The United States needs to stay out of Venezuela. Let the Venezuelan people determine their future. We don't want other countries to choose our leaders--so we have to stop trying to choose theirs.
It is not our right to overthrow an election. The people of Venezuela made their voices heard and that's a duly elected leader so the US government needs to stop butting in.
Does anyone remember the last big time when the US refused to respect election results?
Barack Obama was president. The year was 2010.
Thug Nouri al-Maliki had been imposed as prime minister of Iraq. Back in 2006, Bully Boy Bush had installed him. And thug Nouri was attacking everyone, running secret prisons and detention and torture centers.
And the Iraqi people voted him out. They sided instead with a brand new political party, Iraqiya.
But Nouri refused to step down.
They voted in March of 2010 and Nouri refused to step down. Month after month. And Barack decided Nouri should be prime minister for a second term -- the Iraqi people be damned.
Barack spat on democracy, on free elections, on the Iraqi people.
He ordered the negotiation of a contract, The Erbil Agreement. This gave Nouri a second term. Why did Iraq even hold an election?
Do you know what happened next? In his second term, Nouri was even worse and that's what allowed ISIS to take hold in Iraq.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Thursday, January 24, 2019. The Iraq War continues and embracing
someone who lies about Vietnam is not going to end it any sooner.
We haven't spent time on the rorschach test -- others have -- especially as media criticism, and good for them. But we are going to weigh in on one aspect. Nathan Phillips is a liar and is not worthy of support from the true left. Elaine made that clear in "Nathan Phillips is a disgusting attention whore" where she quoted his declaration of how he was called a "baby killer" and spat on by a "hippie girl" when he returned from Vietnam. First the nonsense of the spitting. Jerry Lembcke has addressed a lie for years, repeatedly debunking it, over and over. For NYT on October 30, 2017, he wrote:
We betray Jerry and his work when we side with liar Nathan. Nathan was not in Vietnam. There's a rush of publications -- including THE NEW YORK TIMES as Elaine notes in "Nathan Phillips kept the US safe from the Maytag Repair Man" -- who are covering for Nathan and doing corrections with 'he didn't claim he was a Vietnam veteran' type b.s. In some instances, he has claimed to be a veteran of the Vietnam era or Vietnam times. That's misleading and he knows it. More to the point, before he learned to fudge, he resorted to outright lying.
We haven't spent time on the rorschach test -- others have -- especially as media criticism, and good for them. But we are going to weigh in on one aspect. Nathan Phillips is a liar and is not worthy of support from the true left. Elaine made that clear in "Nathan Phillips is a disgusting attention whore" where she quoted his declaration of how he was called a "baby killer" and spat on by a "hippie girl" when he returned from Vietnam. First the nonsense of the spitting. Jerry Lembcke has addressed a lie for years, repeatedly debunking it, over and over. For NYT on October 30, 2017, he wrote:
Acknowledging that I could not prove the negative — that they were not true — I went on to say there is no corroboration or documentary evidence, such as newspaper reports from the time, that they are true.
Many of the stories have implausible details, like returning soldiers
deplaning at San Francisco Airport, where they were met by groups of
spitting hippies. In fact, return flights landed at military air bases
like Travis, from which protesters would have been barred. Others
include claims that military authorities told them on returning flights
to change into civilian clothes upon arrival lest they be attacked by
protesters. Trash cans at the Los Angeles airport were piled high with
abandoned uniforms, according to one eyewitness, a sight that would
surely have been documented by news photographers — if it had existed.
And some of the stories have more
than a little of a fantasy element: Some claim the spitters were young
girls, an image perhaps conjured in the imaginations of veterans
suffering the indignities of a lost war.
Listeners,
I speculated, are loath to question the truth of the stories lest
aspersion be seemingly cast on the authenticity of the teller. The war
in Vietnam was America’s longest war at the time, and its first defeat.
The loss to such a small, underdeveloped and outgunned nation was a
tough pill for Americans to swallow, many still basking in post-World
War II triumphalism. The image of protesters spitting on troops
enlivened notions that the military mission had been compromised, even
betrayed, by weak-kneed liberalism in Congress and seditious radicalism
on college campuses. The spitting stories provided reassuring
confirmation that had it not been for those duplicitous
fifth-columnists, the Vietnamese would have never beaten us.We betray Jerry and his work when we side with liar Nathan. Nathan was not in Vietnam. There's a rush of publications -- including THE NEW YORK TIMES as Elaine notes in "Nathan Phillips kept the US safe from the Maytag Repair Man" -- who are covering for Nathan and doing corrections with 'he didn't claim he was a Vietnam veteran' type b.s. In some instances, he has claimed to be a veteran of the Vietnam era or Vietnam times. That's misleading and he knows it. More to the point, before he learned to fudge, he resorted to outright lying.
