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

Category: Terror War

  • Blue Falcon in Green Bay

    Dave Thul sent us this article from AP about Kristopher Walker, the poster boy of the Blue Falcons, but I like this article from the Green Bay Press Gazette a little better;

    Spc. Kristoffer Walker, 28, was scheduled to board a flight at Austin Straubel International Airport in Ashwaubenon this morning to return to Atlanta, where he was scheduled to rejoin the 353rd Transportation Unit deployed to Iraq in October. Walker has been home on leave the past two weeks.

    Lt. Col. Nathan Banks, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon, said Walker did not follow military procedure by filling out paperwork to list himself as a conscientious objector.

    “His unit is counting on him,” Banks said. “He’s actually turning his back on his battle buddies. By just not reporting, you’re letting down your teammates. When you raise your right hand to defend the country, you knew there was a time you could possibly be deployed.”

    How’s he letting down his team mates? Well, leave is granted on a rotational basis – so one of the guys he works with won’t be able to go home and visit his or her family. That makes him a Blue Falcon.

    Walker did a tour in Iraq as an active duty soldier in 2004 and this tour he was sent with a transportation unit. He claims he’s not a conscientious objector because “the Army’s definition is a little different from mine”. Different in that Walker doesn’t believe war is immoral.

    According to the AP story;

    He said he now views the Iraq war as “an illegitimate, unnecessary campaign,” and he feels that by making him take part, the government broke the contract under which he agreed to defend the U.S.

    “I feel absolutely justified in doing what I’m doing now based on their breach of the initial contract,” he said.

    I don’t understand this at all. He was in Iraq during one of the toughest periods of that war in the toughest job in the Army. And now that he’s in transportation, he thinks the war is immoral and unjustified. He wasn’t even man enough to face the members of his unit to announce his intention to screw them;

    Walker said he sent e-mails this morning to his company sergeant and commanding officer in Iraq, but hasn’t heard back from them. He said his wife received a text message from a member of Walker’s unit in Iraq so he knows the unit is aware of his decision.

    UPDATED: Frankly Opinionated fixed the photo;

  • Sporkmaster on Patrol

    Sporkmaster sends some videos of parts of his patrol;

    60 seconds in Iraq

    A Iraq market

    And a video of a child being tortured;

    Yeah, that’s the family that’s waiting for Sporkmaster to return.

  • Hanoi Jane, the rash that won’t heal

    1stCAVRVN11b and someone else wanted me to tell you about the Jane Fonda re-emergence last week (from NY Post’s Page Six);

    Here’s part of the transcript of a 1995 Wall Street Journal interview from former North Vietnamese General Bui Tan who now lives in Paris because of his dissatisfaction with the Vietnamese government;

    Question: How did Hanoi intend to defeat the Americans?

    Answer: By fighting a long war which would break their will to help South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh said,
    “We don’t need to win military victories, we only need to hit them until they give up and get out.”

    Q: Was the American antiwar movement important to Hanoi’s victory?
    A: It was essential to our strategy. Support of the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda, and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war and that she would struggle along with us.

    Q: Did the Politburo pay attention to these visits?
    A: Keenly.

    Q: Why?
    A: Those people represented the conscience of America. The conscience of America was part of its war-making capability, and we were turning that power in our favor. America lost because of its democracy; through dissent and protest it lost the ability to mobilize a will to win.


    From US Veterans Dispatch;

    In late 1987, when it became known that Fonda planned to film her new movie “Stanley & Iris,” in Waterbury, Conn., there was a huge backlash from local veterans. Veterans held rallies, promising violent demonstrations if the filming began. Many bumper stickers reading “I’M NOT FONDA HANOI JANE,” begin appearing throughout the community. On June 18, 1988, Fonda flew to Waterbury in an attempt to pacify the veterans. She met with them for four hours. Fonda later recalled “I told them my story – why I was antiwar and why I had gone to Vietnam.”

    A few weeks later Fonda appeared on TV with Barbara Walters and apologized saying: “I’m very sorry for some of what I did…I’d like to say something not just to the veterans in Waterbury but to the men in Vietnam who I hurt, or whose pain I caused to deepen because of the things I said or did. I feel I owe them an apology…There were times when I was thoughtless and careless…I’m very sorry that I hurt them.”

    And now she’s fund raising for IVAW.

  • More Sporkmaster photos

    I’ve asked Sporkmaster, who is currently stationed in Iraq to share more of his photos with us. He’s graciously agreed and in my initial brief perusal of his collection, I pared out some of the evidence that our troops continue to terrorize the population (of course, I kid);



    The guys who make it all possible;

    Thanks to Sporkmaster and I promise I’ll have more as the weeks go on. Anyone else out there who want to share photos with us, please do – nothing makes me happier than having readers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Of course, I’ll have my own source soon – my son called last week to say he’s been tapped for a tour in Iraq.

  • Guantanamo ex-guards report hearsay

    Several people have sent me this Associated Press article about a Baby Huey-looking guy, Brandon Neeley, who claims to have been a guard at Guantanamo. For two days now, I’ve been reading his testimony and the testimony of another supposed Guantanamo guard, Terry C. Holdbrooks, Jr. that has been posted on the UC Davis Human Rights Project on Guantanamo.

