that either Bob King isn’t a member of Vietnam veterans Against the War since his record is sort of like faux-Ranger Ward Reilly. He’s certainly equally qualified as Reilly.
At his website, Book Bob posts his picture;
But this is how I imagine him;
By the way, I wrote Bob King an email yesterday and asked him if he had anything he’d like to add. Here’s his response;
*chirp* *chirp* *chirp* *chirp*
Editor’s Note; Bob King passed away Monday, April 28, 2014.
I was given a reading assignment last Thursday by Blackfive who got a tip from one of his readers on a possible Stolen Valor case. The title of the book is “Spooky 8; the final mission”. It was published in 1999 by a guy who calls himself Bob King. At his website about the book, he plants the seed of doubt by writing;
As for believing this story, I don’t give a damn if anybody believes this story or not, that’s not the point. Remember, it’s not about who is saying it, it’s WHAT is being said! What I want people to do is consider the possibilities. Pay attention to what is going on around them, and seek the truth for themselves. Don’t let anyone tell you what or what not to believe. Make that decision for yourself!
Yeah, that’s the way I’d start out my true story. Oh, and if I was hiding, I’d put my picture on the internet where no one can find it. This is what tipped off Motor Cop, the Blackfive reader who sent this to us;