Heroic Seattle Mom Fights to End Occupation of Military Recruiters

With their scary uniforms and vehicles that may contain pamphlets with pictures of instruments of wars, it's no wonder that Seattle would want to be isolated from the reality of the modern Department of Defense. This Mom is no exception. From The Stranger:

"[The parks department had] been advertising a teen-appreciation day [with] basketball, swimming, a DJ, and a barbecue," Barker says. She says the woman who alerted her to the recruiters' presence "pulled up with her kids and saw two guys in army fatigues in a black Hummer. She wanted them to go away and they wouldn't." Barker says she's also heard of recruiters showing up to events with climbing walls and video games.

Apparently public property is acceptable for everyone except the military, perhaps because they aren't viewed as the public. Or perhaps because voluntary military service is a burden to over-worried mothers who can't stand to see the sight of military recruiters. Maybe it's time we bring back the draft.

Bonus:Funny letter to the editor regarding this subject. David E. from Tacoma is less than pleased with "commie-hippie" types invading the Puget Sound.

When Deploying to Iraq is AWOL in Campaign Season

Josh Mandel is the young-looking state rep from Ohio, who has also done two tours in Iraq with the Marine Corps. The number of Iraq/A-stan vets in positions of political power is so small currently, that Fox News once dide a two-and-a-half minute special on him. Trial lawyers and corruption are not unusual for politics, however, so his opponents wife in his district, Barbara Belovich, decided to play up the weirdness of having a military background as opposed to years prosecuting slip and fall accidents. From Townhall:

Of all the factors he weighed, Mr. Mandel says political concerns were not among them. Now he has been forced to deal with the politics of that decision. The opponent in his tough re-election fight, trial attorney Bob Belovich, is attacking Mr. Mandel’s service, arguing that he abandoned voters. Mr. Belovich’s wife, Barbara, acknowledged in an interview for this column that she has told voters that Mr. Mandel “went AWOL” (a military term for desertion) by fighting in Iraq.

Even Mr. Mandel’s motives for serving in Iraq are being questioned. Mrs. Belovich claimed in an interview with this columnist that Mandel “put his personal ambitions ahead of his constituents.” Asked why anyone would enter a war zone out of “personal ambition,” Barbara Belovich replied curtly, “Certainly he wasn’t serving our needs.”

Audio of CHUDs in their backroom dealings are here. Bob Belovich then suggested the only reason he won the 2006 election was because he had a Jewish name. While the election is in doubt, Josh Mandel sure has some real winners running against him.

McCain Critic Not Impressed With Subsequent CHUD Attacks

Matt Welch is a well-respected journalist who currently writes for Reason and the LA Times, and he wrote a highly critical book about McCain before it was cool to do so this election cycle. However, he recently stated that McCain truly is a military hero for suffering during his stay at the Hanoi Hilton. When he made this statement, the flurry of CHUD-related nasty emails in his inbox reached unprecedented levels. From Reason:

Does being a POW make you a war hero? I think not - obviously it is hella-bad times, but that does not in itself make you a "hero." I pray you do not breed or vote...do you feel then that the detainees iwho have been in Guantanamo or rendered ("rendition') to countries more suitable for intense interrogation are heroric and worthy of being considered for the highest office in this land?

Luckily this election will be over in a couple of weeks and hopefully this sort of thing might go by the wayside, but somehow that seems like a too optimistic assessment.

More Freakin' Out About the Blue Angels

Van Halen and Navy Jets...Why is that Not Awesome?

The conspiracy kooks at Lew Rockwell continue to rail against the "fascist" military. This time it has to do with the Blue Angels threatening to conduct bombing runs on the Bay Area. From Lew Rockwell:

To characterize this air show as a form of entertainment is to misjudge its intended purpose. Like the annual May Day military parades conducted by the Soviet government, the objective of this exercise was to remind people of the disproportion of power that the state exercises over them. Should you harbor any sentiments of disobedience to state authority, this is what government officials have at their disposal to bring you back into line. At a time when it became known that a large body of American troops had been returned from Iraq to be deployed in American cities, the presence of such Navy hardware added to the intimidation. President Bush’s threat to members of Congress – as reported by one congressman – to impose martial law should they fail to pass the infamous corporate "bailout" measure, showed the effectiveness of menacing people with violence.

If the purpose of the military was to quash dissenters and malcontents, SF would have been nuked many, many years ago. This conspiracy-mongering schtick is wearing incredibly thin over at Crazy Lew's.

