From the People’s World;

With the Iraq war officially over, leaving 4,500 U.S. troops and 100,000 Iraqis dead plus tens of thousands wounded, the soldiers who fought and experienced the horror are returning home. They’re stepping out of one war zone and into another.

Faced with high rates of unemployment and discrimination in hiring, many are coping with horrific injuries and post traumatic stress disorder, fueling drug and alcohol abuse, and divorce and record suicide rates.

The experience is causing veterans to draw basic conclusions about the real nature of U.S. foreign policy and even capitalism.

Understandably there’s been an influx of veterans, including combat veterans, into the ranks of the Communist Party USA and Young Communist League.

Among those who joined recently, and are organizing a new CPUSA veterans committee, is Greg, who served as a military police at Bagram Air Force base in Afghanistan.

He said he still gets nightmares from what he witnessed travelling back and forth between Bagram, Kabul and Kandahar.

“A lot of veterans like myself go to war and want to do the right thing for our country,” he said.

“We come home and can’t even find jobs, not even part-time. I’ve found a lot of companies are hesitant to hire veterans, because veterans may have mental or physical issues. That shouldn’t be.”

Greg said he’s also experienced racism and ageism.

“When I got home my old company hired me back like they were supposed to. But soon after, that they laid me off which happens to a lot of veterans,” Greg said.

“That really pushed me over the edge. I had read a lot of the history of the party. The next day I got on line and joined the CPUSA,” he said…

Another veteran, Frank, joined the CPUSA in September. He grew up east of Los Angeles, amid the foothills of the picturesque San Gabriel Mountains. Orange and avocado groves surrounded his hometown.

By the time he graduated high school they were replaced by a growing population and industry associated with the Vietnam War buildup.

Frank was drafted and spent two years in the Army. He was trained as a tank commander and saw combat in Vietnam, serving a tour of duty.

“Little by little, I realized in Vietnam, this supposed capitalist democracy wasn’t working. This wasn’t what the Vietnamese people needed. They would be much better off with socialism,” Frank said.

“When I got back there weren’t a lot of jobs for tank commanders and I had to deal with a lot of other things, nightmares of the things I’d seen. These young men and women returning [from Iraq] are dealing with similar things,” he said.

“There has to be a better way. Socialism is the way we have to go if there’s ever going to be equality between people and countries. And that’s what led me to join the CPUSA,” said Frank.

If tensions rise as far as expected in 2012?  If the left needs to use muscle to intimidate its GOP or Tea Party opponents, how useful could dozens, or hundreds of disciplined, battle hardened former soldiers be during strikes, marches,  occupations, or  riots?

How valuable could weapons trained veterans be too the communists, if things get really violent?

Trained saboteurs, snipers, drill sergeants, intelligence officers, reconnaissance experts – all trained by courtesy of the US taxpayer. Will they be turned by the communists against their former masters?

Why is the Communist Party USA deliberately recruiting US veterans? Veterans are generally more patriotic than the general public – not easy recruits for the left.

Why then are the communists going out of their way to recruit them?

Just how hardball does the left plan to play in 2012?

Is the FBI monitoring this development?

Obama’s statement put an end to months of wrangling over whether the U.S. would maintain a force in Iraq beyond 2011.

“After nearly nine years,” the president, “America’s war in Iraq will be over.”

He spoke at the White House after a private video conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and he offered assurances that the two leaders agreed on the decision.

The American withdrawal by the end of 2011 was sealed in a deal between the two countries when George W. Bush was president. Obama declared the end of the combat mission earlier this year.

“Code Pink Kills American Troops Giving Money to Terrorists” (Target of Opportunity photo)

On November 22, 2004, the socialist anti-American group Code Pink sent out a plea to supporters to help send assistance to the “refugees” from Fallujah, Iraq.

Today, as CODEPINK was busily preparing a year-end humanitarian mission to Iraq, we received an urgent message. It was from our dear friend Dahr Jamail, an amazing American independent journalist who has been risking his life to get the true story of Fallujah to the American public:

“I have just come from a refugee camp in Baghdad with families from Fallujah. The suffering is beyond description. It’s worse than anything you’ve read or anything I’ve written so far.

