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

Category: Veterans For Peace/VVAW

  • Is it any wonder that Egypt wants to keep Hamas sealed up?

    This seems like the weirdest continuing thing going yet. After the split between the Fatah and Hamas, the Fatah is all but forgotten compared to Hamas. Not only that but the continued stories in the Gaza and all the support for the Hamas at home and overseas.

    Yet the Egypt has closed off border again after a firefight with Hamas that left one Egyptian solider dead. The reason for the shooting was interesting to say the least.

    At some point, Hamas police fired shots to disperse the crowd and shots were also heard from the Egyptian side of the border. It was not clear who fired first.

    But that did not stop the attempt to open the border.

    Hamas is trying to rally Arab and Muslim public opinion against the barrier it has dubbed the “death wall.” Hamas-allied Muslim clerics have denounced the wall as “haram,” or forbidden by Islam, and protesters picketed Egyptian embassies in Lebanon and Jordan this week.

    Really? We are now getting lectures about how Muslims should act from a group that has regularly used suicide bombers and attacks civilian targets?

    Also there was a protest in Cairo over not having a open border with Gaza where some of the protesters got roughed up. But considering the shootings today that this quote seemed very ironic.

    The Gaza Freedom March represents people from 43 countries with a diversity of backgrounds. They include peoples of all faiths, community leaders, peace activists, doctors, artists, students, politicians, authors and many others. They share a commitment to nonviolence and a determination to break the siege of Gaza.

    Yep and we have seen just how well that worked today. I still believe that Hamas is causing the majority of all the problems that people face in the Gaza strip. With several groups willing to all but bend backwards to support Hamas, this terror group will have no reason not to continue their activities at the expense of the local population in and outside of Gaza.

  • 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.

  • 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?

  • Coalition of moonbats decending on DC

    The Far Left smells weakness in the president’s speech last night (or money) and they’ve decided to have an “emergency” protest at the White House next Saturday, December 12th. It promises to be some real entertainment;

    Speakers include: Cynthia McKinney, Sen. Mike Gravel, Kathy Kelly, Chris Hedges, David Swanson, Phyllis Bennis, Rev. Graylan Hagler, Coy McKinney, Debra Sweet, Brian Becker, Mathis Chiroux, Lynne Williams, Hon. Betty Hall, Elaine Brower, Marian Douglas, Michael Knox, Ralph Lopez, Ron Fisher, and statements from Col. Ann Wright, Stephen Zunes and Granny D (turning 100).

    I see ANSWER, IVAW, World Can’t Wait, Greens, Code Pink, VFP, the Northeast Impeachment Coalition, a 100-year-old whose sole distinction is that she’s 100 and against war, and a guy they continue to call Senator even though he hasn’t been in office for nearly 20 years.

    Their timing sucks, though. Most of the college kids in town will either be at home or taking finals. It promises to be a reunion of the Bethesda chapter of MoveOn (if they can all get day passes from the nursing home) with stirring screeches from the podium.

  • Suspicious package and note found at Ft Benning

    There’s a link on Drudge to a short article on Breitbart about a suspicious note and a package that were discovered at Fort Benning yesterday.

    Bob Purtiman says a soldier found the note and package Thursday morning in an outdoor gazebo. The soldier immediately told a supervisor, who called 911.

    Purtiman would not say what was in the note or what was in the package.

    He said authorities are investigating whether there is a viable threat against Fort Benning. He says security measures have been heightened in the meantime.

    UPI quotes an unidentified source;

    The unidentified source said the box, with 20 bullets, and a handwritten note were found in a motor pool area on the Army base Thursday, the Times reported Saturday.

    “The note said, ‘Tell the commanding general to call off all charges or there will be a re-enactment of Fort Hood,’” the witness told the newspaper.

    The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer says General Petraeus is in town, too;

    Discovery of the package came on the same day Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the U.S. Central Command, was in Columbus for Fort Benning’s Officer Candidate School graduation of 152 new second lieutenants at the Columbus Convention Center.

    Of course, this also happens to be the weekend that School of the Americas Watch has camped outside the gates of Benning to protest the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as “School of the Americas”.

