Thursday, October 15, 2009

Blackwater's private court hearing

Years later, the Humvee would race past insurgent-saturated villages, blasting out Metallica and gunfire while Moose shouted taunts at the enemies who hid within.
"I would just talk [expletive] to them," said Moose, 28, as he burned through a pack of German cigarettes in his Vickery Meadow apartment in northeast Dallas. "It was fun."

That's from Avi Selk's "Iraqi translator settles in Dallas, joins U.S. Army" (Dallas Morning News) and we open with it because many Iraqis can never go home. For example 'Moose' (a chicken s**t even now who won't give his real name) can't go back to Iraq. He's lucky he wasn't killed before he left.

What's he's describing, what Moose thinks is so cool, is appalling and shameful. And why we don't make it a point here to whine about the collaborators. An Iraqi male rode around with the US military in Iraq "shouting taunts" at villages. At 'insurgents,' chicken s**t Moose would insist. No, at the village. Little scared baby was brave riding around with the US military and willing to terrorize his own people and you better believe people hearing his 'taunts' (try threats) were scared. You're in your home and some crazy man is screaming threats at your entire village? You want to tell me you're not worrying that he's going to torch your villgae and burn you and your family just to try to get in tighter with the US military?

Moose is a chicken and he'll probably be in and out of the US military in about fifteen minutes because he reeks of a sense of entitlement. Like many a reporter (I'm sure you can think of several), he's hung around the military so long he fancies himself one of them. He's not. He's just another person who is going to be trying to get through basic training.

In other punk ass news, to visitors e-mailing articles about a new study, glad you're interested in women veterans. We're not interested in that organization. I read over the five different articles most visitors are sending. Problems emerging?

1) Paul Reickhoff is not a female veteran. We've repeatedly called Mommy's Pantyhose out for thinking he can speak for female veterans. He needs to sit down and let women speak. Yes, he is a media whore but that doesn't mean he should continue attempting to speak 'as a woman.'

2) The findings may be new to the Pentagon but most of have been covered in Congressional hearings. If you don't know about it, it goes to the lack of interest on the part of the press when any woman testifies to Congress about women veterans.

3) Some of the articles include a known liar that we do not highlight at this site. If I know someone's a known liar, I'm not promoting them here. This little liar's name appeared here when a veteran blogged about ___. ___ then e-mailed a long whiny rant about how the veteran was 'stupid' and ___ wasn't public in opposition to the Iraq War and the veteran never should have included ___'s name. That was probably the high point for ____. Since then ____ has conducted a war against Camilo Mejia among others. As Cass Elliot used to say, "I wouldn't piss on her if she was on fire."

And to be clear, the known liar is not Mommy's Pantyhose Paul. I don't care for him (he's a War Hawk who repeatedly argued against the US leaving Iraq -- with on air backing from his 'little buddy' Rachel Maddow who now tries to self-style as a leftist) but he's not a known liar.

Keiffer Wilhelm is a US soldier who died in August, apparently taking his own life after being harassed and abused non-stop. August 21st, the US military announced that Staff Sgt Enoch Chatman, Staff Sgt Bob Clements, Sgt Jarrett Taylor and Spc Daniel Weber are all "charged with cruelty and maltreatment of subordinates . . . The four Soliders are alleged to have treated Soldiers within their platoon inappropriately." Chris Roberts (El Paso Times) has reported that Keiffer Wilhelm "was abused by his 'first-line supervisors,' Sgt. Brandon LeFlor wrote in an e-mail. He is a spokesman for Multi-National Division-South in Basra, Iraq." On Monday,
Aamer Madhani (USA Today) reported that Sgt Bob Clements and Sgt Enoch Chatman were the subject of an Article 32 hearing "over the weekend" in which 10 soldiers gave testimony on how the two had also "punished them with verbal abuse and grueling excercise." Whether or not to move to a court-martial is a decision that's expected in approximately two weeks. Cary Ashby (Norwalk Reflector) reported Tuesday that Specialist Daniel Weber has cut a deal with the prosecution and will "testify against (Enoch) Chatman and (Bob) Clements" according to Shane Wilhelm.

Shane Wilhelm told the Times he is trying to figure out why his son was targeted.
"I just don't understand how my son could be so happy one day and ready to deploy with his friends to Iraq to train Iraqi soldiers and then this happens. It is still surprising," the Plymouth man said.
The Wilhelms started a fund to defray the costs of flying themselves and an uncle to Iraq. Shane Wilhelm told the Mansfield News Journal the fund has garnered about $9,000 so far.
"We've got all the forms filled out. The Army gave us permission and we're definitely going to go," he said.

Marcia's noted that the First Merit Bank of Willard has set up a Memorial Fund for Keiffer Wilhelm to raise money for the family to attend the hearing (419-935-0191, Cari McLendon for more information and donations can be sent by mail to First Merit Bank, 501 Ft. Ball Road, Willard, OH 44890).

September 16, 2007, Blackwater shot up Baghdad. The death toll was at least 14. The press reaction was to undercount and to make jokes. No, Gwen Ifill, it is not and never will be forgotten. Pretrial hearings are taking place in DC; however, the press has been blocked from attending. Del Quentin Wilber (Washington Post) reports US District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina has shut the press and the public out of the pre-trial hearings and the judge asserts he is doing so to guarantee a fair trial:

In a letter Tuesday, The Post asked Urbina to reconsider. Post attorney James McLaughlin said the court should have put the proceedings on the open docket and given the public an earlier chance to challenge the basis for the closure of the hearing. He said concerns about the impact of pretrial publicity were "highly speculative" unless supported by factual findings in open court.
Urbina denied The Post's request. He said the rights of the five guards to a fair trial outweighed the public's interest in attending the proceedings. He said he was concerned about how news accounts of the statements might affect witnesses, some as far away as Baghdad.

Last night the following community sites update:

Those sites updated. Their most recent posts aren't all listed. I copy and paste from Stan's site. If Stan's blogroll hasn't updated (a Blogspot issue, not a Stan issue), I check Ann's and then Isaiah's. None of them have all the posts (and that's Blogspot, not some they've done wrong). But all the above sites did post last night.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.




the mansfield journal
erik shilling



the washington post




thomas friedman is a great man






oh boy it never ends
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