Writing Shotgun

MISSING IN ACTION

Theo DouglasThu. November 08
 

When the 11th Annual Long Beach Veterans Day Parade makes its way down Atlantic Avenue this Saturday, members of three veterans groups will be missing in action: Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, and Military Families Speak Out. All have been told by parade organizers that they can’t be in the parade–technically because they’re against the Iraq war.

But in reality, the reason they’re banned isn’t that simple, parade organizer Martha Thuente told The District this morning. Fact is, being for or against something–keen on cheeses, negative on nukes–or even taking a position on a political issue won’t get you yanked from the parade.

If that were the case, you wouldn’t see the American Legion members out there marching. But they’ll be there.

So will the Veterans of Foreign Wars–which makes no bones about its position on Dr. James Peake, President Bush’s nominee for secretary of Veterans Affairs. The V.F.W. hopes he’ll do a good job–which doesn’t sound political, but of course it is. Peake is Bush’s man, and if Peake screws up, what will the V.F. W. think of Bush then? And how will they vote?

Doesn’t matter, Thuente says–what matters is that you won’t hear about any of that Saturday.

“As a [nonprofit] 501c3, there are certain rules we have to follow,” Thuente says, “and one of the rules is that we do not engage in political activity, we do not take sides on political issues.” Letting the anti-Iraq veterans groups–or any veterans–express their political views apparently would violate that rule.

But Thuente says the parade organization has every confidence in groups like the V.F.W.

“The V.F.W. just squeezes into their old uniforms. They do not express that agenda as a parade entry,” she says. Organizers weren’t so sanguine about members of the three anti-Iraq groups which applied to march.

Would they tread softly on Atlantic Avenue? No one could say, Thuente says–and so they were banned. Never mind that members of Veterans for Peace marched in last year’s parade, apparently without incident. That wasn’t good enough.

“There are people who are familiar with the actions of these particular groups–and that’s not what they’re doing,” Thuente says. “I haven’t seen them myself, but I’m told they wave placards and shout slogans.”

The place for doing that, Thuente says, is a vacant lot on the east side of Atlantic Avenue, in the 5800 block–which is the official protesters’ area–and not in the parade.

“I can understand believing in a cause,” she says, “but there’s a time and a place for that.” And it’s not in the parade.

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  • Andy
    No one "carried a flag or WORE A LAPEL PIN?" Horrors. Clearly, the omission of lapel pin is an indication of closet socialism. They probably support other subversive causes like flouridation of our water systems and women's suffrage, too.

    Poor Raoul. With his Google meter set to scan and his fingers at the ready to blast off a 2000-word diatribe at any mention of IVAW, he hurls the "anti-American" epithet more often than the goals of the Iraq War are revised.

    How'd that anti-Murtha rally go? Have you managed to disparage his military service?
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/169443...

    I bet you're a pip at a dinner party.
  • lyndsey
    Tim Goodrich is running for city council. He moved here six months ago. Do you have any information on him. I know he is a cofounder of Iraq Veterans against the war. He claims to have be an Iraq Veteran...discharged honorably from the air force in 2003. I'd like to know if he is telling the truth. His background. His education and how the heck he is making a living. From what I can see he has no jobs. And idication is that all of his campaign contributions have come from out of the area.
  • Raoul Deming
    If these people want a parade, organize one and stop being a leech.

    Why do they get to do all the work and these people waltz in and demand anything?

    Because they are socialists with an exaggerated sense of entitlement.
  • Raoul Deming
    Don’t take my word for any of the information below unless you already know through your experience that it‘s true, or you verify it for yourself.

    Google is a wonderful tools to educate yourself as to who these groups really are ESPECIALLY IF YOU READ THEIR OWN WEBSITES.

    Iraq Veterans Against the War are mentored by and modeled after the Vietnam Veterans Against the War who smeared their own generation of veterans via a lie called the “Winter Soldier Investigation”. That was 109 “interviews” that were compiled to make a book and a movie documenting wide spread war crimes that they claimed every soldier serving participated in or covered up.

    A book called “Stolen Valor” examined the records of those “veterans” and found many were phony soldiers that never served. Others served, but never in Vietnam. Others that served in Vietnam were shown to be liars.

    What did they have in common? They lied about their fellow Vietnam veterans and they were members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. They are the primary cause of labeling the veterans of that era “baby killers”.

    They are so reviled that they hide their association with VVAW and call themselves “Veterans For Peace”. Elliot Adams, David Cline, etc leading VFP figures are VVAW leaders. Do the math, VFP=VVAW with a few wannabes who missed the 60’s thrown in.

    MFSO? What a joke. Their name was cynically and deliberately chosen to steal the goodwill, respect and gratitude the public feels for our troops and use it for their purposes. MFSO’s leaders, radicals Charlie Richardson and Nancy Lessin both told a conference of “anti-war” (really anti-America) leaders that the left had no credibility, so they needed to have military families and better yet military members front their cause.

    There’s a lot of ways I can prove that MFSO is NOT the kind of military family you think of when someone says, “military” families. But the best example is 100 members of MFSO at Walter Reed Army hospital PROTESTING!

