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

Category: VoteVets

  • Not so reasonable argument

    Last week, dicksmith at VoteVets joined with Jerry “The Waddler” Nadler in defending Attorney General Holder’s decision to try Guantanamo detaineees in New York City instead of by military tribunal;

    Watch as Congressman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) uses facts and reason to rebut Congressman Dan Lungren’s (R-CA) points on trying Guantanamo Bay detainees in civilian courts:

    I think reason won the day over Rep. Lungren’s clear disdain for the rule of law.

    Dicksmith inserted this video from HardLeftBall;

    What dicksmith and Nadler consider “reasonable” is that under a military tribunal, those five terrorists (Nadler calls them “alleged terrorists”) won’t get any justice befitting the American people. Another shot at the military, of course. Good place for dicksmith to come down on this – a pro-military organization taking cheap shots at the integrity of the military.

    But, to kind of stick a finger in the eye of Holder’s supporters, yesterday the lawyer representing Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali announced that, even though his client is guilty, he’ll plead not guilty in New York City;

    Attorney Scott Fenstermaker says his client Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali and the others will not deny their role in the 2001 attacks but will tell the jury “why they did it.”

    He says the men will explain “their assessment of American foreign policy.”

    Fenstermaker met with Ali last week at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay. He says the men, including professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, have discussed the trial among themselves.

    Yes, Holder and Nadler and dicksmith are playing right into the hands of these thugs by allowing them a forum in which they can “explain their assessment of American foreign policy.” I wonder if the victims of 9/11 will get the opportunity to explain their assessment of terrorism to the jury.

  • Kristallnacht is coming!!!

    It’s almost a companion to the Ace Of Spades piece yesterday entitled “Now It Can Be Told: The Real Victims Of Ft. Hood Shooting Are American Muslims” in which DrewM recounts the posts from around the internet that warn us to not jump to conclusions about the Hasan massacre. Some navel gazer from the Left writes;

    Seventy-one years ago, almost to the very day, a member of a religious minority fatally shot a government official – an act by a troubled individual that was seized upon by hateful minds to set off an orgy of blood and destruction against his co-religionists.

    While the Ft. Hood shootings will not spark a rerun of Kristallnacht – the anti-semitic pogrom launched by the Nazis after 17-year-old Herschel Grynszpan shot German diplomat Ernst Vom Rath in Paris on Nov. 7, 1938, in retaliation for Nazi depradations against the Jews – the upswelling of racial, ethnic and religious hatred against Muslims and Arabs we will now see in many quarters will ring with ugly echoes.

    See, I don’t understand what he’s saying if he’s not warning of the coming of a second Kristallnacht – he says “the Ft. Hood shootings will not spark a rerun of Kristallnacht”, but then why did he bring it up and make the comparison? And why did a commenter echo that it was the first thing he thought of upon hearing of the shootings, too?

    Jon Soltz, in the meantime, takes the opportunity to use a three minute interview on Fox in which the Fox and Friends hosts asked questions of a guest to call Fox News racists.

    In fact, Huffington Post seems to be going out it’s way to avoid the discussion over Hasan’s religious affiliations. Kamran Pasha calls us the “Islamophobe internet community”, Wajahat Ali writes that;

    When Hasan’s Arabic name was revealed as the alleged shooter, the blogosphere and message boards lit up with the predictable assortment of anonymous bigoted bile vilifying Islam and questioning the loyalty of American Muslims.

    I didn’t see it, but then I was focused on sorting out my own feelings and thoughts before I typed anything. Although the authors at HuffPo are adamantly against jumping to conclusions about the cultural clues in this case, they however have no compunction about furthering the “nutty GI” caricature.

    Aaron Glantz, who I wrote about last night, chronicles nutty GIs to give the left some targets for their finger-pointing. Never mind that all of the guys he writes about were actually in the war and have a reason to be a little stressed out, unlike Major Hasan.

    Michelle Malkin rightly asks why we have to get the news that Hasan attended the same mosque as some of the 9-11 hijackers from British newspapers. The Washington Post prefers to tell the story that Hasan was a peaceful guy, persecuted by a white soldier who had just returned from Iraq. The only real evidence that Hasan was really persecuted at all.

