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

Category: United Nations

  • Yes, we’re the ones

    Old Trooper sends us a link to an article which announces that; “US faces first scrutiny by UN rights council“. i guess this is just another way that the Obama Administration wants to castrate the American experiment;

    The United States only agreed to join the Council in May 2009, after the Bush administration had shunned the body which replaced its similar though discredited predecessor, the UN human rights commission, in 2006.

    The Network produced a 400-page report criticising “glaring inadequacies in the United States? human rights record,” including the “discriminatory impact” of foreclosures, “widespread” racial profiling and “draconian” immigration policies.

    “Advocates across America have not only documented substandard human rights practices which have persisted in the US for years, but also those that reflect the precipitous erosion of human rights protections in the US since 9/11,” said Sarah Paoletti of the Network.

    Yes, I’ve heard reports of the beheadings of foreclosure, racial profiling and illegal immigration victims. What the hell is the ‘discriminatory impact of foreclosures”? Well, other than people learning that when they can’t afford a house, they should look for another they can afford.

    Widespread racial profiling is like what’s going on The Sudan when entire villages are uprooted from their ancestral homes and put in a refugee camp because of their religion – not because a teenage Black male is pulled over for robbing a gas station and when it’s discovered he didn’t commit the crime, he’s released.

    I think they ought to look at Mexico’s immigration policies before they start calling our “draconian”, the little drama queens.

    So I guess this is something else they figure we’ll lay down and take – the rest of the world feeding on our still-living carcass. Isn’t anyone going to mention how we still all own guns. too? Yeah, come and get those.

  • Peace with Honor Reloaded.

    Well at least people are starting to think about what happens with Afghanistan when we leave. The bad part it is just a re-visited plan used over 35 years ago.

    How to Leave Afghanistan Without Losing

    I am going to start were it goes wrong.

    In conjunction with the disengagement process, the agreement would set in motion U.N.-brokered peace negotiations. The Taliban has long demanded a disengagement timetable as the precondition for peace. Ironically, however, its emotional appeal comes primarily from its role as the standard-bearer of opposition to foreign forces. Thus, when and if the United States does present a timetable, it will be cut down to size. The Taliban will be in a strong bargaining position, but only as the dominant force in the ethnically Pashtun south and east of the country.

    The focus of peace negotiations could then be redirected from the terms for power sharing with the Taliban in Kabul to the nature and degree of the power to be ceded to the Taliban in its Pashtun strongholds.

    Yea except for one minor problem, the Taliban does not share power. Feels like a bad pun off of Lord of the Rings.

    This approach is likely to get Pakistani blessing as the best deal available under present circumstances. Islamabad’s leading strategist on Afghanistan, former Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammed Khan, suggested such a shift in focus in a Washington meeting on June 17, observing that the Taliban has “important regional influences where they should be accommodated.”He specified Khost and Paktia as examples of provinces where Taliban control might have to be accepted, and he implied that Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan’s Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, had explored such arrangements in their two Kabul meetings in early June.

    Yea, it gets better.

    The provinces under Taliban rule would have a significant stake in stable relations with Kabul as a source of foreign aid for dams, roads, and other economic infrastructure projects.

    Yea like they are doing a great job of that now.

    Afghanistan’s neighbors would be more likely to help contain the Taliban under a U.N.-brokered agreement than under wartime conditions in which they want to avoid identification with an unpopular U.S. military presence.

    Of course they are because they know the UN is not going to do a thing no mater how may times they break the agreement.

    But lets not forget the real danger, out of control Generals.

  • Confidence in how the war is fought

    Every week or so, dicksmith at VoteVets is fond of reminding us how many terrorists are being killed in Afghanistan under the current administration. Mostly he’s talking about dead terrorists resulting from the use of Joe Biden’s robot ninja zombies.

    dicksmith fails to mention the ways this administration is making us less safe. Ways like releasing terrorists back into the wild from Guantanamo;

    It marks the 34th time that a U.S. judge frees a Guantanamo terrorist since the Supreme Court ruled that detainees could challenge their incarceration in federal court. Slahi arrived at the military compound in 2002 and claims he was tortured, threatened with death, sleep deprived and moved around the base blindfolded.