    Not only were they protesting at Walter Reed, don’t let them BS you about how they care. Those people put FUNERAL WREATHS in front of the Walter Reed sign and out of the 100 MFSO members, not one carried an America flag or had a American flag pin on.

    MFSO and VFP continues to sponsor a two hour protest every Friday night at Walter Reed Army Hospital. Let me tell you what I heard from three wounded Soldiers about what they thought of MFSO and their “Enlist Here and Die For Halliburton” and “Maimed For A Lie” signs as those wounded laid on a stretcher and looked out of the ambulance bus at MFSO. All three, who do not know each other, said the EXACT same thing, “I don’t need this S**T.”

    Thank God Long Beach stood up for our veterans and keep these hate groups out of the parade.

    Also, David Cline (VVAW) is the person who brought together these fake patriotic sounding groups, IVAW, VFP and MFSO. When you look at the incestuous leadership of these groups, you’ll see it’s a Potamkin Village.

    Again, I recommend that you Google these “peace groups” as they are forming new front groups all the time, but it’s the usual suspects in charge.

    However, if you’re looking for a good deal on a Che shirt, go to the biggest peace group, internationalanswer.org. ANSWER is the front group for the Party for Socialism and Liberation, pslweb.org.

    IVAW, VFP and MFSO gladly allow themselves to be used. All have been the lead group in ANSWER marches.

    And ANSWER has handed out a flyer that asks the “Anti-war movement” to give the “resistance” in Iraq “unconditional support”. Unconditional is just that “unconditional”. They don’t ask the other side to stop. And when they kill American troops, they you’re supposed to support that too. UNCONDITIONALLY.

    Google “Counter-revolution & Resistance In Iraq” and read the last paragraph.

    IVAW’s Chairman, Camilo Mejia, was on DemocracyNow.org on August 27th and during the interview revealed that he was born in Nicaragua, that his parents were big shots in the Sandinista revolution and that he’s a Marxist Sandinista too. Don’t believe me on that, hit the library and read Chapter One of his book. And oh yeah, Mejia skipped out on his service and did time in jail for that. This guy is who IVAW elected as their leader.

    Number Two at IVAW is a guy who got thrown out of the USMC and told, “Don’t Come Back”. Adam Kokesh bought a Saturday Night Special from an Iraqi policeman. That he was in Civil Affairs and there to teach and establish the rule of law, well….

    You’re told what you can and can not bring back from deployment and weapons are a BIG career ending no-no.

    So he brings it back and takes it on campus and it’s stolen from his vehicle. Campus Police investigate and he’s facing three felonies, which get plea bargained to disturbing the peace.

    Sorry that I don’t have a very reliable source on that, as I’m just reporting what Adam Kokesh told RadarOnLine in an interview.

    Again, Google is a great way to raise your consciouness of these groups.

    The most important point. Military Families Speak Out, Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War are all involved in the attempt to smear this generation of military serving, the way their Vietnam Veterans Against the War smeared the 60s veterans.

    Like “Winter Soldier”, there is a “documentary” in the works called “Collateral Damage”.

    Military Families Speak Out, Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War are the bulk of the 50 interviews in “Collateral Damage”.

    And the fact that the daughter of convicted terrorist supporter Sami al-Arian is involved, well that’s just a bonus.

    Another reason to doubt IVAW. Jesse Macbeth was a member of IVAW. MacBeth was a phony Soldier. He never made it past recruit. Yet he marched with IVAW and even carried their banner. MacBeth lied. MacBeth said that his unit laid in wait at a mosque until the worshiperss were in prayers, slaughtered them, burned their bodies and hung the bodies from the rafters. And don’t let IVAW BS that MacBeth wasn’t a member. IVAW staffer Braxton was able to respond to inquiries and provide investigative journalists MacBeth’s discharge form. Jesse MacBeth was given a trial and convicted on his phony soldier claims.

    There is another IVAW member who claims war crimes, but believe it ofr not a reporter embedded in the IVAW’s members unit came to the defense of the troops and disputed the IVAW claims.

    IVAW and VFP are both endorsers of the World Tribunal on Iraq. Basically the Hate America crowd, here and abroad, held a series of intenational show trials with America and our military in the dock. IVAW’s Tim Goodrich testified to Army war crimes according to their reports. In the end, America was found guilty and they issued a “declaration” which among other things declared that the armed resistance is entitled to “certain acts of desperation” against the brutal occupier and that such acts were legitimate and justified under the UN Charter and international law. If it’s not clear what are “certain acts of desperation” by the “resistance”, search YouTube.com for “Iraq resistance” and “Iraqi resistance” and you see clearly that it is our troops getting killed. What Veterans’ “peace group” endorses such madness in the name of peace?

    Bottom line, these people ARE anti-American. They are Vietnam protest re-enactors on a grand scale. And like the Vietnam era protesters who helped form and now guide them, it’s not enough for them that the war is wrong, it’s not enough for them that America is wrong, the troops have to be wrong too.

    Any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.
    raouldeming@hotmail.com
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