    Typically, Hasan’s family blames the United States for his massacre;

    “He is a doctor and loves the U.S.,” Ismail Mustafa Hamad, 88, his grandfather, said to the Reuters news agency from his home in Al-Bireh. “America made him what he is. Whether he became angry or something else, I don’t know.”

    His cousin is of the same mind;

    “Nidal is a very stable minded person,” Mohammed Mohammed said. “Why would he kill? He was against violence.

    “His actions could have been in self defence – we don’t know. Maybe they angered him to the point of cornering him and he felt he had no option.”

    They angrily rejected suggestions that their cousin’s shooting spree had been motivated by a hatred for America or as an act of terrorism.

    And General George Casey is more worried about the Army’s diversity than admitting that Hasan was a crank according to DrewM.

    No, I don’t think that all Muslims are terrorists nor that we should rid ourselves of them. I made that clear the other day, but on the other hand, it disturbs me greatly that everyone is so willing to suspend the Muslim excuse and embrace the crazy GI excuse. I still think he’s just an immature little rich boy who was angry that he couldn’t get his way.

    But it’s more enchanting to imagine that the Right is going to take to the streets and smash the windows of Muslim businesses in a frenzy of irrational hatred.

  • Veterans lobbying Congress today

    While the dithererer-in-chief contemplates his inaction, veterans groups are stalking Congress in their offices this morning. Vets for Freedom are meeting as I type this to plan out their day in the halls of Congress in conjunction with Michelle Bachman’s troops.

    Meanwhile, VoteVets’ Executive Director focuses on the really important issues, according to Politico;

    In 2007, Veterans for Freedom supported the surge of U.S. forces in Iraq, and VoteVets.org opposed it, advocating a drawdown from Iraq instead. But for now, the organization is still debating its position on the war in Afghanistan, said VoteVets Chairman Jon Soltz, and it is concentrating its efforts on climate change.

    Don’t forget Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. While Obama fiddles over the war in Afghanistan, Jon Soltz prefers to focus his energies on social issues because whenever he shoots his big mouth off over actual military and veterans’ issues, somehow he always turns out to be wrong. It’s hard to believe that someone who has over three months experience in a combat motor pool could be wrong about military issues, but apparently it happens.

    How many things can you find wrong in this paragraph;

    The [VFF]’s founder, David Bellavia, who in 2008 ran unsuccessfully for Congress in New York, attacked Kerry and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy in 2005 for supporting statements that Iraqis wanted the United States to leave their country, claiming in an article on FrontPageMag.com that the comments were “a political attack on the troops, an attack that is aiding our enemy.” The publication is run by Holocaust denier David Horowitz.

    Bellavia was ONE of the founders of VFF, he didn’t unsuccessfully run for Congress (the party machine asked his to withdraw in favor of a candidate who could fund his own campaign) and I have no idea where the article’s author, Jen deMascio, got the idea that David Horowitz is a Holocaust denier – but I’ve got an email into her to get her source on that specious charge.

    Of course, deMascio, has found a group she likes out of the three she discusses – the new one that I introduced to you the other day “Veterans for Rethinking Afghanistan” and our new friend Jake Giliberto, who just happened to email me after the last piece I did on his. But DeMascio writes;

    “Listen, you’ve got to stop falling in love with the military solution; it’s not feasible,” said Jake Diliberto, one of the group’s founders. “This is a war of poverty and cultural misunderstanding, and it’s an Afghan problem that we don’t have the means or the wisdom to figure out.”

    So what’s Jake’s solution? Just let Afghanistan go back to being a stone age shit hole like we did in 1988. That worked out well for us the first time, didn’t it? Well, the “Rethinking Afghanistan” was started by a filmmaker and we know how much more intelligent filmmakers think they are than the rest of us – so let’s ask Hollywood to formulate our foreign and defense policy instead of generals.

    I like Jake, he’s real friendly and fairly bright, but he’s being used by the peace movement, just like all of those IVAW clowns. The peace movement doesn’t care about them or their opinions beyond the fact that they can wear T-shirts proclaiming the proper message.

  • Huffpo nimroddery

    Some dolt who goes by the name of Ryan Grim did exactly no research or background on this article at Huffington Post about some IVAW schlubs schlepping through the halls of Congress spreading their halfwit opinions.These two IVAW members are new to me and don’t have profiles at IVAW; Brock McIntosh and Jake Diliberto. Neither has a DoD record at Military.com, so they’re probably new civilians. But this Grim guy is a dolt. He writes about Vets for Freedom;

    A new pro-war group calling itself Vets For Freedom plans to begin lobbying Congress Thursday, pushing for an escalation.