Nathan Phillips, January 3, 2018"I'm a Vietnam Vet. I served in Marine Corps 72 to 76. I got discharged May 5, 1976. I got honorable discharge and one of the boxes shows peacetime or, what my box says is that I was **in theater**. I don't talk much about my Vietnam times."
Phil Kerpen has several videos on his Twitter feed and a friend -- an actual Vietnam veteran -- asked that we note that and that we note that GATEWAY PUNDIT has the story here. They're covering the story from the right and that's fine. But we're covering it from the left.
I have no problem with someone who chooses to resist war and I will defend their right to anytime. But let's be very clear that Kerpen's multiple stints of going AWOL were not about war resistance -- he wasn't in Vietnam and he was never going to be in Vietnam. He's someone who is troubled. And that was his problem for years and years -- you can see the toll on him when he speaks -- but then he went after kids and then tried to use his 'Vietnam veteran' status for his bullying.
I won't deny that he needs help. He does and I strongly urge him to seek professional care. His attack on kids is an issue for this community because we don't tolerate that here. But his attack on the peace movement? He needs to be kicked to the curb.
He's a tiny, powerless man who thought he could harness lies and make himself look better. As Elaine said, he's an attention whore. He begged to be in the spotlight. It's about time the press showed how liars get treated -- especially liars who claim combat service that they do not have. His lies about his service in Vietnam are so vile that it's one thing that we on the left and the right should agree deserves to be called out -- one thing we should easily agree on.
Again, Nathan's AWOL was not about war resistance. And his repeating lies to smear the peace movement are disgusting.
Let's note a real war resister: Jeremy Hinzman.
I followed the link and what did I see? A more recent photo of Jeremy Hinzman, Nga Nguyen, and Liam @TorontoQuakers! Their photo from their time at Quaker House in Fayetteville, NC, is still on our wall. Loved seeing the newer photo.
Jeremy remains in Canada after self-checking out. Near the end of 2015, John Hagan (NOW) reported:
Beginning with Hinzman in 2004,
U.S. war resisters chose to make Canada their home because of our
reputation for fairness and compassion and our history under another
prime minister named Trudeau of welcoming 50,000 resisters during the
Vietnam War.
Hinzman, a soldier in the 82nd
Air-borne Division, was the first American Iraq War resister to seek
refugee status in Canada. He served in a non-combat role in Afghanistan
in 2002-03 after applying for conscientious objector status.
Denied that status and told he
was to be deployed to Iraq, Hinzman, his wife and young son sought
asylum here in 2004. He was granted a last-minute stay of deportation in
2008. But his request to stay in Canada on compassionate grounds is
still wending its way through the courts.
Rodney Watson, who spent a year
deployed in Mosul, Iraq, could not stay silent about unnecessary
violence he witnessed by the occupying troops. He has been in sanctuary
for over half a decade, inside a Vancouver church to avoid deportation
after the Harper government ordered him returned to the U.S.
Kimberly Rivera refused further
deployment after witnessing mistreatment of Iraqi civilians. She carried
an empty rifle while in Iraq because she could not stand the thought of
killing a human being.
Despite the support of Archbishop
Emeritus Desmond Tutu and a petition signed by more than 20,000
supporters, Rivera was forced from Canada in 2012 into the custody of
the U.S. Army and a military prison, where she gave birth. Conservative
MPs cheered in the House of Commons at news of her prosecution.
The Harper government targeted
about 50 American veterans living in Canada, directing that their cases
for entry be treated as potentially “criminally inadmissible.”
I see the War Resisters Support Campaign hasn't Tweeted in a while, here's the most recent Tweet:
These American deserters from the Iraq war may finally get refuge in Canada: @vicecanada news.vice.com/article/these-… #cdnpoli #refugees
Two years and five months ago. It is difficult to write the same story over and over or Tweet the same thing over and over, I grasp that. Maybe some people can find a way to cover today's War Resisters? They have not been granted asylum and they still remain at risk.
Like their struggle, the Iraq War goes on and goes with little press coverage. Ahmed Rasheed (REUTERS) notes a new development, the Parliament has passed their 2019 budget. It should read "has finally passed their 2019 budget." Rasheed also writes, "Iraq’s infrastructure is wrecked after years of war against Islamic State and alleged corruption that has left thousands of people without power and water." That's in need of an addition as well -- unless the destruction from the war itself is no longer counted. Are we now blaming the 2003 US-led invasion on the Islamic State? Well serves us all up some 'freedom fries' with that whopper.
US intervention in Iraq transformed the country into a modern day utopia? NO. It started a cycle of violence that claimed a million lives. Spare us your nonsense please.
When it comes to the media, the war resisters who took brave stands are as forgotten as the war itself.
Silent wars: Why we don’t pay attention to the world’s worst violence #Iraq #Afghanistan #Syria iraq.trendolizer.com/2019/01/silent…
The following community sites -- plus PACIFICA EVENING NEWS -- updated:
