Posted on 10/17/2004 6:56:37 AM PDT by Phsstpok
The earlier thread about the October Surprise "Mutiny" hit piece on this mornings Today show prompted me to do some Googling to try to see if there were any connections of note. I felt that even the little evidence I found warranted a quick heads up and (forgive me) a separate thread as a call to action. I have no particular standing to do this, but this concerned me enough to fire off a flare.
It looks like the extreme left is orchestrating an October Surprise propaganda campaign against the war in Iraq and President Bush by staging a "mutiny" of reserve troops (appears to be 5 of 'em, when you get down to it) and playing it the way they played Abu Gharib.
First, the basic story. Reports surfaced on Friday, the 15th, that troops in Iraq had refused a "suicide mission" and were under arrest and held in close guard. A small handful of "frantic" family members began reporting "unfair practices" and "unsafe conditions," desperately calling on (the usual suspects) politicians to save their loved ones from cruel fate.
Some excerpts:
Daily News, October 17, 2004:
Calls, E-mails explain troops' alleged mutiny
The military has begun punishing some of the 19 Army reservists who balked at what they called a "suicide mission" and a "death sentence" in Iraq last week.
Some members of the South Carolina-based 343rd Quartermaster Company refused to transport fuel between the Iraqi cities of Tallil and Taji Wednesday morning, saying they had no protection for the dangerous trip.
now here's the kicker from the Daily News piece:
Citizen Soldier, a New York-based, nonprofit military rights group, has offered ... its help.
Citizen Soldier is not a "military rights group." It is a virulently anti-American and anti-Military extreme left front group. Their motto on their web site is: "Prepared to Challenge U.S. Militarism in the New Millenium."
Citizen Soldier also has close ties to John Kerry, as it's director Tod Ensign, was one of the organizers of Kerry's discredited Winter Soldier propaganda event in 1969, along with Jeremy Rifkin. This connection is the one that set off my alarm bells.
I couldn't figure the Mississippi angle till I found this in The Clarion-Ledger of Hattiesberg, Mississippi:
Platoon with Mississippi soldiers defies orders 17 soldiers placed under arrest in Iraq
A 17-member Army Reserve platoon with troops from Jackson and around the Southeast deployed to Iraq is under arrest for refusing a "suicide mission" to deliver fuel, the troops' relatives said Thursday. The soldiers refused an order on Wednesday to go to Taji, Iraq - north of Baghdad - because their vehicles were considered "deadlined" or extremely unsafe, said Patricia McCook of Jackson, wife of Sgt. Larry O. McCook.
and again, buried in the piece, is the clue to the source and spin:
U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson said he plans to submit a congressional inquiry today on behalf of the Mississippi soldiers to launch an investigation into whether they are being treated improperly.
Bennie Thompson is one of the more radical members of the Black Caucus. He is a leader in the "fair play for Fidel Castro" movement in Congress. He is often the designated "hit man" in attacking minority members of the Bush Administration, particularly Dr. Condoleezza Rice. He was a rabid Deaniac, but shifted his loyalty to Kerry when Dean fell on his own scream.
The Salon hit piece ties this squarely to the Washington/DNC/Carville slime machine:
The inside story of the Army platoon that refused to carry out a "death sentence" mission.
is by Mary Jocoby, Salon's Washington Correspondent. Jacoby is one of Salon's "reliable" writers who can always be counted on to spew hate at George Bush, in particular, and Republicans in general. She rates Seymour Hersh as a "crack investigative reporter" and has authored anti-Bush hit pieces such as "The Dunce," "George W. Bush's Missing Year" and "Swaggering toward Election Day."
What is truly amazing about these pieces on the "mutiny" is that they appear to have been ready to go before the incident took place. These folks had their stories straight and remarkably consistent in record time, even before the news had reached the regular news cycle on CNN, who jumped on this in record time.
Folks, this is a set up. But it's a set up that, like many of the Kerry camps dirty tricks, they've had to fire off prematurely to try to distract the news media from a Kerry gaffe. Pulling the trigger on this was timed to try and keep the disastrous Mary Cheney attack off of the Sunday morning talk shows. These soldiers are pawns who were told that they would be used to unseat a sitting President (with undoubted hints of vast rewards from a Kerry administration) but they are being sacrificed, just like pushing a pawn, to protect the dims' king.
I wouldn't be surprised if they contacted their families, feigning distress over consequences, PRIOR to refusing the mission. It sounds completely planned and contrived!
It's possible but one would think that would be expensive.
Either that, or they were never "confined" at all--just an added detail to make the story more juicy. I'm with Phsstpok on this one: there's just something not right about the story as it's being reported. My first red flag was the recorded phone call--that didn't sound like a scared woman. It sounded like a ticked off woman.