    The members of SOAW are the biggest freaking liars on the face of this planet along with all of the rest of the sheep who buy into their lies. I don’t put it past the little drama queens to make threats against soldiers stationed at Benning to cultivate a little attention. The IVAW is also known to participate with these protests at Benning along with the Geezers for Sitting on Our Hands.

  • Burlington City Council apologizes to veterans

    Last week I wrote that the Burlington, VT mayor, Bob Kiss, sent an anti-war activist, Jon Hausrath, to speak in his place at the local VFW Veterans’ Day ceremony. Hausrath then proceeded to beclown himself by paying homage to sundry cowards, chickenshits and curs instead of honoring the one day that is set aside to express appreciation for valiant service to the nation. Hausrath regaled the assembled veterans with tales of his daring do immersing himself in drugs and alcohol to avoid his military service.

    Well, the Burlington Free Press reports that the City Council formally apologized to the veterans;

    City Council, in an 11-3 vote, formally apologized Monday to veterans for remarks made by a representative of Mayor Bob Kiss at a Veterans Day ceremony at Battery Park.

    The council’s three Progressives voted against the resolution. Jon Hausrath, a veteran who said he used drugs in order to be discharged from the Army and avoid deployment to a combat zone, advocated conscientious objection and praised war resisters at the ceremony.

    Many veterans were offended by Hausrath’s speech, and Councilors Paul Decelles and Vince Dober, both Ward 7 Republicans, sponsored a resolution that called Hausrath’s remarks “inappropriate and offensive”….

    For the record, the Progressive Party in Burlington is the party to which Bernie Sanders belonged when he was mayor – I guess it sounded better than the Socialist Party.

    I noticed that there were a number of attempts by the anti-war crowds to thake Veterans’ Day away from veterans who served honorably this year – by ass-clowns at Geezers For Sitting on Our Hands and Dahr Jamil. We can probably expect more ass-hattery like this annually. Which is fine with me – the further these dickweeds get from middle America, the more they’ll be alienated from the main stream.

  • Carl Webb in his own words

    Casey Porter, a former IVAW member who was harassed out of the organization by extremists of IVAW, namely Carl Webb and Doug Zachary, conducted a telephone interview with Webb about his support for terrorists and insurgents fighting against American troops in the Middle East;

    Porter explains his reasoning for making this video on Facebook;

    YES is my latest film dealing with the controversial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
    While this film does feature pictures from the war in Iraq, it is much more of a focus on a very vocal member of the Anti-War community, Carl Webb. Carl Webb has advocated violence against Soldiers and sabotage as means of “resistance”.

    I proposed an idea to people within the Anti-War crowd that you could catch a recruiter lying if you recording a conversation with them. While this was never acted upon they were very enthusiastic about the idea and said I should do it.

    Well, I used the same methods and tactics when recording Carl Webb. I invite you to listen to him speak, make your own judgments. If you are as outraged as others have been over his words of hate, then there is a contact list of the organizations he belongs to at the end.

    I am still against the wars, but people like Carl need to be put on blast for their tough-talk, and zero follow-through.

    Carl is a member of Iraq Vets Against The War. The audio conversation was given to the Executive Director and the Board of IVAW prior to the release of this film. No action has been taken against Carl for his past, and present actions.

    Yes, Carl Webb fully supports killing US troops and he’s not afraid to admit it when he posts on IVAW discussion forums;

    webb-defends-terrorists

    The date of that posting is after the IVAW determined that they don’t want that kind of rhetoric to muddy up their charter – but Webb is still a member of IVAW.

    In the next posting from the IVAW discussion forums, Webb says he’s trying to convince Evan Knappenberger to rejoin IVAW;

    webb-knappenberger

    Knappenberger was the IVAW member who was booted briefly from the organization for threatening to bomb the Gathering of Eagles and Michelle Malkin – apparently Webb misses the violent nutjobs of IVAW.

    For the last few months, I’ve been waiting for a reporter from the Stars and Stripes to publish an interview he did with me (and Army Sergeant) about the IVAW. I wrote him this morning to ask what the hold up is and he told me he’s having trouble getting active duty members to come forward. Is it any wonder when IVAW allows their radically violent members to taint the organization with their dangerous and seditious drivel?