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

Category: Veterans For Peace/VVAW

  • An incomplete list of new IVAW board members

    The names of the new IVAW board members are beginning to trickle in from a few sources. The preliminary results are;

    Robynn Murray
    Logan Mehl Laituri (One Year Term)
    TJ Buonomo
    Jeremy Stainthorp Berggren
    Joyce Wagner

    I’m glad Laituri made it – maybe he can steer the organization in a half-way decent direction. Scott stirred my memory about Jeremy Stainthorpe Berggen earlier today. he’s the guy who thinks he got PTSD from NOT deploying. Robynn Murray is the ditz who didn’t really have any complaints about her time the Army and Iraq yet tried to sound like she did. She also accompanied Matthis on stage when he burned the flag alongside Elaine Brower. TJ Buonomo and I are old acquaintances. Joyce Wagner, an actual Iraq War veteran blasted Matthis for burning the flag in their name.

    Three of the new board members are actual Iraq War veterans (Murray, Laituri and Wagner), the other two are not – Buonomo waited until he graduated from the Air Force Academy before he voiced his opposition to the war and Berggren got PTSD from dreaming about his buddies in the mortuary unit who did deploy.

    On another note, Bill Perry, the old 1971 VVAW Winter Soldier, counted the votes. He claims that IVAW’s resolutions on Immigration, War Crimes and Gaza were passed. I don’t have the text on those yet, but I will. Apparently, some rock gruop sang a song about Miss International Pancake, Rachel Corrie and that coupled with an Ann Wright fairy tale about the plight of Palestinians was influential in the vote on Gaza. Regular readers will remember how well-informed Ann Wright is about Gaza – like she was well-informed about the Mavi Marmara.

    But Perry can’t help but rant incoherent BS about a 1,000 years of crusades against the Palestinians armed only with bottle rockets. If i can get my stupid computer to work, I’ll up load the screen shot of Perry’s rant.

    Update: Here’s Perry’s anti-Israel rant

  • Dirty Hippie starts new website to “Free West Point”…

    Not much to see there yet, but this website bears some watching to see if we can get any good humor out of them. The About Us section doesn’t have much:

    Over the last nine years, peace workers in the lower Hudson Valley have gone to West Point to call for an end to the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars. An ad hoc group of us want to go beyond what can be said on banners and placards, using this website to raise basic questions for cadets and educators, provide news and analysis and stimulate debate.

    For myself, I can not wait to hear what they have to say. Right now you get a meager faire of asinine questions like:

    Question for West Point cadets and educators:

    Is it consistent with international law, human rights, common decency and the good order and morale of the military to send US forces to secure resources in other countries?

    Go ahead, try to answer that question. Only…..I thought those decisions were made by our civilian leadership? Aren’t they the ones who are supposed to address those issues? I only bring this up because I know the dirty hippies will answer with some long ridiculous answer citing to the Nuremberg trials, all the while forgetting that the same dirty hippies were mad last week at Stan the Man for taking it upon himself to have an opinion. Now they want the cadets to take in mind common decency when factoring in whether to go where they contractually are obligated to go.

    So far this website has only three links. One to some bullshit Marjorie Cohn, formerly of the National Lawyers Guild, wrote bashing Obama. I had the sorry displeasure of reading her shittastic Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent. My review on Amazon was this:

    Vigorously fact-checked by a pride of glue-sniffing marmosets with a Ouija board, Rules of Disengagement is a useless compendium of all the debunked canards from the last 7 years. I wish that instead of spending the $14.95 on this piece of crap I had simply replicated the experience of reading it by giving myself a scrotal laceration and then dipping it in turpentine and lemon juice. The legal reasoning behind this book it is roughly as logical as eating an omelet made of pigeon droppings.

    Majorie Cohn has gotten every one of her clients that I can find the worst possible judgment. You are better off getting legal advice from a hobo on a train.

    If you are a troop who wants to get out, do it without this bufoon who is more interested in making political points than aiding clients. Seriously, it is easy to get out, but not with her driving the clown car.

