{"id":18415,"date":"2010-04-06T17:00:11","date_gmt":"2010-04-06T22:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=18415"},"modified":"2010-04-06T17:25:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-06T22:25:00","slug":"why-ivaw-all-burned-the-flag-on-mar-20th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=18415","title":{"rendered":"Why IVAW all burned the flag on Mar. 20th"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IVAW's<\/a>
IVAW's Matthis Chiroux, Robyn Murray and MFSO's Elaine Brower burn the US flag "This is not my country!"<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

In the above depicted incident, IVAW board member Matthis Chiroux, while garbed in his IVAW T-shirt took it upon himself to speak for the entire organization and burn a flag at a rally organized and paid for by the Maoist ANSWER organization. The IVAW organization has had several opportunities to separate themselves from the incident. <\/p>\n

Jose Vasquez, the Executive Director of IVAW could have asserted some authority and come out firmly against Matthis Chiroux’ actions. Instead he prattled on about his Puerto Rican ancestry<\/a> as if that had something to do with issue.<\/p>\n

The only board member who decided to speak up and complain was Geof “Stolen Valor<\/a>” Millard. With the tacit approval of the Board, Matthis decided to compare himself to Martin Luther King, Jr<\/a> in his strained pseudo-intellectual attempt to dazzle us with his idiot missive.<\/p>\n

So the Board had a meeting over the incident. On Facebook I found this response from the Board to one of their members who inquired about their final decision;<\/p>\n

Thank you for your input on this subject. After much debate the board agreed, with one exception, not to censure Matthis for his actions. However, this does not mean that the board supports his actions. Rather, it is an expression of the belief that, while Board Members do represent the membership in some capacities, participation on the board should not stifle individual expression.<\/p>\n

The matter is left to Matthis to engage with the people he has angered by his actions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Have you ever read such a pussy response in your life? “We won’t censure Matthis, but that doesn’t mean we support his actions”. That rates right up there with “near hit” and “almost pregnant”.<\/p>\n

So what does it mean to my readers who are still IVAW members? You burned the flag, too. He was wearing the shirt, he’s a board member, you burned the flag, too, because your board decided that, unless you confront Matthis yourself, you’re giving your tacit approval to his theater.<\/p>\n

Many of you have defended to me your membership in the IVAW after the Jesse MacBeth fiasco by declaring that Jesse MacBeth happened before you joined. Did Matthis Chiroux happen before you joined? Did Matthis Chiroux write about how much he’s like Martin Luther King, Jr. before you joined? Was he walking around declaring that he’s an Afghanistan veteran before you joined? Did he declare that there’s no honor in your service and sacrifice to the country before you joined? Did he apologize to an Afghan parliamentarian for his occupation of her country before you joined? Did he claim to have PTSD from listening to barracks talk before you joined?<\/p>\n

Was he elected to the Board after you joined? Did he and his ISO insurgents hijack the organization before you joined? <\/p>\n

What exactly are you doing these days belonging to an organization led by mostly non-combat veterans (wearing the same “Iraq Veterans” emblazoned on their chests as you have) who don’t even understand you and do their level best to marginalize your concerns and silence you?<\/p>\n

And, oh, the word is that anyone who wants to confront Matthis, he’ll be at the East Gate of Fort Hood burning another flag on Saturday afternoon after a march from Under the Hood Cafe – that innocuous little coffee shop. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the above depicted incident, IVAW board member Matthis Chiroux, while garbed in his IVAW T-shirt … Why IVAW all burned the flag on Mar. 20th<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,37,30,52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antiwar-crowd","category-ivaw","category-phony-soldiers","category-usual-suspects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}