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

Category: Usual Suspects

  • Cheney strikes a nerve

    With speculation about the culpability for the latest failed attempt by a terrorist, Dick Cheney spoke to Politico and charged that the current administration seems to be avoiding the fact that we’re at war with terrorists;

    “[W]e are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe,” Cheney said in a statement to POLITICO. “Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency — social transformation — the restructuring of American society.”

    That certainly is the way it appears. Obama set aside the war to focus on his domestic agenda this year – an agenda that seems to be failing, by the way. Anyway, the Administration took the time out to post on their blog about Cheney’s comments;

    First, it’s important that the substantive context be clear: for seven years after 9/11, while our national security was overwhelmingly focused on Iraq – a country that had no al Qaeda presence before our invasion – Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda’s leadership was able to set up camp in the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they continued to plot attacks against the United States. Meanwhile, al Qaeda also regenerated in places like Yemen and Somalia, establishing new safe-havens that have grown over a period of years. It was President Obama who finally implemented a strategy of winding down the war in Iraq, and actually focusing our resources on the war against al Qaeda – more than doubling our troops in Afghanistan, and building partnerships to target al Qaeda’s safe-havens in Yemen and Somalia. And in less than one year, we have already seen many al Qaeda leaders taken out, our alliances strengthened, and the pressure on al Qaeda increased worldwide.

    Yes, that’s the way it happened – if you ignore all of the facts. Thank goodness that Obama started winding down the war in Iraq – his opposition to the surge probably help speed that along. When the administration can’t muster enough hyperbole, they call in Eugene Robinson Pulitzer Prize-winning dunce at the Washington Post to make unbelievably naive statements

    …Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was given training — and probably the bomb itself, which involved plastic explosives sewn into his underwear — by al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen. It happens that at least two men who were released from Guantanamo appear to have gone on to play major roles as al-Qaeda lieutenants in Yemen. Who let these dangerous people out of our custody? They were set free by the administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

    Reminiscent of the Left blaming the first Bush Administration for not taking out Saddam Hussein and saddling the Clinton Administration with the problem. Robinson has been advocating for the release of Guantanamo detainees for half-a-decade – yet this bombing attempt was the Bush Administration’s fault. It’s as if they don’t realize that “Google” was invented.

  • Sarah Lazare is exhausting

    I have an internet feed that tracks a good number of the anti-war bozos and the news all this weekend has blared out headlines that “The US military is exhausted”. All of the far Left, anti-war blogs (by “all” I mean literally hundreds of cut and paste blogs) are running an Al-Jazeera article by that title written by Sarah Lazare, who happens to be the “project coordinator” for Courage to Resist – a band of smelly hippies who help the military’s derelicts be derelict.

    But anyway, her contention is that the military is just worn out from the war. Of course, the best way to spread that kind of lie is on Al-Jazeera, which has a stake in the defeat of the US military, Besides no semi-legitimate news organization would give the hairy-legged Lazare a column inch for this kind of tripe;

    Many from within the ranks are openly declaring that they have had enough, allying with anti-war veterans and activists in calling for an end to the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with some active duty soldiers publicly refusing to deploy.

    This growing movement of military refusers is a voice of sanity in a country slipping deeper into unending war.

    Many? She counts two – Victor Agosto and Travis Bishop. Seems to me if there are “many” she’d have more stories than those two. Digging a little deeper, I found she’s been collaborating with Dahr Jamail who has also been trying to pimp the story that the military is on the verge of complete collapse because of all of the desertions – based on interviews he did five and six years ago with stellar troops like Geogg “Stolen Valor” Millard.

    Of course, Lazare sees the real reason for the US war in the Middle East as a war of imperialism;

    The never-ending nature of this conflict belies the real project of establishing US dominance in the Middle East and control of the region’s resources, at the expense of the Afghan civilians and US soldiers being placed in harm’s way.

    The region’s resources. Because every imperial power needs a major shit hole to administrate. Our children are always demanding newer sources of sand and rocks for their playground antics.

    Lazare, you’re an idiot – I don’t mean that as an insult. It’s the closest thing to a compliment I could summon.

  • Michael Prysner; true communist hero

    If you google his name, you’ll find hundreds of websites that call Mike Prysner a “true war hero“. Why? Well, because he opposes the war against terror, of course. The Left likes to see buffoons who wear their uniform at their protests. Prysner is more than willing to fill the boots for them. But, Prysner has other aspirations, too.