    Next up we have a piece by Bob Herbert of the NYT who hasn’t written a sensible word in 20 years.

    Lastly we get a link to a video by PBS between Bill Moyers and Andrew Bacevich. The latter is a Gold Star Dad, so I won’t speak ill of the man, but he might have a bit more emotional investment than one might deem proper.

    Anyway, I for one love these dirty hippie sites, since I think their sense of humor is second to none.

    BTW- Thanks to our friend Greta Perry of Hooah Wife for forwarding that little bit of insanity.

    UPDATE: Oh for the love of Spongebob….look at who is involved in this crap, Tom Hayden.

    You know, former husband of Jane Fonda and founder of SDS.

  • Matthis’ big weekend

    Mattis went to Detroit for the US Social Forum and hooked up with flag-burning buddy Elaine Brower this weekend. Their big adventure was to post a banner in an abandoned building with some of the chumps from Geezers For Sitting On Our Hands;

    Yeah, he’s afraid of the police, that’s why he stopped to take a group portrait;

    Here’s the lame-ass crowd – they took several photos despite the fact that they were so afraid of the cops;

    If the Detroit police need the picture to identify the trespassers, I can still blow the original up another 200% to help out. Anything to help out Detroit’s finest. But obviously, Matthis and his friends weren’t all that interested in the social forum that was being held in Detroit, well not as much as they were enamored with the idea of childish, useless pranks. Given that the average age of the trespassers was about 90 years old, I think I can safely say “Grow up, Vets for Peace.” At least act half your age.

  • Matthis chases off another IVAW member

    So I got the whiff of another IVAW member leaving (actually, I’ve heard from a couple of folks who are leaving or getting run off) because of the antics of Matthis Chiroux. Someone mailed me this letter of resignation;

    I sit down at this desk and begin to write the hardest letter I have every written. A month ago, I came across a video of the “We Are Not Your Soldiers” stop at a California High School. What I saw was so shocking and devastating that it called into question my very membership in IVAW.

    After the Board of Directors voted not to take any action against Matthis Chiroux for burning the American Flag on March 20, 2010, I became sick of IVAW national politics that did nothing but undermine the work of local chapters. I stepped away from any involvement in the national politics, and stepped into local work, hoping that I might accomplish some real good. Alas, while the local results were encouraging, the idiotic ramblings of Mr. Chiroux found me.

    On the evening of May 24th, I was sent the link to a video of the “We Are Not Your Soldiers” Tour stop on May7th, 2010. In the video, there was one speaker, a woman, whom I did not recognize, and Mr. Chiroux. From the context, it appeared that they were speaking to high school classes about the video Collateral Murder. While some of what Matthis said regarding the fear that war instills was right, there was a slew of half-truths and exaggerations that offset any grain of truth he was trying to communicate. First there was the terrible editing job: interspersed video of US, German and UK soldiers with extremely graphic photos of dead and wounded people from Iraq, Israel, Afghanistan and violent street riots in the US and England. Then there was a stream of generalizations, over simplifications and half-truths about war that were laughable coming from a veteran who spent a week in Afghanistan. Even as a non-deployed veteran, I can tell when someone has never actually seen war.

    The final portion of Mr. Chiroux’s talk was the most shocking. After a short tirade about slavery to the American flag, Mr. Chiroux states that must not support the troops. I have to admit that this was quite a shock to hear, even from Matthis. Not support the troops? How does that work with being the leader of an organization that is of the troops and for the troops? He made it very clear that any soldier who deploys is committing genocide and should NOT be supported. He told the civilians in this class that they need to let soldiers know that they do not support them and that they should not honor the warrior or the war.