This is a humanitarian crisis. They need medicines for their camp and the other camps immediately. We have an organization set up of doctors who can distribute the medicines and supplies. BUT WE NEED THEM NOW! THIS CANNOT WAIT!”
Solidarity,
Dahr

The next day, on November 23, 2004, Code Pink announced that they had raised nearly $20,000 in one day for “refugess” from Fallujah.

Yesterday we put out an urgent call for aid to refugees from Fallujah, with an initial goal of raising $20,000. The response was amazing. From a $10 donation from a high school student to a $1,000 gift from a medical doctor, the compassion of the American people began to shine through the fog of war. In less than 24 hours, we surpassed our goal and that’s just the online donations!

In addition, a humanitarian aid group donated 300 pounds of priority medical supplies, Cliff Bar is donating high-protein bars for the children, an Iraqi-American returning home offered to be our on-the-ground liaison and people are pledging to do holiday house parties to raise more funds.

When we contacted journalist Dahr Jamail to tell him to good news, he was elated. “Holy cow, $20,000 already? I’m catching my breath. This is so beautiful.” Dahr had just returned from a visit to the Red Crescent, who said they could only care for “at most” 60,000 refugees. “This leaves at least 140,000 refugees, mostly women and children, with no support,” said Dahr. “These supplies will be their lifeline.”

On December 3, 2004, Code Pink announced that after only one week into their campaign they had sent $30,000 to Iraq. Their contact Dahr Jamail claimed the donations bought blankets, warm clothing, food, portable heaters, cooking stoves, stove and heater fuel, antibiotics, needles, sterile gloves, pain medications, gauze, basic first aid materials, water tanks, pipes, water pumps and water purification materials. Dahr Jamail and Code Pink also claimed that these supplies had already distributed to the refugees. The radicals at Code Pink must run an amazingly efficient operation. We’ll discuss Dahr Jamail below.

Code Pink travels to Iraq

Code Pink later reported that they had collected $100,000 in donations. It was also reported that “humanitarian groups” such as the Middle East Children”s Alliance and Operation USA contributed $500,000 worth of medical supplies.

Code Pink was ready to deliver their supplies and donations to the Fallujah refugees. But there was a problem. They needed assistance from Congress to approve their trip. In stepped Senator Barabara Boxer (D-CA) along with Representatives Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Henry Waxman (D-CA). These radical members of Congress signed letters to approve their trip to Jordan and the Iraqi border.

These Congressional members wrote this letter despite the fact that in September 2004, Code Pink participated in and just endorsed the Beirut communique, which supported “the right of the people of Iraq and Palestine to resist the occupations” and called for “the unconditional withdrawal of US and “coalition” forces from Iraq.”

With their signatures on the Beirut Communique Code Pink condoned the murder of US soldiers and Marines.
Yet Barbara Boxer and Congressional leftists approved of their trip to the Iraqi border.

Members of Families for Peace, Code Pink and Global Exchange announce that they have sent 600,000 USD in humanitarian aid to the displaced people of Fallujah. (AFP/Khalil Mazraawi)

On December 20, 2004, Code Pink announced their trip to Iraq to deliver supplies to “refugees.” They claimed the November US attack, which virtually leveled the city and left some 2,000 Iraqis and 71 U.S. soldiers dead, also created thousands of refugees, who are living without adequate food, water, electricity and healthcare. On that same day they announced that they would deliver the donations to the Iraqis in late December. They later released a report on their trip to the border.