Zombie Has Pics of Bay Area CHUDs in Action

Bring your clean suit and hippie repellent when checking out these asshats [Zombietime].

Geezer Baby Boomers Continue to Slam the Military After all these Years

Since hawking lugies on returning Vietnam vets in a fit of self-righteous indignation wasn't enough, some Baby Boomers continue to say nasty things about our Armed Forces. From Aging Hipsters (which Wek has referred implied as the worst blog of all time):

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need more troops for some insane war that makes you poorer and the rich richer, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up eventually, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.

Insinuations that troops are only from the Red States is hurtful and inaccurate as it seeks to polarize our society. It should also be mentioned that Flower Power wouldn't make a very good defense policy in Nuevo California either, whatever the hell that's supposed to be.

Militray Recruiting Station Trashed Because of Columbus for Some Reason

CHUDs look for any excuse they can to wreak havoc against our beloved military. Christopher Columbus, who came to the new world several hundred years before our Armed Forces were formed, provided a convenient excuse to vandalize a recruiting station. From Santa Cruz Indymedia:

On the night after Columbus Day 2008 we vandalized eleven windows at the Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Recruiting Center in Santa Cruz County with a paint and acid mix.

The U.S. government has always waged a war of extermination against land-based ways of life in order to impose capitalist exploitation of the earth and its peoples.

For 516 years they and their predecessors have been met with resistance. Neither law enforcement nor the military can ever defeat our struggle.

To the land and all indigenous peoples devestated by the U.S. government: we apologize for leaving this building standing.

Wasn't Columbus Day a school night? Sometimes CHUDs have no respect for their parents who are paying for them to go to college.

(h/t NavyCS)

Navy Blue Angels Terrorize Bay Area, Caused 9/11

Blue Angels Now Flying Commercial Aircraft

While the Blue Angels have been slammed in the past on the West coast, the Bay Area offers up a whole new level of CHUDitude. From Indybay:

On October 9, 2008, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., the Navy’s Blue Death terrorized the over 1 million people in San Francisco with their horrifying noise and deadly, illegal low flights over heavily populated San Francisco wasting tax dollars and oil in their military recruiting show to celebrate Columbus Genocide Weekend, 3 weeks before election day.

These terrorists flights are perpetrated by the same military that carried out the 9/11 Inside Job at the behest of the ruling class and its spokespeople, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Giuliani.

It is wise to remember the South Park episode about 9/11 conspiracies. It was pissed off Muslims, dumbass.

(h/t NavyCS)

Cannon Fodder for Oil

The term "cannon fodder" gets thrown out quite a bit in the blogosphere, often to refer to people foolishly enlisting in the Armed Forces in a time of war. Unfortunately, these comments are usually left off an article designed to highlight inter-service support between Navy mothers. Chetdude leaves his thoughts:

More propaganda for the Empire's War Machine.

It makes me sick to see tax dollars being p*ssed away for the whole spectrum of disgusting pro-war BS!

I guess I should look on the bright side though. The latest push to con parents into sending their kids off to be cannon fodder for big oil must mean that the kids are getting smarter.

Yippee!

If Chet Dude is seeking to impress the ladies online, he should realize that women often judge a man based on how he treats his mother. On an article designed specifically to appeal to Moms with such a CHUD comment, that would put Chet Dude as likely to attract women as Disco Stu.

(h/t Code Monkey)

McCain Attacks Obama For Being a CHUD

While Barack's comment was taken out of context (full story here), it's not something you would want to have pinned on you as a soundbite this close to the election. No one wants to be a C.H.U.D.

When Vietnam Service Becomes a Big Joke on the Campaign Trail

Rolling Stone's, Tim Dickinson, writes a terrible, lengthy article about former Naval officer John McCain. Instead of criticizing McCain's campaign platform, he chooses to belittle his time as a P.O.W. and suggests that he was cowardly during the devastating USS Forrestal fire. You know it was coming, and CHUD Busters is a bit surprised that partisan operatives in major media outlets took so long to begin sinking this low in an election year. If only Hunter S. Thompson were still alive, who was once a service member, this type of bullshit wouldn't happen.

Green Party Loser Thinks Natl Guard Killed 5,000 in New Orleans

(h/t Hot Air)

Despite significant press releases and news coverage about the heroic National Guard response to the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, Green Party presidential candidate, Cynthia McKinney, has chosen to bring the crazy about how she remembered events. Citing the reliable source of a friend's son's recollection, she states that 5000 stiffs with bullet wounds in the head have been processed into some super secret "Pentagon Computer". The bodies were dumped into the swamp, presumably to be delicious snacks for Republican alligators. This may conjure up some creepy New World Order fantasies about shock troops rounding up innocent civilians for owning a copy of Loose Change, but it is simply not true and therefore a lame attempt at a C.H.U.D. attack.

