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B’Man’s Patriot Watch: Auburn, Alabama’s Matthis Chiroux

B’Man: I have said this on numerous occasions: it will be the armed forces that stop our imperialization efforts. It will be from within that finally stops these attempts at world domination. You have heard from many retired officers (who were NOT paid by the government to mislead you like may were) that have come out verbally against the illegal occupation.

You have heard from groups like IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against the War) and the “winter soldiers” (service members from that group who tell their harrowing stories) who have been verbal since their tours and service was over.

In this case, we have a guy who is being called “stop-loss” back into an area he knows (and the majority of Americans know) to be illegal and wrought with war crimes that he doesn’t care to be a part of (nor would any other decent human being). If he knows this “war” to be bogus and wrong, he would be un-American to go… knowing what was being done by a few maniacs in high places in his name was so horrible.

To me, Alabama should be proud of this young man.

From Alternet:

U.S. Sergeant Refuses to Go to Iraq: “This Occupation is Unconstitutional and Illegal”

By Karin Zeitvogel, Middle East Online.

Matthis Chiroux is the kind of young American U.S. military recruiters love.

“I was from a poor, white family from the south, and I did badly in school,” the now 24-year-old said.

“I was ‘filet mignon’ for recruiters. They started phoning me when I was in 10th grade,” or around 16 years old, he added.

Chiroux joined the U.S. army straight out of high school nearly six years ago, and worked his way up from private to sergeant.

He served in Afghanistan, Germany, Japan, and the Philippines and was due to be deployed next month in Iraq.

On Thursday, he refused to go, saying he considers Iraq an illegal war.

“I stand before you today with the strength and clarity and resolve to declare to the military, my government and the world that this soldier will not be deploying to Iraq,” Chiroux said in the sun-filled rotunda of a congressional building in Washington.

“My decision is based on my desire to no longer continue violating my core values to support an illegal and unconstitutional occupation… I refuse to participate in the Iraq occupation,” he said, as a dozen veterans of the five-year-old Iraq war looked on.

Minutes earlier, Chiroux had cried openly as he listened to former comrades-in-arms testify before members of Congress about the failings of the Iraq war.

The testimonies were the first before Congress by Iraq veterans who have turned against the five-year-old war.

Former army sergeant Kristofer Goldsmith told a half-dozen US lawmakers and scores of people who packed into a small hearing room of “lawless murders, looting and the abuse of countless Iraqis.”

He spoke of the psychologically fragile men and women who return from Iraq, to find little help or treatment offered from official circles.

Goldsmith said he had “self-medicated” for several months to treat the wounds of the war.

Another soldier said he had to boost his dosage of medication to treat anxiety and social agoraphobia — two of many lingering mental wounds he carries since his deployments in Iraq — before testifying.

Some 300,000 of the 1.6 million US soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from the psychological traumas of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression or both, an independent study showed last month.

A group of veterans sitting in the hearing room gazed blankly as their comrades’ testimonies shattered the official version that the US effort in Iraq is succeeding.

Almost to a man, the soldiers who testified denounced serious flaws in the chain of command in Iraq.

Luis Montalvan, a former army captain, accused high-ranking U.S. officers of numerous failures in Iraq, including turning a blind eye to massive fraud on the part of U.S. contractors.

Ex-Marine Jason Lemieux told how a senior officer had altered a report he had written because it slammed U.S. troops of using excessive force, firing off thousands of rounds of machine gun fire and hundreds of grenades in the face of a feeble four rounds of enemy fire.

Goldsmith accused U.S. officials of censorship.

“Everyone who manages a blog, Facebook or MySpace out of Iraq has to register every video, picture, document of any event they do on mission,” Goldsmith said after the hearing.

“You’re almost always denied before you are allowed to send them home.”

Officials take “hard facts and slice them into small pieces to make them presentable to the secretary of state or the president — and all with the intent of furthering the occupation of Iraq,” Goldsmith added.

Chiroux is one of thousands of U.S. soldiers who have deserted since the Iraq war began in 2003, according to figures issued last year by the US army.

But while many seek refuge in Canada, the young soldier vowed to stay in the United States to fight “whatever charges the army levels at me.”

The US army defines a deserter as someone who has been absent without leave for 30 days.

Chiroux stood fast in his resolve to not report for duty on June 15.

“I cannot deploy to Iraq, carry a weapon and not be part of the problem,” he said.

Watch video footage of Matthis Chiroux’s announcement here.

Richard Noggin’ Saturday: Kevin James

I never even heard of this guy before seeing this clip (over and over and over… laughing my ass off all the way). We all know blow hards that act this way. Talk, louder and louder, no matter how wrong or stupid they are.

Hoping to bulldoze their way through subject matter they are totally clueless about, but still garnering enough dickheadedness to point their finger and accuse the other (the host of the show he was invited to attend) that he doesn’t know what he is talking about when every word that comes from his right-wing, idiotic mouth is bullshit so easy to take apart, my three year old could.

So, Kevin James (the unknown right-wing radio host) you are a dickhead and are the most deserving of B’Man’s honor today.

The Case: Dealing with the Conservative Spin

I get this emailer regularly from TomPaine.com and I particularly enjoy this series:

In answer to the question, ‘Are you better off today than you were before George Bush took office more than seven years ago,’ if you look at the overall record and the millions of jobs that have been created since President Bush took office, you could make an argument that there’s been great progress economically over that period of time.

Here are the facts: Between March 2001 and March 2008 the nation lost almost 3.3 million manufacturing jobs, and only gained 5.3 million jobs overall—just slightly more than half the number of jobs needed to keep pace with the 9.8 million people added to the labor force during that period. That’s why the unemployment rate is 15.7 percent higher in March 2008 than it was in March 2001. (Bureau of Labor Statistics) The share of the population with jobs declined from 64.3 percent of the population in March 2001 to 62.6 percent of the population in March 2008. It’s the first time on record that a period of “economic recovery” has been marched by an actual decline in the employment rate. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Economic Policy Institute) Hourly wages rose 3.6 percent over the past year, the slowest growth rate in two years, and well behind recent inflationary readings, which have been around 4 percent. What’s worse, employees on average have been keeping their workers on the job for fewer hours in the past year, so weekly earnings are up only 3.3 percent over the past year. (Economic Policy Institute). Since the late 1990’s, average incomes fell by 2.5 percent for those in the bottom fifth of the income scale and rose by just 1.3 percent for those in the middle fifth. Meanwhile, incomes climbed 9 percent for those in the top fifth, not counting income from capital gains. (Economic Policy Institute) At the same time, the consumer price index from March 2001 to March 2008 has increased 17.5 percent. (Inflation Data.com) People in the top 1 percent of the income bracket captured about half of the overall economic growth between 1993 and 2006. (Emmanuel Saez, University of California, Berkeley)