During our week-long exchange with Iraqis, we heard allegations of US atrocities that made Abu Graib seem like childish pranks: a woman raped in full view of other prisoners, who is now seeking permission from religious leaders to kill herself; a seven-year-old girl, left momentarily in the car while her father stopped at the market, screaming and clawing at the window while a US tank crushed the vehicle; a mother watching in horror as the troops raided her home in the middle of the night, shot her son in the chest and then stomped on him as he bled to death. In Fallujah alone, thousands of civilians were killed in one brutal week. We wept together as we saw gruesome pictures of bodies burned beyond recognition, possibly from the use of napalm, and limbs eaten by dogs because anyone trying to retrieve the dead would be shot. A young Iraqi woman who risked her life taking our humanitarian aid to those too old and infirm to flee was still traumatized by the devastation she witnessed.

After successfully delivering their supplies to the “refugees” from Fallujah Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin told reporters that they had delivered the supplies “to the other side”:

“I don’t know of any other case in history in which the parents of fallen soldiers collected medicine … for the families of the ‘other side’,” said Medea Benjamin, the founding director of Global Exchange, a human rights group. “It is a reflection of a growing movement in the United States … opposed to the unjust nature of this war,” she said.

The Code Pink website includes a list of the radical America-haters who met with them in Jordan and at the Iraqi border. The list includes a who’s who of radical American leftists and a list of so-called Iraqi doctors who were invited to the meetings to talk about the supposed war crimes by the US military in Iraq.

Code Pink’s Contact in Iraq – Dahr Jamail

Code Pink and their contact in Iraq Dahr Jamail claimed they were able to collect donations, purchase supplies and donate those supplies to “refugees” in a war zone in one week. If this is true they should be in distribution instead of activism. But, this isn’t the only thing about Dahr Jamail that makes him an exceptional far left activist and reporter. American Dahr Jamail also has incredible terrorist contacts and claims he traveled through the violence in Iraq unscathed as he met with terrorists and terror leaders.
Dahr Jamail wrote about Fallujah in April 2007 in his “Interview with the Mujahadeen” where he interviewed Islamic terrorists.

Tonight, I await a mujahedeen fighter, sipping tea impatiently until the door opens at the pre-set location.

He enters the room, his presence larger than that which his tall height and bulky body projects.

A blue ski mask hides his face, and he chooses to be called “Ahmed” to protect his identity. With a deep, course voice he introduces himself with the greeting ‘Salam Aleikum’ (Peace be upon you), and asks my translator and I to join him in sitting.

I am lucky to have been granted an interview with this man. Only by promising anonymity and having this pre-arranged has he allowed it.

“I want to tell the truth, but the media does not cooperate with the resistance. The media concentrates on the Americans, and does not care about Iraqis,” he says firmly, “This is not a rebellion, this is a resistance against the occupation.”

When asked what he thought about the Bush Administration referring to the situation in Iraq as the front lines of the “War on Terror,” Dr. Nidal had stated, “Here, one would have to distinguish between terrorism and resistance. Terror was unseen here before the invasion. In Falluja, it is not terrorism, it is resistance.”

In July 2005 Dahr Jamail interviewed another terrorist in Jordan while investigating al-Zarqawi.

“The jihad in Iraq is not just Zarqawi. It is up to Allah if we prevail, not dependent on the hand of Zarqawi. If he is killed, the jihad will continue there.”

I ask him about civilian casualties. Does he think Zarqawi cares about the killing of innocent people?

“I have had so many discussions with Iraqis to tell them that Zarqawi doesn’t instruct his followers in the killing of innocent people. If he did this, I would be the first to turn against him. He only targets the Americans and collaborators.”

…Bush officials continue to link Zarqawi to the Iraqi resistance – undoubtedly another bogus claim in that the resistance in Iraq is primarily composed of Iraqi nationalists and Ba’athist elements who are fighting to expel the occupiers from their country, not to create a global Islamic jihad.

Dahr Jamail wrote about several meetings with terrorists over the years. He also wrote about numerous undocumented atrocities that he blamed on the United States. Jamail is a favorite of the far left. He still posts his anti-American propaganda on his website.

Is Dahr Jamail on the up and up?
The Two Malcontents blog doesn’t think so and wrote this about Dahr Jamail in 2006.

