Jonn Lilyea of This Ain’t Hell gives an AAR on the gathering of IVAW whiners aka: “Winter Soldier II.
Excerpts:
……I wasn’t especially pleased that I was escorted everywhere I went, or that we spent the day surrounded by security people, or that our blogs were being monitored – however, it does lend what I wrote a measure of credibility. But there were news outlets like the Guardian and al Jazeera wandering around without security and writing what they want. I’ll grant that my readership is somewhat less than theirs, but the product I created was under much more scrutiny while it was being released to the public.
……But to the testimony; War sucks. It’s sucked since the beginning of the invention of the rock as a weapon. Innocent people die in war, and that sucks, too. But not since the beginning of warfare has any Army taken such care to minimize innocent deaths as the United States armed forces. Never. That’s indisputable.
But, the people who testified Friday glossed over that fact. Take Kelly Dougherty’s testimony that Kellog, Brown and Root prevented scavengers from taking the diesel fuel from their disabled vehicles by firing beanbag rounds at them. What other military entity in the world uses beanbag rounds in a combat zone?
……The point of the whole testimony, for the entire day I spent there was that the war is illegal from the get-go. They offered no evidence that the war is illegal – but when there’s room full of aged bobbleheads nodding on cue – who needs evidence? All of these terrible things that happened could have been avoided if George W, Bush and the evil neo-cons hadn’t invaded Iraq in the first place. No one had stories of torture or atrocities – they only described the horror of being in war. You could only accept these things as atrocities if you accepted at the beginning that war is illegal. Without that admission, you were left to wonder what everyone was talking about.
……I was probably one of the youngest people in the room and I’m nearly 53 years old. The audience were a bunch of old hippies who’d never served in the military and had never seen a war outside of the context of the politics of war. They tch-tched their way through the hearings without understanding the pains the military had to suffer to avoid real atrocities. Their only solution to the war was ending it – today with no real thought of the consequences. The only victory they sought was a victory of Democrats over Republicans regardless of what the nation would be forced to deal with when their solution was enacted.
……While we’re on the subject of lying, Adam Kokesh began his testimony with a lie – that’s why I switched on the video – so I didn’t have to listen to him and then get dragged out like Gerry Kiley. He claimed that he’d opposed the war before it began but joined because he thought it was his duty – his website used to claim he joined because he was a real hoo-ah guy and supported the war against terrorists and he’d been influenced by recruiters but the horrors of war turned him against it. So now that he’s established that he’s a liar. when was he lying – on Friday or on his blog? Kokesh depends on people to forget what he’s said in the past.
……No matter how hard the panels tried, they tried to make it about the Bush Administration, but their testimony all boiled down to the actions of the soldiers. They claimed to support the troops, but their supposed atrocities were all the result of small unit leaders’ actions (yes, guys, your captains and lieutenants are “troops”, too). No matter how hard they tried to deflect their criticism away from the troops, it hit all of our service members square in the forehead. Registering your gun with willie pete isn’t a decision made by some faceless neo-con in the Pentagon, calling for fire on a village is a company commander’s decision, not Dick Cheney’s. Bragging about firing up a civilian car isn’t coming from the Defense Department. George Bush wasn’t pushing down on the 50-cal’s butterflies or reloading the gun.
Ya gotta love the hypocritical talents of the little whiners at WSII. They volunteered to do exactly what Soldiers have done for centuries, but after they actually had to do what they were trained for, they came back as professional martyrs.
Iraq and Afghanistan are both battlefields in the WOT, and the little darlings better brace themselves, because it ain’t over by a long shot. Not until the Islamofascist turds who attacked us first, (a fact the IVAW conveniently forgets) are all dead.
And the self-flagellating about the “war crimes” they themselves claim to have committed: Most of it is embellished bullshit, and if they felt that strongly about their ‘guilt’, why didn’t they run to the nearest M.P. and have themselves arrested?
There’s no shortage of JAG personnel in the war zone, and I’m sure if atonement was what they were after,
JAG would have been more than glad to help.
Face it, the only reason they created this side show, was to satisfy the need for attention, and what better way than in front of a crowd comprised mostly of aging hippies and nihilists who climb onto whatever anarchist bandwagon comes down the street.
The biggest shitbird in the bunch, Adam Kokesh, is the epitome of stupid. Then again, he is an ex-jarhead.
“I joined and fought in an “illegal war” because I thought it was my duty”.
Jeezustapdancingchrist. Some people need to submit to an IQ test before they’re allowed to breed, vote, or volunteer for the military.
All one needs to do is research the first Winter Soldier farce and read about the perjury and the fakes who had never been to ‘Nam, telling lies about things they never did or saw, and you get the gist of the Winter Soldier redux.
All in all, good job Jonn, reporting on the antics from the circus.