    Slahi’s terrorist activities are extensive and detailed in the 9/11 Commission report, which explains how he recruited four of the September 2001 conspirators from the renowned Hamburg Germany cell. They include Mohammed Atta, Marwan al Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah, the suicide pilots of American Airlines Flight 11, United Airlines Flight 175, and United Airlines Flight 93.

    Yeah, I know it’s a judge who released Slahi, but it’s the choice of the administration to try these animals in a court of law instead of just leaving them imprisoned. Is there any doubt that the world willbe less safe when Slahi is released? How much sense does it make to release him on technicalities of law?

    I’d love for dicksmith or Tony Camerino to explain how this makes us more safe and how closing Guantanamo makes even a little sense.

    Thanks to Mad Bear for the link.

  • My apathy shows itself again.

    For anyone that has heard of Darfur and the Sudan region has most likely heard of the many problems going on there. This is not something new and like any other conflict zones there is a almost a repeated monotone message condemning the fighting. But with out any real follow through to be then forgotten by what is the next breaking crisis around the world. In short unless it happens in one’s immediate area, most people could care less. So keep that in mine as we go into the this video.

    (more…)

  • Nah, don’t worry about Marc Hall

    Last month I wrote about newly-minted IVAW member Marc Hall who was “stop lossed” in the Age of Obama at Fort Stewart, GA so retaliated by writing a violent rap song – which in turn got him tossed in the hoosegow by the Army. The Stars and Stripes reprints the violent verses;

    “[Expletive] you colonels, captains, E-7 and above
    You think you so much bigger than I am? …
    I’m gonna round them up all eventually, easily, walk right up peacefully
    And surprise them all, yes, yes, y’all, up against the wall, turn around
    I got a [expletive] magazine with 30 rounds, on a three-round burst, ready to fire down
    Still against the wall, I grab my M-4, spray and watch all the bodies hit the floor
    I bet you never stop-loss nobody no more.”

    Pretty explicit about his intentions. The Army explains why they locked him up;

    “The chain of command has a legal obligation to the citizens of the United States to investigate and deal fairly with SPC Hall’s alleged misconduct,” Kevin Larson, a spokesman at Fort Stewart, said in an e-mail. “Anything less would be irresponsible to our citizens and soldiers.”

    Of course they have a legal obligation to protect soldiers and their families from crack pots. But Hall’s lawyer, James Klimaski, doesn’t see it that way;

    Hall’s song is just a song and should not be taken literally, the lawyer said.

    “Listen to rap songs,” Klimaski said. “I mean there are a whole bunch of rap songs talking about killing people all the time. Nobody gets killed from them.”

    Klimaski also downplayed the allegations that Hall made additional threats.

    “The problem with threats is they can’t be contingent,” he said. “ ‘I will do this if …’ Well that’s not a threat because if ‘if’ doesn’t happen, then there’s no threat. Like, let’s say, ‘I’m going to shoot the battalion commander if I’m deployed.’ Well he’s not been deployed, so he’s not going to shoot the battalion commander, so there’s no threat.”

    Klimaski also said the definition of rampage means to run around like a crazy person. “That’s not a threat,” he said.

    Yeah, all you hep cats get with it – rap is cool. It’s just art and no one ever gets killed because of it. Well, except all of those rappers and people who attend rap concerts and rap promoters. And Hall won’t shoot his battalion commander if the commander doesn’t send him Afghanistan – problem solved. Of course, that wouldn’t have any long term effect on the military, will it?

    “Maj. Hasan didn’t run around and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to blow people away at the hospital, or the infirmary today.’ Or the bomber going into Detroit says, ‘Oh, I should tell everyone I’m on this plane and blow the plane up,’” he said.

    So people who make wild-assed statements can now be ignored and we start worrying about people who DON’T communicate threats. That sounds feasible.

    I thought about making a threat here on the life of James Klimaski, but then I realized, he might not think of threats against his life the same way he thinks about threats against the lives of military people.

    But then again, if I make a threat against his life, that would make me less likely to actually do anything against him…this is all so confusing. We should hire James Branum to take Klimaski to court and make Klimaski give us all classes on how not to be perceived as a threat to other people.