    See, he’s already tried to use his anti-war and veteran credentials to run for political office in Florida in the “Party for Socialism and Liberation”.

    prysner

    He’s already joined and then left the IVAW because they weren’t radical enough for him. He co-formed March Forward, a veteran contingent of the Maoist ANSWER. Here’s a slickerized version of his testimony at Winter Soldier that he’s been sending out to the Leftists around the internet;
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  • They can’t end the war, so they’ll end troops’ futures

    Does this sound like the military you guys served in;

    It’s a place where drug abuse is rampant, suicide is common, and mental health is severely placed at risk. One in three women stands a chance of being raped — as do one in four men — and the violence directed toward each other undercuts the real fight against the enemy.

    Not mine. But that’s what’s being described by “IV”AW members Cherish Summer Ray Hodge and Brigitte Wooten to their local media in Ventura County, CA.

    What sounds like a prison environment in theory was a near reality for people like Cherish Hodge or Brigitte Wooten, members of a local peace group formed by recent veterans of the Iraq Conflict.

    Their search for new members willing to come forward and join the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) punctuates the proud military sentiment set forth this season, after the passing of Veterans Day, with a sharp caveat: awareness of the injustices and dissent within the ranks of the U.S. armed forces’ own soldiers.

    “It’s different for us to be in an environment where there’s so much racism and bigotry and homophobia,” says Hodge, 26, president of the IVAW Ventura branch. “The military is a melting pot of all of those things. Suddenly, you’re exposed to that.”

    Of course, both of them have never been to Iraq or Afghanistan, that’s a membership requirement now, apparently. So they’re not speaking of the war, although they’d like to think they are. Here’s Cherish Blah Blah Blah’s profile from IVAW;

    cherish-summer-ray-hodges-ivaw-profile

    Brigitte doesn’t have a profile on IVAW, but in the article she describes her military service;

    Wooten was discharged from the Navy one year ago this month after a five-year stint in the Navy that sent her to Kuwait for about eight months. Having served as a hospital corpsman, she, too, was witness firsthand to blatant drug and alcohol abuse, which, among other soldiers, led to medical problems from drunken brawls, near overdoses and attempted suicides.

    “I went in knowing I would be seeing some things. I didn’t think I would have seen as many rampant things,” Wooten said. “When you go to boot camp, you’re taught to look up to your officers and enlisted; you expect a certain amount of professionalism and a family-type bond. But you don’t see that very often.”

    Someone buy Wooten a dictionary, or tell her what “rampant” means.

    And, of course, they have Dahr Jamail and his useless contribution to bolster their yammering;

    Jamail recounted stories about women GIs stationed in the Middle East, so afraid to use latrines after dark, for fear of being jumped and assaulted by their fellow male soldiers, that some died of dehydration.

    Yeah, that story came from Col. Janis Karpinski and her useless testimony to the Commission of Inquiry for Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration which has been thoroughly discredited for nearly four years by Greyhawk and Soldier’s Dad.

    “A lot of veterans, the last thing they want is to get back into these problems,” [Cher-blah-Summer-blah-blah] said. “Just because there [aren’t] a lot of outspoken veterans, doesn’t mean we aren’t here.”

    Or, maybe, you just like wearing a shirt that says “Iraq Veterans” on it. The lie that IVAW has 1700 active members is false – with all of the resignations, has anyone seen the number fall even a hair? What was it 79 members who showed up at Silver Spring? 1621 were busy that weekend? Only had enough money to provide Carl Webb with free transportation?

    Out of the hundreds of thousands of men and women who’ve served, IVAW can scare up 79 for their annual convention. Well, 78 and Carl Webb – as long as IVAW pays.

  • Fort Hood murderer prevented from praying

    Nidal Hasan’s lawyer, John Galligan claims that his client was prevented from praying on the phone with his brother and that violates his civil rights;

    The military has imposed restrictions requiring Hasan to speak only in English on the phone or with visitors unless an interpreter is present.

    Which makes sense, because Hasan has been in contact with radical groups and may have been influenced by a radical iman to commit his heinous crime. It’s not a civil rights violation if he’s allowed to do something with limits and he doesn’t comply with those limits.

    I’d remind Galligan that his client prevented 13/14 people from ever praying again.

  • Two stories of GI Resistance

    The IVAW is running an article on their website about two brave GI Resisters. Here’s the screen shot about Ryan Jackson and Marc Hall;

    jackson-hall

    We’re already familiar with Ryan Jackson, since he spent a lot of my bandwidth trying to rehabilitate his image on another post a week or so ago. Basically, Jackson got popped on a urinalysis test and then went AWOL and James Branum got him locked up. Of course, Ryan’s story is that he became a peace activist and pissed hot on purpose, however the sequence of the events leading up to his trial aren’t in his favor.