    At this point in the video, I was sick. I had been told of people like this: activists who attack all soldiers without regard for their humanity. Nevertheless, to actually see someone talk about soldiers like Mr. Chiroux did, was socking. I could not believe I was hearing. As a Conscientious Objector, I am keenly aware that not every soldier is opposed to the war. I understand that the decision to get out of the military is a very personal and very serious decision that no one can force a soldier to make. It is an absolute necessity that we support the troops while opposing the wars. While Mr. Chiroux makes no distinction between these two ideas, one can support a soldier without approving of the war he is taking part in. I have sent care packages, helped family members of deployed soldiers – I have even helped soldiers who have chosen to stay in the military! We can support and help soldiers even if we disagree with their decision to remain in the military and deploy.

    I am quickly running out of options with regards to IVAW. Over the last few years, members have left the national scene to focus on local work. Others have gotten more and more involved in the internal politics of IVAW. Neither option has proven very successful at either ending the wars or changing the problems within IVAW. For me, more involvement with the national scene has led to heartburn and stress, while just focusing on local work has been hindered by the national ravings of Matthis and his ilk. Thankfully, I have been given some very unique opportunities to focus more on reaching out and building relationships with soldiers, regardless of their position about war. I feel that IVAW will only hinder these efforts.

    I do not leave in protest. I do not expect IVAW to change to keep me as a member, nor am I demanding that. I am not leaving activism – I leave to free myself for more direct and personal involvement in reaching out to soldiers without the hindrance of IVAW.
    Signed,

    Daniel

    At some point, IVAW has to start taking into account that this is not the 1960s, that the membership of this organization is more mature, more rational and more intelligent than the smelly, illiterate twits of VVAW and VFP. Time and again, members of IVAW have made it clear that they have nothing against this country or their comrades who remain in the service, but the International Socialist Organization-affiliated members of IVAW are the ones who drive the organization away from it’s members.

    I have nothing against opposing the war, but I do oppose the far Left moonbats who want to manipulate that opposition into a Marxist revolution, and apparently some of the members feel the same way. Some of them are honest enough to admit that they don’t want to belong to an organization that is being used by radical extremists in the RCP and World Can’t Wait.

    The ISO members and their useful idiots as well as the dinosaurs of the VVAW/VFP are scrambling to mitigate the latest damage to their propaganda machine and I’ll have more on that tomorrow.t

  • VFP calls for impeachment of Obama

    The organization known around these parts as Geezers For Sitting On Our Hands have decided to petition for the impeachment of the President. Warning: There are some pretty gruesome pictures in this video;

    Of course, this is the group who still put “Impeach Nixon” stickers on their car.

    Impeach Nixon

    I don’t think there’s been a president other than Jimmy Carter they haven’t wanted to impeach. They also rely heavily on Smedley Butler’s image and quote that “War is a Racket” in the video. Butler has been dead since 1940, so I guess they want to impeach FDR, too. Who knows why they think that a guy who died seventy years ago would have anything useful to contribute to today’s discussion and would support impeaching the President.

    Basically, they just dust off the charges against Bush and try to make themselves seem relevant today. Actually VFP hasn’t had a relevant moment in their 25-year history.

  • The IVAW Braintrust

    So if you didn’t already know the person in the picture above, would you think he’s an iraq veteran? It’s Matthis, by the way, at the UXO concert. Photo is courtesy of Bill Perry. He doesn’t act like the crowning glory of his military career was occupying the corner booth at Baskin-Robbins on Bagram Airbase for six days.

    Well, anyway, the following exchange took place on Facebook between all of the great thinkers of IVAW past and present. carl Webb, Dahlia Wasfi, Carl Webb and Bobby Whittenberg. The discussion of course was over whether they should support killing US soldiers to satisfy their own bloodlust for the cause.

    The discussion begins with Matthis criticizing some soldier on Facebook for wishing some diplomatic solution hadn’t been arrived at in some corner of the war so hat soldier could resolve the problem with force. Of course, matthis and Branum jump on it as an example of the evils of the American fighting man. Carl Webb on the other hand, whines that he was uninvited from the IVAW convention because of racism, to which Dahlia Wasfi, race pimp that she is, agrees. Hart Viges, to his credit, explains to Carl, once again, that it was his extremist views that got him kicked out of IVAW. And that’s where we pick up the conversation;

    See Bobby Whittenberg expressing the same extremist and violent views that Carl Webb espoused last year? Yeah, that’s the guy that I dressed down (ex-) Army Sergeant for convincing him to stay in IVAW when he threatened to quit because they weren’t extreme enough for his taste.