    Yeah, IVAW was formed 18 months before VFF, so VFF is a “new…group”. More than likely, Grim didn’t have the gumption or wherewithal to do a bit of googling and find out that VFF isn’t all that new. Just new to his ignorant ass. According to his bio at HuffPo Grim is “the senior congressional correspondent for the Huffington Post”. So much for any real news coming out of HuffPo’s congressional staff.

    So, master researcher Grim begins by taking shots at VFF’s Thomas Cotton with help from Diliberto;

    Diliberto went mano a mano on CNN with VFF rep Thomas Cotton. Cotton had a simple appeal to authority: He’s for whatever General Stanley McChrystal wants — and that’s more troops.

    Before they went on, says Diliberto, he could hear his opponent prepping himself. “He kept repeating, ‘General Stanley McChrystal. General Stanley McChrystal. General Stanley McChrystal.’ ”

    Backers of escalating the eight-year-old war present a variety of complex arguments, but at their heart is Cotton’s mantra: “General Stanley McChrystal. General Stanley McChrystal. General Stanley McChrystal.”

    Yeah, here’s a transcript of the interview. Cotton mentions McChrystal twice – the same number of times the interviewer, John Roberts, mentions McChrystal’s name. But that doesn’t make the pro-victory guys sound as bad as Grim likes them to sound.

    Devon Read explains his child-like understanding of the conflict in Afghanistan;

    The kind of training Afghans don’t need, the soldiers say, is military. We’ve been training young men to fight in Afghanistan for decades, they note, and look where it’s gotten us. An overwhelming number of soldiers trained by the U.S. go on to fight for the Taliban instead, which was itself originally trained by the U.S., notes Read. “So if we train 400,000 soldiers and 200,000 go fight for the Taliban, what have we gained?”

    So, their solution? Just let Afghanistan go back to being an Islamist shit hole like we did in 1988.

    I watched Diliberto on Larry King last night to get his side straight from him since I can’t trust HuffPo. I’m beginning to wonder if Diliberto is even in IVAW. Larry King says he’s a member of “Veterans for Rethinking Afghanistan” which I suspect sprang from the intellectually vacuous, Leftist navel-gazing YouTube video entitled “Rethinking Afghanistan“. So apparently, Grim didn’t even get Diliberto’s affiliation right.

    But anyway, Diliberto’s plan for Afghanistan is to send cops out to arrest and imprison al Qaeda, I guess because no one is doing that already, huh? He claims more troops won’t solve our problem. He went up against that new VFF group’s ED, Pete Hegseth and Pete wore Diliberto’s ass out. I was hoping that Larry King would have video this morning, but alas, none.

    See I don’t get this; when Shinseki said we needed more troops in Iraq, the Left said we needed to listen to Shinseki. When Petreus said we needed more troops in Iraq, the Left said it was fruitless. Now McChrystal says we need more troops in Afghanistan, no one wants to listen to the generals.

    The thing about this Larry King interview is that no one mentioned IVAW, although this DIliberto has some kind of tie to IVAW, nor did they mention that Wes Clark (who was also on the show) is on the board of VoteVets. Funny, huh?

  • The bad karma of VoteVets

    Dicksmith wrote in VetsVoicea bit about the new Obama foreign policy of openness and willingness to deal with Iran and how we’re reaping the rewards of having unicorns, fairies and other magical beasts in the White House, linking to this NYT article. He also used the opportunity to swipe at the Bush Administration.

    After nine months of an Obama Presidency, Iran has agreed to put their nuclear problem on hold for at least a year to engage in the diplomatic process. Previously, Iran spent eight years thumbing its nose at the international community while the Bush Administration engaged them with a strategy of “ignore it now, and decide whether or not to bomb it later”. This is how the world can work when you have American leadership that doesn’t engage in first-grade playground diplomacy (“You’re not my friend so I’m not talking to you anymore!”).

    That was yesterday. This is today (from Fox News Channel);

    State TV says Iran wants to buy nuclear fuel it needs for a research reactor rather than accept a U.N.-drafted plan to ship much of its uranium to Russia for further enrichment.