    Now, Marc Hall, on the other hand, is new to us. Just judging by what the folks at IVAW wrote on this little story, he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. He’d done a tour of Iraq with the 3rd ID, came back, was getting ready to ETS and they stop-lossed him. I’ll admit that sucks and he has a right to be angry, but he didn’t stop there.

    Hall claims he is a musician and song writer, but that’s all a matter of taste. When he got stop-lossed, he wrote a song called “Stop Loss” (figures, right?). Now he claims it’s his 1st Amendment right to write whatever he wants – but his unit put him in jail for his little ditty. Why? I listened to his song, even though I’m not a big rap fan, and in it, he sings (is that the right word?) that he’s going to lock and load a thirty-round magazine and kill all of the E-7s and above – less than a month after another soldier shot scores of his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood. Can you really blame his chain of command for locking him up for Hall’s and the Army’s protection?

    Well, all of the usual suspects are calling for Hall’s immediate release. Seriously. The IVAW, Courage to Resist and Labor Against the War all posted the phone number to “the jail” so the hippies can all feel good about themselves by calling Hall’s jailers and demanding his release (yeah, that’ll work overnight). They also posted his company commander’s name and his unit address (although according to AKO, Hall is assigned to a Forward Support Battalion and the address they posted is to an infantry company).

    I guess the Army can’t do anything right as far as the IVAW and their cohorts are concerned. Too bad Branum isn’t defending Hall.

  • Anti-war movement has petered out

    chiroux-and-mckinney

    The anti-war crowd had a protest yesterday at the White House called the “No You Can’t” rally. It’s gone virtually unnoticed by the media (and unnoticed by me, too – I was pimpin’ my crib yesterday). Despite being headlined by the most famous of the moonbat ranks, even the LA Times wasn’t impressed by the 300 participants;

    “People are burned out,” explained the rally’s organizer, Laurie Dobson. As she and other antiwar activists struggle to remake their movement, they also acknowledge there are obstacles.

    “We’re fighting a harder fight right now,” said Dobson, who said antiwar efforts had been upstaged by the battle for healthcare reform and had been hampered by the bad economy. She and others also acknowledge a certain awkwardness: Activists now find themselves up against the same politician many of them helped elect.

    “The peace movement has a new adversary in front of them,” said Tom Hayden, a former California state senator who was a leading critic of the Vietnam War. “He’s intelligent, speaks the language of the peace movement and is trying to reach out to the center-left of the country with his message. It’s much more formidable to argue with Barack Obama than it was with Bush or Cheney.”

    Hayden said many of the activists who once used antiwar protest to convey their contempt of President George W. Bush have been reluctant to criticize Obama, who, while he was a candidate, made much of his opposition to the war in Iraq.

    Some media outlets are pumping up the numbers of protesters to 1500, but even on Matthis Chiroux’ Facebook page World Can’t Wait admits to only 300;

    facebook-protest-numbers

    So Brower is still tossing shoes – that’s so last year, Elaine. But that’s kind of the story of the whole peace movement, isn’t it?

  • Save the rest of us instead

    The Wall Street Journal has an Op/Ed from Salam Al-Marayati, from the Muslim Public Affairs Council in which he says we should allow a cluster of Muslim clerics to explain to Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood murderer how he was wrong to think that he was justified in murdering us infidels;

    Consider allowing Muslim-American religious leaders to meet with Nidal Hasan. Muslim leaders could encourage him to repent. And they could engage Maj. Hasan on his deeply flawed understanding of Islam, explaining that the Quran is an instrument to take people from darkness to light, not the opposite.

    Ya know, that’s all well and good, but how about pulling aside the radical clerics operating across the world and urging them to repent, too. How about a little preventive maintenance on Islam. Another good place to start is with those Revolution Muslims – they’re the guys who called Hasan an “officer and a gentleman” for murdering 13 (14) people.

    revolution-muslims

    Here’s a report from Anderson Cooper from last month right after the Hasan attack;

    It seems to me that if Al-Marayati wanted to do some good, he’d forget about Hasan’s soul and start saving some of these folks who are on the precipice of doing some harm to folks.

    I’ve watched some of the videos of the Revolution Muslims and it’s some scary shit to watch them mouth words that they’ve obviously memorized and practiced.

    Even Jesse MacBeth is concerned about them. He emailed the other day to tell me he’s assembling a group of moderate Muslims to debate the Revolution Muslims on YouTube. I commend MacBeth for his efforts, but it’ll have the effect of spitting in a hurricane.