Six months ago, at Winter Soldier II, the message that the Iraq Veterans Against the War tried to tell the country was that we were failing in Iraq. None of them had been there since the “surge” began, but that didn’t stop them from criticizing General Petreaus before he even had an opportunity to open his mouth and give his testimony to Congress.<\/p>\n
For example, Luis Montalvan brought a power-point presentation with confusing bargraphs and wire diagrams just to illustrate how General Petreaus was lying before the good General spoke a word. Montalvan hadn’t been in Iraq for more than two years at the time of his testimony and his dog-and-pony show in Silver Spring.<\/p>\n
The American public didn’t bite. The media, for their part, finally found an anti-war message they couldn’t embrace. They still had a bad taste in their collective mouth from being hornswaggled by IVAW member Jesse MacBeth, they weren’t going to bite again. Winter Soldier fizzled as a result. Over the last six months they tried to pass off the same message, but the only people biting were the peace-at-any-cost crowd who wanted to believe anything and immature little college kids who just didn’t know better.<\/p>\n
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So the IVAW has retooled their message. One of my readers, Raoul, sent me this article from the Associated Press<\/a>;<\/p>\n Several members of the anti-war group attended a news conference at the state Capitol, including Justin Cliburn of Lawton, an Oklahoma Army National Guard member who went to Iraq in 2005.<\/p>\n The protesters criticized politicians for saying they support the troops, while voting against legislation to upgrade military equipment sent to Iraq and take care of veterans’ medical needs when they return home.<\/p>\n They said that contrary to what is seen in news reports, most Iraqis do not support “the American occupation” of their country.<\/p>\n “The Iraqis told us, ‘Look, I know you have good intentions here, but you’re messing up our lives,'” said Jason Hurd of Asheville, N.C., an Army veteran and medic who was deployed in Baghdad in 2004.<\/p>\n Kristofer Goldsmith of Long Island, N.Y., spoke of attempting suicide after becoming disillusioned in Iraq.<\/p>\n Goldsmith said more needs to be done to help returning veterans with medical problems, including post traumatic stress disorder.<\/p>\n “The best way to support the troops is to keep them alive when they get back,” he said Jason Hurd, at Winter Soldier broke down and cried telling the story about how he ALMOST shot a woman who wouldn’t stop at his command to halt. He was trying to portray the Rules of Engagement as heartless…but the ROE worked when he didn’t have to shoot the woman. Now, even though he left Iraq over three years ago, he acts as if he has his finger on the pulse of Iraqi opinions.<\/p>\n Kristofer Goldsmith hasn’t been in Iraq since 2005. He was chaptered from the Army for bad conduct. He testified to Congress that he joined the Army because he’d always wanted to kill Arabs and the recruiters took advantage of him. Now, instead of portraying our troops as heartless killing machines ruthlessly tethered to an abstract rule, Goldsmith says we need to care for them when they get back.<\/p>\n I don’t deny that line. We do need to commit all of the resources necessary to making sure our troops get the care they need, but IVAW is not the entity to carry that message. They’ve spent the last year trying to undermine our troops’ mental health, trying to turn the country against our troops. And, yes, General Petreaus is one of the troops.<\/p>\n I sat in the Winter Soldier hearings and listened to story after story about how ruthless our troops were, how cavalier they were about employing firepower, how heartless their commanders were towards the Iraqis. I listened to Geoff Millard call the troops racists, Jason Lamieux accused them of fudging combat reports, James Gilligan accused them of abusing civilians and looting, Adam Kokesh accused them abusing detainees.<\/p>\n And now they think they can change their message to one of caring? Who can believe a word that falls from their cankered, twisted mouths at this point.<\/p>\n Crossposted at Talons! Eagles Up!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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