    “Iran is interested in buying fuel for the Tehran research reactor within the framework of a clear proposal … we are waiting for the other party’s constructive and trust-building response,” Iranian TV quoted a member of Iran’s negotiating team as saying, Reuters reports.

    Iran’s response will come as a disappointment to the U.S., Russia and France, which all endorsed the U.N. plan Friday that called for Iran to ship its uranium stockpile to Russia rather than continue what is believed to be an weapons-grade enrichment program. The three countries formulated the draft plan in three days of talks with Iran in Vienna that ended Wednesday.

    Dicksmith, karma is a stone-cold bitch. Next time don’t gloat and she won’t be so tough on you.

  • More hyperbole from VoteVets

    VoteVets is tossing away more money this week on a radio ad that reminds me of the insidious ad they did in which they claimed Senator George Allen had voted against supplying the troops with modern body armor. FactCheck.org disputed the veracity of that ad, and now it’s my turn to dispute the veracity of their latest ad.

    The ad targets Pennsylvania State legislator, Daryl Metcalfe who, they claim, called veterans traitors. Here’s the script of the ad from Vets Voice;

    ANNCR: Traitors. That’s what State Representative Darryl Metcalfe called decorated Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. Traitors. Pittsburgh resident and Iraq war veteran Chuck Tyler.

    Chuck Tyler: Representative Metcalfe. A lot of my friends never made it home from Iraq. Dishonoring us dishonors their memory. We deserve better – and so does Pennsylvania.

    ANNCR: Metcalfe was attacking members of Operation Free; veterans whose goal is to make America more secure with clean energy and cut the flow of oil dollars to those who would do us harm. It’s a goal the Department of Defense, the CIA, and the National Intelligence Council all share.

    Chuck Tyler: I’m not a traitor sir. I’m just a veteran doing what’s right to protect my country.

    ANNCR: Call Representative Darryl Metcalfe at 717-783-1707 and tell him to resign – because attacking America’s patriots is the most unpatriotic thing you can do. A message from Operation Free. Paid for by Vote Vets Action Fund.

    I’d never heard of Operation Free, so I had to track them down. This is from their “Why We Care” page;

    Here are our core motivational principles:

    * We need to get America running on clean energy.
    * Clean energy reduces our dependence on the foreign oil.
    * Oil ties our hands in foreign policy, funds terrorists, and entangles America with hostile regimes.
    * Our Federal government is considering legislation that promotes clean energy incentives, and people need to understand why this helps our security.
    * Getting energy that is CLEAN, DOMESTIC, CHEAP, and SAFE is going to take some real work, so we need to start now.
    * It’s our patriotic duty to do everything we can to keep our nation safe and secure: clean energy is one of those efforts.

    I take away from the reading that they think we can run our country on unicorn urine starting next week if only we all wish real hard. Well, anyway, Operation Free is on a cross country tour to get us all to wish for people to start using unicorn urine – by the way, their cross-country tour is on a bus, which I don’t think runs on unicorn urine.

    Operation Free contacted Mr. Metcalfe – a veteran himself – to meet them when they came to his area – Cranberry Township near Pittsburgh. Mr. Metcalfe fired off an email to them;

    “Subject: Re: Veterans for American Power Bus Tour coming to your state

    As a veteran,

    I believe that any veteran lending their name, to promote the leftist propaganda of global warming and climate change, in an effort to control more of the wealth created in our economy, through cap and tax type policies, all in the name of national security, is a traitor to the oath he or she took to defend the Constitution of our great nation!

    Remember Benedict Arnold before giving credibility to a veteran who uses their service as a means to promote a leftist agenda.

    Drill Baby Drill!!!

    For Liberty,
    Daryl Metcalfe
    State Representative
    Veteran U.S. Army

    The emphasis is mine.

    So yeah, he called veterans who would lend their names to propaganda traitors to their oath.

    I called Daryl Metcalfe to get his side without the hyperbole. What he told me was that he vehemently opposes the “cap and tax” program that Operation Free is promoting on their hypocritical bus tour. He told me that he opposes it for the same reasons that the rest of us oppose it – it will cause damage to our economy and bankrupt the nation.

    Mr. Metcalfe says cap and trade is unconstitutional and because veterans swore to protect and defend the Constitution, veterans who trade on their service to support un-American legislation are traitors to their oath. Of course, the “to their oath” gets left out of the VoteVets commercial. It serves their purposes better to make it sound like Metcalfe called all veterans traitors to their country.