CHUD Busters thought it wasn't going to get much wackier than the Green Party candidadate in the WA gubernatorial race, but Cynthia McKinney has beaten him to it.

Another Vet Cemetery Trashed

Meth May Turn You Into a C.H.U.D.

The Willamette National Cemetery in Oregon, which has thousands of veterans buried there, has been vandalized for some scrap metal as reported by Flag Gazer at VA Joe:

This beautiful place has suddenly become yet another Military Cemetery defiled by the the greedy and the disrespectful. Recently and on three different occassions, vandals, called ‘metal thieves’ by law enforcement, went into the cemetery and stripped the copper gutters, downspouts and roofing from the shelters used during burials. Additionally, brass name plates and metal urns have been stolen.

This is consistent with low-life meth addict behavior of scrounging up some spare metal to sell for a couple of lousy bucks. Unfortunately, disrespect of deceased veterans is no big deal when it's time to tweak out. At least in California, the meth addicts hassle active-duty Marines, who can fight back.

Obama Gets Shunned at Columbia University When Discussing ROTC

McCain got Booed, Obama Didn't Get Much Better

Recently, presidential candidates Obama and McCain held a 9/11 forum at Columbia University where they discussed service to our great nation. Both candidates encouraged the school to reinstate its ROTC program after being shut down during Vietnam. Despite Sen. Obama's massive popularity in the left-leaning NYC, and the fact that Columbia is his alma mater, he was booed in a chorus of CHUDitude as he dared suggest that military service could be a viable opportunity. Arkansas INDY Media has the scoop from "Revolution", a NYC panphlet that seeks to win students to the program of "Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky":

Barack Obama dropped a bomb on his young enthusiasts at Columbia University on September 11. The heavily Democratic crowd booed McCain when he called for the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) to be brought back to campus (it was driven out in 1969 by protests against the Vietnam war). Liberal students expected a different answer from Columbia alum Obama. “Almost everyone’s expecting him to say no [to the ROTC], because he’s on our side, right? So then you heard him say ‘yes’ and everyone’s mouths opened in stunned silence,” a student told the New York Sun (15 September). That should have been the tip-off for anyone who hadn’t figured it out by then: Obama is no “peace candidate” but like McCain he is a certified imperialist war candidate.

This seems to be the guiding principle for the naysayers at Columbia, as it's politically convenient to cast off the military as "imperialist" so that "other people" from flyover country can go off to serve our country. Presumably, some Columbia students feel more proud to take jobs in investment banking and large media conglomerates, so they can spend their twenties at wine and cheese parties in the Upper East Side instead of actually doing something useful for society.

There's one Marine at Columbia who is appealling to Mr. Obama for assistance, and hopefully he doesn't get run off the campus with torches and pitchforks before the campaign gets the word.

Strange Religious Comment At WSJ About Track Palin

An anonymous reader directs our attention to an odd comment about Track Palin, who is off to serve his country in Iraq. This disappoints a commenter at WSJ as he sees it as a "wasted" life and even brings up the anti-christ as a form of CHUD attack. From WSJ:

“Satan always has a motive, and it usually results in wasted lives, and elaborate deceptions to bleed the support money from the pockets of traditional Christians, who have been beguiled into tithing or giving to Satan’s ministers and Satan’s churches.”
Why are Palin’s children headed for early motherhood, war, a life of dependency instead of training, work, or even the completion of childhood? Why these wasted lives?
Why support the “bridge to no where” & then take the money & keep it for other purposes? Why these elaborate deceptions? Why did they elope & why do you never see Todd in church? What does he have against Christ’s ministers & Christ’s churches? The antiChrist claims to be anointed by God with the Holy Spirit, to be qualified to work in God’s name. But he is a false Christ.

These religious crazies are incredibly difficult to decipher, but they probably would only be proud of armies found in the book of Revelation (e.g. the Four Horsemen).

An Army a Religious Wacko could be proud of!

Creepy Photo of the Day

Spotted by Mr. and Ms. Kiyum at the UNC-Chapel Hill ROTC armory. Apparently, some think the military is full of "rethuglicans".

Detailed Plans on Gulag for US Soldiers over at AZ Central

Re-Education Camps: Is There a Historical Precedent?