  • Chiroux and Brower; being something they ain’t

    One of my spies who has infiltrated Chiroux’s inner circle on Facebook (he won’t “friend” me for some reason he can’t explain) sent me this video that he linked;

    In the beginning of the video, Chiroux says “I know from experience that [the war in Afghanistan] is genocide” – “From experience”? Sitting at Baskin-Robbins on Bagram for six days (give or take a few hours)? Of course, none of the hippies to whom he’s speaking care – as long as he wears his BDU jacket and stands in front of them, that’s all they need.

    He says he’s a veteran of “the situation”. What situation, Matthis? Does he mean “the situation” in Germany and Japan, because those are the only places he’s been.

    Elaine Brower screeches that she doesn’t want her son to have to go back to the war. That sounds like something she needs to take up with her son. Last I knew, he’s a staff sergeant, so he’s reenlisted a few times – no one is making him go back. I’m sure he’s a smart guy and could get a job somewhere else, if he wanted.

    Brower wants to be seen as a victim of the government’s war – she’s not. She’s a victim of her son’s personal decisions. So was my mother when I was in the Army. Chiroux wants to be regarded as an eye witness to something he’s never seen. He’s another Ward Reilly. 30 years from now Chiroux is going to be a scraggly old man clinging to the days he was drilling hairy-legged hippie chicks.

    Of course, these two need the war. The last thing they really want is for it to end.

    By the way, someone tell Bill Perry (he commented on the Facebook entry) that I think it’s hilarious that he’s using a picture I took of him as his avatar on Facebook. I’m glad he’s a fan of my work.

  • Biden plan hits UN roadblock

    It’s hard to know who to cheer for in a fight between Joe Biden’s plan for the war in Afghanistan and the United Nations. Biden’s plan is to use Special Forces soldiers and drone aircraft to take out Taliban and al Qaeda leadership, exposing fewer troops to actual combat. But the UN has stepped in and want the Obama Administration to prove how their plan is legal, according to the Associated Press and the Stars and Stripes;

    Alston, the U.N. Human Rights Council’s investigator on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, raised the issue of U.S. Predator drones in a report to the General Assembly’s human rights committee and at a news conference afterwards, saying he has become increasingly concerned at the dramatic increase in their use, especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan, since June.

    He said the U.S. response – that the Geneva-based council and the General Assembly have no role in relation to killings during an armed conflict – “is simply untenable.”

    “That would remove the great majority of issues that come before these bodies right now,” Alston said. “The onus is really on the government of the United States to reveal more about the ways in which it makes sure that arbitrary executions, extrajudicial executions are not, in fact, being carried out through the use of these weapons.”

    In my opinion, Biden’s plan is unworkable and will only serve to lengthen our stay in the region, but still, the UN seems oblivious to the fact that Taliban and al Qaeda forces who are the target of drones are responsible for thousands of deaths of innocent civilians. That seems a worse record of human rights abuses than blowing up a few terrorist leaders.

    If this was the Bush Administration, I wouldn’t worry about the use of drone aircraft decreasing, but since this is the Obama/Biden era, those two might be more responsive to UN idiocy. The article doesn’t mention the use of Special Operations troops, but you know that can’t be far away. Of course, the UN seems more preoccupied in blunting US military power than they are in making the world a safer place in which to live.

  • Clinton to NY; Drop Dead

    New York State propelled Hillary Clinton into politics by forsaking every other qualified New Yorker for a Semate seat. The former First Lady, who had never lived in the State before her election, repaid those folks today.

    Six months into her tenure as secretary of state she has suddenly exempted diplomats from paying some property taxes here.

    “It is totally unfair,” [NYC Mayor Michael] Bloomberg said.

    The mayor said it’s not only a double cross but a double flip flop. As New York’s junior senator, Clinton fought to make diplomats pay up. And he said her reversal changes a longstanding policy.

    “Since 1873 they’ve been saying this is taxable,” Bloomberg said.

    What’s more, the mayor predicted that — freed of paying property taxes — some governments would see it as a business opportunity to buy up properties and make money renting them out.

    “It’s just patently unfair to New Yorkers and Americans and it contravenes established policy for 130-odd years and it just doesn’t make sense,” Bloomberg said.

    Again, with the Obama Administration, Americans, who are looking at higher taxes, take a back seat while the clowns in Washington suck up at light speed.