    The only reason I’ve gone easy on Whittenberg is because he did earn a Purple Heart and because there is obviously something wrong with him (and no one in IVAW or VFP is telling him he needs help) and he’s being used by the rat fucks in Austin to play to the radical crowd there. The best thing IVAW could do for Bobby is cut him loose and get him some help – but the best thing for IVAW is to keep putting him in the front lines to act like he’s insane for the cameras – which they will continue to do until someone gets hurt.

    I have screen shots of the rest of the conversation, I just didn’t feel like uploading them all, but I will if a participant wants to dispute the conversation.

  • Carl Webb gets butt-hurt

    I wrote the other day that Carl Webb was looking forward to attending the IVAW convention in Austin since it’s in his home town. But, according to his Facebook entry, he’s been uninvited;

    I see it but I don’t believe it. I’m sure I’ll find some pictures of Webb at the convention eventually. He can’t resist leaning in from the side of picture taking events. His buddy Bobby Whittenberg will get him in using Bobby’s psycho act or Doug Zachary will pitch a snit.

  • Ann Wright lies

    White House Protest 10-5-2009 (43)a

    Mary Ann Wright, the scraggly old bag in the front of the above picture, is a member of several anti-war groups in the US. She made headlines when she resigned from her State Department job over the invasion of Saddam’s Iraq. Ever since you can watch the former Reserve Colonel populate the ranks of Code Pink, VVAW, VFP and any other crowd of doofuses that needs her to wear a T-shirt in their front ranks.

    I’ve listened to her screeches at a thousand protests in DC and watched her antics on YouTube. Here’s her military record;

    Why the military record? To prove that she really was a military officer once, but you can see for yourself how that has no meaning to her anymore. Every time you see “Col. Ann Wright”, you can just toss that “Col.” shit aside because she certainly has.

    To refresh your memory about some of the things I’ve written about her, here’s a video taken last year. At about 1:32 you can see Wright begin screaming for no reason – there are no Israeli police near her, but she screams like a twelve-year-old girl and then runs around the back of the crowd and wedges herself between a barrier and a light pole and acts like the police shoved her into the predicament. Enjoy;

    She’s such a drama queen. Well, anyway she’s been spouting off that she witnessed the action on Mavi Marmara last week off the coast of Gaza;

    ” Wright says: “I just returned from the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and started my speaking tour last night in NYC to share what I witnessed aboard the flotilla, and what people can do to end the siege.”

    “I witnessed the Israeli attack that killed 9 persons and wounded 50 on the Gaza Flotilla… the murder of nine persons… Tragically, it took another example of disproportionate use of force by the Israeli military that resulted in the deaths of nine innocent civilians to force many governments of the world to call for the Israelis to end the siege of Gaza.”

    Yeah, except she now admits she wasn’t on the Mavi Marmara, but she tries to convince a reporter that she has night vision as well as telescopic vision and saw the whole thing from the Challenger, through the darkness from several hundred yards away. Oh, and she has super-hearing, too because she heard the captain of the Mavi Marmara order people to stop beating the Israeli commandos.

    Lerner: Col. Wright I just want to make sure again – so you actually were on a different boat and did not witness the attack firsthand.

    Wright: That’s correct.

    Lerner: So your witnessing is based on the information that you are getting from the other folks who were there.

    Wright: My witness will be specifically what happened on our ship, the Challenger. And then I can comment on what happened in the very first three or four minutes as the Israeli commandos were trying to board the ship. We saw that from the stern of the ship. But after that that’s when my witnessing from my own eyes of what happened on that ship would end.

    Oh, and she hasn’t bothered to see the YouTube video of the incident. In other words, she knew what she was going to say before the first Israeli commando stepped on the Mavi Marmara.

    Thanks to Ponsdorf for the heads up.