The anonymously named "Code Monkey" writes in this CHUDtastic discovery:

Sometimes I wonder what some online news organizations are thinking when they allow readers to comment on articles. Some shut down comments on more volatile articles; others make you click to another page to see what the commenters have to say. The rest leave it all out splayed out at the end of the article.

Sometimes readers can't help but keep scrolling through to the comments, like when one looks at a car accident at the side of the road. Well, when you keep staring, sometimes you see something you didn't want to see.

At the Arizona Republic website, there's an article about the deployment ceremony for the 29th Brigade Support Battalion of the Arizona National Guard. Azcentral.com left it open to comments. The antiwar keyboard warriors took this opportunity to spew the venom that lurks in the dark corners of their minds, showing their faux bravado that they wield when safe behind their cloak of internet anonymity.

At first, you just notice the usual moonbat comments: it's a war for oil, it's an occupation, we can't win, our soldiers are just kids, the National Guard was not meant for deployment to overseas wars…

But then bostonblackie (Sep-25 @ 12:00 PM) tells us all that what we need is reeducation camps for all the atrocity-committing soldiers who will not be able to contain their bombing, murdering, raping ways once they come back from Iraq:

U.S. troops WILL be returning. Will we be ready for them? It is all too apparent that these soldiers, having committed atrocities world-wide, will be unfit for civil society unless they undergo a lengthy rehabilitation process. I propose that Fort Huachuca be used for this purpose.

This rehabilitation, or 're-education', will by necessity have to be conducted in secure facilities; both for the protection of civilians, and for the safety of the troops themselves. Happily, one of the very bases where they were trained to be killers can easily be used to confine them until they are ready to become productive members of society. It is highly desirable that only those bases that are far removed from population centers be used. Fort Huachuca in southern Arizona would be doubly good; the barbaric behavior once taught there would be un-taught in the same settings, thus reinforcing the lessons.

Having shot, bombed, beaten and sexually abused civilians, contact with non-military personnel must be extremely limited for the first six months or so of their internment. Their progress toward rehabilitation must be carefully monitored by psychiatric workers, and only those who show demonstrable, increasing levels of responsibility toward society will be allowed limited contact with non-military personnel. Due to the extremely high incidence of spousal abuse/murder among the returnees, conjugal visits should be prohibited for the first year.

For the first few months, their re-education must be the simple rules of good manners:

You don't shoot people.

You don't bomb people.

You don't beat people.

It is never OK to sexually abuse people.

No means No.

Role-playing will be of some use in this re-education, but aversion therapy will also prove useful.

The returning soldiers should be issued civilian clothes with no ensignia of rank, and all their government issued clothing should be burned in a ritualistic public manner to stress a complete break with their dark and bloody past.

Staffing in the re-education centers must be by social workers, not prison guards; the social workers should also dress in ordinary street clothes with only a small name tag to differentiate them from the general populace. No matter their understandable revulsion at the enormity of the crimes committed by the returning soldiers; the staff should avoid calling them names like "war criminals", "baby killers" and "scum".

As their re-education progresses, the better behaved internees should be allowed short, heavily supervised visits to Sierra Vista. Here they should demonstrate their new behavior by (for example) purchasing a cup of coffee without pointing a rifle, and asking directions without sexually abusing anyone. As they become more suited to dealing with humans, the returnees may be allowed to visit Tucson and Phoenix, again heavily supervised. Until their re-education is complete, no detainee should be allowed entry to Bisbee.

Rehabilitation and re-education will be of little effect without a large element of redemption; the returning soldiers should be encouraged to knit and sew clothing for their victims world-wide; and to write letters of apology to the peoples they have oppressed, raped and murdered. Any returnee that does not show tangible atonement should not be punished in any way, but the returnee should also not be released until such atonement is demonstrated.

Of course, some of the returning soldiers will be so inured to committing violent acts that their rehabilitation will take years, or even decades! But we must never loose hope that even the most depraved G.I. can be turned from evil.

If you think he's a troll, see:

Sep-25 @ 3:49 PM

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

the creator gave us all our rights
not the army
national guard
air force
navy
border patrol

seems like some here are calling the founders of america liars

(Uh, dude, you forgot the United States Marine Corps.)