News Conference on FNC now in Baghdad about the incident.
Like peform the job you enlisted for! Courtmarshal that b!tch and the rest of her gutless cowards!
Steve Isael-D, NY on FNC just said that the team did not handle situation properly should have gone up COC. Have we found an honest Dem?
As far as I know, my post was the only one in that thread to suggest this possibility. Call me paranoid but I haven't seen anything yet that the dimos won't do....including falsely screaming FIRE in a crowded theater. You have certainly put some dots on the board - now to connect them.
This story won't go anywhere, no matter how much the Dems push it. The average American will see these mutinous soldiers as the cowards they are. Other soldiers in their unit completed the mission and didn't chicken out.
The original article has been pulled, but this is still in the Google Cache:
Command Sgt. Maj. Dan Elder might raise some eyebrows with his personal view on the Army’s current promotion system. For those noncommissioned officers who’ve debated about staying in or getting out, Command Sgt. Maj. James Clifford offers a word of advice in his feature on The Meaning of an Indefinite Reenlistment.
Does the Command Sgt Major have an axe to grind? I haven't found the referenced "personal views," but I have found some intriguing connections.
Command Sgt Maj. Dan Elder appears to be a primary authority in the 13th Support Division that the "mutiny platoon" is from. He was involved in the just ordered a full stand down of all of their vehicles, and has released a statement which said that "they raised valid concerns."
Googling about the Command Sgt. Major finds some intriguing connections that may (or may not) mean anything.
He spent nearly 18 months researching and authoring a book about "The Sergeants Major of the Army, a book chronicling the history of the office of Sergeant Major of the Army and those who’ve held it." He authored this book at the suggestion of Dr. Andrew J. Birtle, "a senior historian from the Center of Military History in Washington, D.C." So, why would this matter? Well, Dr. Birtle seems to be one of the Pentagon insiders who thrived during the Clinton years. I can't tell yet, but it looks like he may be an anti-military military historian.
The most concrete thing I've found to push me this way is a course that he taught at the Army War College, "History and Analysis of Operations Other Than War." This course appears to be built around notions such as "the increasingly conservative and republican nature of the armed forces." That phrase is from an Asia Times article about Charles J Dunlap Jr, who is one of the authors used by Birtle as the basis for his course. And what did Dunlap author that was worthy of study? The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012.
Other authors sited in Birtle's course appear to be part of the Democrat "suspect the military" military hierarchy. Richard E. Neustadt, Max Boot, Ken Allard (big alarm bells) and others.
Guys, this may be a hugh and series conspiracy, or it could just be their "good old boy network" asserting and spinning their "conventional wisdom." If it were anything but 2 weeks before the election I would just treat it as competing world views. The timing on this, however, is suspicious.
I'm continuing my search.
Fox covering it now.
Why would the MSM pick it up?
Kiran Chetry's line of questioning on this matter clearly showed which side she is on, and that she is siding with the soldiers who refused their mission.
Just another liberal carrying water for the anti-war Kerry campaign.
Several of my favortie quotes come to mind:
Are you paranoid if they really are out ot get you?
"Even paranoid have real enemies." - Henry Kissinger speaking about Richard Nixon
"The question is not 'are you paranoid?' The question is 'are you paranoid enough?'" - Tome Sizemore's character is Strange Days.
Worth watching.
If I find the transcript (and it hasn't already been posted) I'll post it here, or at least provide a link.
I'm going to start assembling a "six degrees of John Kery" list of names about this story.
Good investigative reporting! Thanks.
Are you in your pajamas? :-)
The 120-member 343rd is based in Rock Hill, S.C., but has members from Mississippi, including a sergeant in Thompson's district. The refueling mission, the Army's statement said, was later conducted by other members of the same unit.
"There was nobody arrested," Lt. Col. Christopher Rodney said late Friday. "They've been interviewed. There's going to be what we call a 'safety stand down' just to look at the issues."
He added: "We can't tolerate breakdowns in discipline."
Thompson's office received a letter from Patricia McCook of Jackson, Miss., on Thursday, relating concerns about her husband, Sgt. Larry McCook, and 16 others "being detained or possibly arrested in Iraq," said the congressman's legislative assistant, Karis T. Gutter. The office had received earlier correspondence concerning "ill-equipped vehicles," he said.
Looks like this has been in the pipeline for a while, and McCook is the likely conduit.
The bit about the fuel oil this platoon was charged to deliver being contaminated with water is also suspicious. It was refused at one destination due to contamination, and yet they were ordered to deliver it to another destination. I guess that makes sense if the reason was for disposal, but how did it get contaminated in the first place?
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