Day: April 24, 2015

Veterans: Welcome Home

In my time researching my subjects I run cross a story from time to time about our veterans….I am always looking for a good uplifting one but sadly most of the stuff I find is about the treatment or the lack of such……..

I have written about the VA, vets benefits, health problems just about everything our vets must face when they come home……..my research has shown that not much has changed from my war, the Vietnam War, to today’s wars…..vets are still getting the short end of the stick.  It is like they are a tool and when it wears down it is discarded…..a sad indictment of this society.

But I found one story the other day that made me mad as Hell…….I could not believe the treatment that some put these brave soul through……..

The latest fraternity making headlines for bad behavior: The Zeta Beta Tau chapters at the University of Florida and, possibly, Emory University. The chapters held their spring formals at Panama City Beach’s Laketown Wharf Resort last Friday, where the Warrior Beach Retreat for wounded Iraq and Afghanistan war vets was also taking place, the Gainesville Sun reports. Fraternity members are accused of spitting on the veterans and their service dogs, tearing magnets and American flags from their cars (and peeing on one flag), tossing beer bottles from a balcony onto the veterans, and vomiting onto awnings covering areas where the vets were gathered. “They knew who [the veterans] were and were just getting a kick out of it,” says retreat founder Linda Cope, noting that the 60 participants were wearing hats and shirts identifying them as having served.

The founder called police, and hotel security got the situation under control (no police report was ultimately filed) and evicted the fraternity members the following day. News of the incident went viral when a veteran’s wife posted about it on Facebook. The fraternity has since sent an apology letter to the organization noting that it is working on figuring out which members misbehaved, and now the president of the University of Florida has offered his own apology and promised a full investigation. Emory is also doing an investigation, but says that so far no evidence implicates its students; Cope tells WJHG she finds that hard to believe. The executive director of the fraternity’s national organization says the chapters at both universities are under suspension as the investigations continue,

These are the people that we are protecting…..I still wonder if they are worth it.  They were not worth it in the 70’s and looks like not much has changed.

Not much has changed from my war to theirs……..society still does not appreciate or want veterans around….for they are a constant reminder of a failed society……..These assholes issued an apology……a blanket apology……….screw them!  It is NOT accepted!  These bastards deserve no quarter.

Society does NOT want to know what the vets go through….they want to say thank you to ease their conscience and move on……..I want somebody to pay for this insult!  Public Caning comes to mind!

Any university that lets this type of disrespect to exist should lose every dime of government money…..and a civil rights investigation should follow……..then……… cane the son of a bitches!

Game Of Drones–Part Deux

The big scoop the media will milk for all it is worth is the deaths of an American AQ hostage in Pakistan by drone attack.

The drone program is a tactic to attack the bad guys without having to use US troops…..the intel services give the military a target and a drone is launched with missiles and such and the target is taken out…….and American troops were out of harms way.

Of course the Obama admin is pressing the successes the drones are having at taking the fight to the terrorists with minimum US involvement…….my problem with this program is the each target that is hit has civilians around it and in turn deaths of innocent people ensues….in a report issued back in 2014 the total civilians deaths from drone attacks is said to be 2400…..personally, I think that number is too low…..

Civilians deaths are not limited to the Middle East…..they have occurred in Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan to mention only a few.

I bring all this up because of the most recent deaths by drone………

A January drone strike against a “suspected al-Qaeda compound” in Pakistan has killed at least two innocent hostages, the White House admitted today, identified as American aid worker Dr. Warren Weinstein and Italian aid worker Giovanni Lo Porto.

This death brings the total amount of Americans killed by drones to…..6.

Officials say their initial intelligence gave them “near certainty” that there were no hostages at the targeted site, and much of the commentary defending the killings on cable news focuses on the idea that this was not a “hostage rescue mission” at any rate.  Near certainty?

Back in 2013 Obama made one of his famous speeches and talked about drone strikes………Obama indicated that drone strikes were only permissible when the administration possessed “near certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured, the highest standard we can set”………….

Basically what they are saying is that they had NO idea who was in the compound that held the two hostages before they authorized the attack………..why then attack the compound?  Are we just attacking for the sake of attacking?

The CIA and the US military’s Joint Special Operations Command, both of which carry out drone strikes, have in the past been empowered to launch lethal “signature strikes”, which do not require foreknowledge of who specific individuals are before killing them.

There has got to be a point where this becomes unacceptable.  I realize that the American public is out for blood since 9/11…..revenge and all that………but at what price?

A wall of silence goes up around the drone attacks and the public is kept out of the loop……..it is beyond time for a re-evaluation of the drone program……we know that will not happen under the Obama watch………but it not now…..WHEN?

 

Petraeus: Pathetic Justice

Nothing to see here…..move along…..this is not the spy we were looking for………

The hero of the Iraqi Surge, Gen. Petraeus, former Director of the CIA has been found guilty of passing secrets to his mistress and then lying to the FBI during the investigation………and what did he get for betraying his country?  2 years probation and $100,000 fine……….

It is pathetic!  What would he have got as a penalty if he had been a NCO?  Or a civilian defense contractor?

I have heard that he has paid enough for his momentary loss of judgement…….he has lost his prestigious gig as head of the CIA and his fine was more than double what they were asking for……..and that is justice?

He makes about $125,000 per speech…..his book, when he writes it will make him a millionaire and he will not be out a gig for long….that is if he loses his cushy gig with KKR Investments and his teaching gig at USC………..if nothing else he can join another betrayer of his country, Col. North on FOX News…..I am sure they will find a place for another disgraced “hero”……..

This was not justice!  This was a pathetic joke!  It illustrates very accurately just how unbalanced “justice” is in this country.  Just look how other “leakers” of sensitive material have been treated and then look at Petraeus…..he leaked ‘sensitive’ information……….now tell me that it was a just ruling and justice was served.

Hillary the Hawk

It is that time of the year again….election time.

And as predicted Hillary Clinton wants to be president……she brings a wealth of experience to the table…..she has more political experience than all the other candidates combined…….and she will bring lots of baggage to the campaign.

But since the media wants to deem this election as the “Foreign Policy Election” she will have the upper hand…….but in my opinion her form of experience in foreign policy is from the Hawk side of the street….I am sure that she will try and sell the idea that she is against US intervention but her past reveals that is just not the case……….keep in mind that reality has very little to do with campaign promises…..I give you Obama as an example…..after all he was the ‘anti-war’ candidate……..enough said?

Here is why……..

 

Hillary the Hawk by Charles Davis — Antiwar.com.

Where Oh Where Have All The WMDS’s Gone?

Over the years from the first Gulf War I have been entertained by the continuing saga of the weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq….it has been the source of many reports few of which were ever accurate…..but it has made for some amusing hours of reading…….

It was essential that the US invade Iraq to stop his possible use of WMDs……and his complacency with AQ in Iraq.  We invade and dammit there were no WMDs found…..and all the public got for that lie was….”my bad”.

A decade later another story comes out that the WMDs were there and just expertly hidden……and the press chased that story for about a month and in the end all we got was…….”oops my bad”.

But what compels the medias to go chasing WMDs every time it is mentioned?  Does news need to be concocted to sell papers?

 

Twelve Years Later, US Media Still Can’t Get Iraqi WMD Story Right – The Intercept.