And…

Sep-25 @ 4:03 PM

fight for the "rights" of goldman sachs and royal dutch shell if you want; for the "rights" of
fannie mae
freddie mac
exxon
haliburton
aig...
but don't tell me or yourself you are fighting for
MY
rights
'cause you are not

Bigboomer2110 (Sep-25 @ 2:34 PM) responds:

First off I am an OIF veteran. I have carried flag draped coffins and have seen the horror that has never been on the news. I was able to "re-integrate" into society without raping, beating, bombimg or molesting anyone. Bostonblackie you sir or mam are the crux of the problem in this country. You believe you are entitled to your opinion simply because you live here. Well I am sorry to have to burst your bubble, your right to stand on a soapbox of freedom and expostulate your assinine rhetoric is granted to you by someone who has more courage and understanding of sacrifice than you will ever be able to grasp. It is fine to have your opinion of the war and of Bush, as well as whomever takes his place. If it is your wish to dissrespect the brave men and women who sacrifice to protect your freedoms please do so elsewhere, you and people who think like you don't deserve what you are guaranteed by your citizenship.

Soldier's Wrangler Trashed For Being Too Soldiery

A former service member and Iraq veteran, Viktor Whitlow, has had his Jeep trashed by thuggin' CHUDs at a university in Texas. This was not a random act of vandalism, as, literally, the red paint was thrown with the oft-cited C.H.U.D. meme that "Soldiers are Murderers". From NBC5i in Dallas:

The vandals used a box cutter to destroy the inside of his jeep, they slashed five tires and smashed through the windshield. Perhaps the most shocking detail to the vandalism was the message spray painted on his hood.In red paint the vandals spraypainted the message, "Soldiers are murderers."

Ouch, they even slashed the spare. The university is covering the cost of repairs for Mr. Whitlow's Jeep, but the VIN will always be associated with being tainted by a ruthless attack from those that seek to denigrate our military. The mission of the Dallas Baptist University is to
"provide Christ-centered quality higher education in the arts, sciences, and professional studies" and it seems the vandal in question assumed Jesus went around with a box-cutter in the middle of the night.

(h/t David M of The Thunder Run)

Code Pink Hangs It Up in Berkeley

Not Even the Frightening Witches of Code Pink Could Scare off our beloved Marine Corps

The Berkeley Marine Officer Recruiting Station has been under siege by CHUDs and assorted crazies for months. Code Pink issued a triumphant release entitled "Mission Accomplished" on East Bay Indy Media proclaiming a successful CHUD attack designed to take apart our military:

Major protest operations at the MRS have been ended, one year since covert military recruiting operations were first uncovered in Berkeley!

Our coalition is now engaged in dis(as)sembling and deconstructing the U.S. military, making the world safe and secure!

Our city and our coalition are proud of these accomplishments!

Come to our One Year End Recruiting Commemoration Wednesday, Sept 24th noon at the MRS* to honor these courageous Peace Activists!

Share and hear testimonies from the front lines of our most memorable, meaningful, insightful actions, episodes, and occurrences over the past year.

While Code Pink talks a big game like Attila the Hun as they lead a bunch of savages against a respected military institution, it's too bad for that Jonn Lillyea actually called the recruiting office in question. The Captain said the place still had a 3-year lease. Also, Protest Shooter has pics of the office still open for business while the hooligans in Code Pink and various 9/11 troofer miscreants congregate at the end of the block like a bunch of hobos. Go back to the sewer you losers.

Area Wuss Belittles Troops in Boston Globe

Steven Almond writes in an Op-Ed:

Perhaps the most insidious byproduct of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has been a reflexive sanctification of the military. To put this in bumper stickerese: Support the Troops. Well, I have an ugly confession to make: I don't support the troops - at least not unconditionally. When somebody tells me they serve in the military, my first impulse isn't to say, "Thank you for your service!" like those insufferable chickenhawks on talk radio.

My first impulse is to say, "I'm sorry to hear that." Because I am. I'm sorry to know that the person I'm talking to might someday be maimed or killed on the job, or might someday kill someone else. Or refuel a plane that drops bombs on buildings.

His discourse is short on facts and heavy on "feelings" against the troops, which helps explains why one of the forums on his website is dedicated to pointing out perceived "bullies" (e.g. NASCAR fans, Fox News anchors, and other people who would wear an American Flag shirt without irony). It seems Mr. Almond hasn't recovered from the barrage of swirlies, wedgies, and laughter received during high school and is adopting a "jocks vs. nerds" mentality towards people in uniform. Repressed memories of the football team stuffing you in the locker isn't a good basis for foreign and military policy, but the Boston Globe doesn't see it that way and decided to run this bile. The Huffington Post has Steve Almond on staff and his postings are a series of creepy letters in the first-hand perspective addressed to Barack Obama. I wonder if he puts on lipstick and masturbates while writing these things due to psychological trauma. The Obama campaign should get the secret service involved.