    First, I probably don’t need to say this, but Neeley is the president of the Houston chapter of IVAW;

    Neeley seems to be fairly forthright in his testimony, to the apparent chagrin of the interviewer who is hoping for stories of children imprisoned at Gitmo, sexual abuse of prisoners, torture stories of waterboarding, the fingerprints of Rumsfeld and Bush on detainee abuse. To his credit, Neeley gives them none of that.

    (more…)

  • Andre Shepherd’s hearing

    Our buddy, Andre Shepherd, the fellow who deserted from his support battalion in Germany and spent a year hiding out with punk rock bands and admitted commie Darnell Stephen Summers has finally had his hearing with the German government requesting asylum from the evil US government.

    The whole basis of his claim that he needs asylum is because desertion is a capitol crime. It’s not played up that much in the US press because it’s pretty ridiculous. The last soldier that the Army executed, John A. Bennett, was hanged April 16, 1961 after being convicted of a January 1955 rape of an 11-year-old Austrian girl who Bennett also tried to drown after the rape. Shepherd’s crime hardly rises to the level of rape and attempted murder.

    The last deserter to be executed by the Army was Eddie Slovik on January 31, 1945, and despite the fact that 21,000 soldiers deserted in World War Two and 49 were given death sentences, only Slovik was executed.

    But that doesn’t stop Shepherd from tugging at the Euro-weinies’ heart strings;

    If I were to be found guilty of such a crime, U.S. military regulations state they have the right to convict me with a penalty of death.

    In Cleveland.com, Shepard is quoted making the most ridiculous claim;

    In an interview Monday, Shepherd said, “I will definitely fight on, as I don’t believe I or anyone else should be prosecuted for doing what they think is right.”

    I’m sure we can parade a slew of criminals in front of Shepherd that would say the same thing about their respective crimes.

    The Cleveland.com article also thinks that 80,000 soldiers in Germany waiting for Shepherd to be granted asylum so they can all go AWOL, too.

    The case could have profound legal and political implications. If Shepherd is granted asylum, it could open the door for other applications from the up to 80,000 U.S. soldiers based in Germany.

    Tim Huber from the Military Counseling Network, which has been working with Shepherd, said in an interview Monday, “There would not be a whole lot stopping U.S. soldiers walking off their base” to claim asylum..

    I don’t think they realize how much damage they’re doing to Shepherd’s case by speculating that Germany could be deluged with 80,000 layabouts applying for asylum. Not that I think there’s even one soldier awaiting the outcome of this case – it’s just that Germans aren’t real pleased with the last couple of bunches of asylum-seekers they had come in to their country. They didn’t even like the East Germans at first.

    I’m pretty sure I know how this case will end up – the same way all of those deserters’ cases in Canada turned out. The Germans know, as well as the Canadians know, Shepherd, or any other deserter, won’t be put to death – and that’s the only thing they don’t like about the US justice system.

    This is just Shepherd’s way of avoiding his responsibilities completely – not going to Iraq and not willing to go to jail for breaking his promises and forcing his duties on his comrades. I’m pretty sure the Germans have their heads screwed on straight and they’ll turn Shepherd over to military authorities after they finish their hearing procedures. And of course, the Left will whine from now until the end of time about it.

    Thanks to several people who’ve sent me links over the past week about Shepherd.

  • Heh. My first El Tee in the news

    Yeah, OK I’m a few days behind the news, but I just thought I’d mention that Karl Eikenberry, Obama’s ambassador to Afghanistan, was my very first platoon leader when I was E-fricken-two in Bravo Company First of the Seventy Fifth Infantry back in nineteen seventy-five when they were still on Fort Stewart.

    I sure hope he’s less of a (ringknocker) dick now than he was then.

    I don’t fault him for working for the Obama Administration. If the Obama Adminstration asked me to be an ambassador for, say, oh, I don’t know…Panama for instance (hint, hint), I’d accept it.

    LT General Eikenberry has had a long and distinguished career, and I’m sure he’ll do a great job, but to me he’ll always be that dickhead El Tee back 34 years ago. So, I guess there won’t be any job offers to work on the diplomatic staff in Kabul coming my way anytime soon.

  • Sporkmaster in the sand

    One of our newest members of this tiny community, Sporkmaster, is currently deployed to Iraq. Sporkmaster says this is his first unit and his first deployment. He writes that he has a private blog, but that he wanted to share with readers of TAH the private Hell he creates for the poor Iraqi citizens and the unending terror that soldiers in Iraq are dealing with everyday.

    Of course, the Iraqi police sullen and angry at the occupation we’ve inflicted on them, hate Americans, too;

    These are the faces of the evil perpetrators of the dastardly occupation;

    Hmm. They sorta look like the guys who lived next door, or the guys i saw graduating from high school last Spring. They don’t look like sadistic killers and rapists, do they? I wonder what IVAW is talking about.

    Sporkmaster has sent me a slew of other photos that I’ll add over the next few days when I get time. I want to thank him for not only sharing these photos with us, but also for the job he’s doing over there, which probably doesn’t seem too glamorous at the moment, except to those of us who really appreciate the sacrifices he and his comrades are making for us and for the Iraqis.