    In response to the overblown hyperbole, Daily Koz called Representative Metcalfe a “loon” in order to elevate the debate;

    What are the odds Metcalfe will have his own radio show, become a commentator for Fox News or have his own column at World Net Daily before the year is up? I tell you, it’s loons all the way down.

    So, HuffPo got huffy, and numerous lefty blogs have their respective panties twisted; Think Progress joined in. So you just knew the MoveOn-monied VoteVets had to waste some cash on a pointless commercial.

    But, ya know, there’s another Pennsylvania politician that meant what he said when he called Marines murderers who VoteVets should have got upset about – but instead they endorsed him for re-election.

  • Soltz attacks Elizabeth Cheney

    Last year, girlie man Jon Soltz, famously, after the Presidential election, sent a note to Melanie Morgan addressing her as “Stinky Hag“. So, we already know that Soltz has some sort of personality disorder that makes him hate strong women (or any woman, as far as I know). Today he chooses to attack Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, for the terrible offense of forming a partisan organization (not like Soltz has ever done that) named Keep America Safe (offensive isn’t it?). Here’s part of their mission statement that Soltz opposes;

    Keep America Safe believes the United States can only defeat our adversaries and defend our interests from a position of strength. We know that America has, for 233 years, been an unparalleled force for good in the world, that our fighting forces are the best the world has ever known, and that the world is a safer place when America is trusted by our allies and feared and respected by our enemies. Keep America Safe will make the case for an unapologetic approach to fighting terrorism around the world, for victory in the wars this country fights, for democracy, freedom and human rights, and for a strong American military that is needed in the dangerous world in which we live.

    You’d better put down any liquids you might be consuming at the moment before you read this quote from Soltz

    ;

    Liz Cheney has no experience fighting wars and gets details wrong when she tries to look like she knows what she’s talking about.

    Exactly like Jon Soltz looks when he tries to discuss things he doesn’t know anything about – things like wars, combat…you know things that happen outside of the motor pool. Here’s another spew alert – don’t say I didn’t warn you;

    More importantly, though, is that despite her tough bluster, Liz Cheney is an incredibly weak person. Weak people see everything in black and white, and take the easiest path.

    Knowing Liz Cheney, Soltz knows weak people, too. Weak people spend three months in Iraq and then hide out at Fort Dix for 13 months “teaching” other soldiers how to deliver MREs. Weak people sling spittle during a YearlyKoz convention at a young buck sergeant speaking of his experiences in Iraq. I guess Soltz’ masters at MoveOn needed someone to attack Liz Chaeny and all they had was Soltz. I picture him banging the keys of his keyboard with one of those toy hammers that squeak. I suspect that Soltz is MoveOn’s version of IVAW – a veteran that they can aim at their intellectual betters that barks on command. This is who Soltz respects – Bill Perry, VVAW liar and IVAW advisor; Soltz/Perry Good luck with that, Soltz. Feel free to email me and call me names, too. Better yet, send me your home address – it’s the only thing keeping me from getting your records.

  • VoteVets: ya know who’s the Messiah – Obama, that’s who

    That “nonpartisan” veterans Political Action Committee, VoteVets, weighed in on the remarkable news that the services made their recruiting and retention goals last year (NYT link) – sort of like they’ve made most of their goals over the last eight years. When the services were retaining and recruiting during the Bush years, we listened to dicksmith and others explain it away with excuses like they’d lowered their standards, that they were recruiting racists and boobs. Now, of course, it’s thanks to the magnificence that is Obama.

    I think it also must be considered that the American people have more confidence in their new Commander-in-Chief. Some of the success can also be attributed to the increased benefit provided by the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill. While neither of these, nor the economy, alone led to the recruiting success, they are all absolutely important factors.

    Yeah, he had to add the other stuff, just so he could pretend that he didn’t just crawl out from under Obama’s desk.

    Since dicksmith frequents TAH, maybe he can answer me a question; What has Obama done to inspire such confidence? Is it his diddling over giving the generals what they’ve requested? Attempting to cut our health benefits and increasing our portion of the bill? Is it the excellent way the GI Bill has been administered? Please, just show me one thing in which he’s inspired such confidence.

    Yeah, I’m biased, but I’ve never claimed to be “nonpartisan”.