The lying leftist Dahr Jamail “creates” two more mothers and their soldier son’s emails in his current piece of crap:

(A Broken, De-Humanized Military In Iraq)

Of course the emails are bullshit propaganda and solely to give a morale boost to our enemies. Jamail abhors not only America (which he usually refers to as the Evil Empire) but more specifically the American military. Jamail has changed his propaganda tactics lately to sound more sympathetic towards U.S. soldiers as being mere cannon fodder (real nice of Jamail). Those that know Jamail will tell you he’s a Marxist piece of shit and works for any enemies of U.S. soldiers. Did we mention he’s good pals with kommie ass klowns Cindy Sheehan, Medea Benjamin, Zanaib (JillCarroll), Raed Jarrar?

Front Page Magazine has more on this radical leftist:

His stories, however, were not supported by any evidence – nor even by his own photographs. He showed dozens of photos of corpses that he identified as victims of “Marine snipers,” “napalm,” and “chemical weapons,” though there was no way to verify any of this. He claimed that most of the Iraqis killed by U.S. soldiers were women and children, whose “dead and rotten bodies” had been left rotting in the streets to be eaten by dogs.

We do know that Dahr Jamail has an uncanny ability to find and interview terrorists linked to the Iraqi resistance. For some reason these killers trusted this American. Maybe it was his fierce hatred of America? Or, maybe he offered them more than just an outlet for their propaganda. Then again, maybe he’s just a liar. Or maybe Jamail is a liar, a radical and a traitor? Are we really to believe that Dahr Jamail and Code Pink gave the $600,000 worth of donations to the suffering refugees of Fallujah? Of course not.

Barbara Boxer, Raul Grijalva, Henry Waxman and Dennis Kucinich need to explain why they supported these traitors and anti-American radicals who aided the enemy and put our troops in danger.

Now, in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Sen. Reid makes an unbelievable new claim:

At the time Sen. Reid made this comment, President Bush had been pursuing a failed, stay-the-course strategy that had cost thousands of American lives and billions of taxpayer dollars. Iraq appeared to be on the verge of a sectarian civil war. He was simply pointing out what our military leaders, including Gen. Petraeus, had been saying for months: that we could not win by staying the course; the war needed to be won diplomatically, politically, and economically. Sen. Reid and his colleagues were successful in forcing President Bush to finally abandon his failed approach and refocus on political reconciliation. This is what ultimately paved the way for the Iraqi government to take greater responsibility for Iraq’s future. Sen. Reid’s comments were directed at President Bush and his following of misguided policymakers, not at the heroic troops who continue to serve our country with incredible courage.

As Sherman Frederick of the Las Vega Review-Journal puts it:

Asked about his 2007 comment in which he proclaimed “This war is lost” while our soldiers were still in Iraq getting their heads shot at and before the so-called “surge” even had begun, Reid today said that his statement was actually a “successful” ploy to force President Bush to refocus on political reconciliation.

The undeniable fact is Sen. Reid called it wrong on Iraq. He undercut our troops in the process. Bush called it right. The “surge” worked and it (not Sen. Reid’s “This war is lost” statement) made today possible. That’s the unvarnished truth and no amount of revisionist sophistry will change it.

In VDH’s first 2010 appearance on Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson, he shares the thesis of his latest book with us, which is that war is the father of us all.

The issues discussed are varied.  Everything from the American style of war and its ineffectiveness in Iraq, George W. Bush’s missed opportunity to gain leftist support, and why Obama gets away with continuing Bush’s military strategy.

Check out this video below for highlights, or watch the full episode here.

Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood and Obama ally Jodie Evans with President Barack Obama, October 15, 2009.

Top Obama funder, terrorist supporter and Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans assaulted former President George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove Monday evening at a Beverly Hills appearance by Rove to promote his new book, “Courage and Consequence: My Life As a Conservative in the Fight.”

Jodie Evans approached Rove while he was speaking to an audience at the Saban Theater and announced she was making a “citizen’s arrest” as she attempted to place metal handcuffs on him.

Video by KCAL-TV shows Rove pushing Jodie Evans away as she tries to cuff him. The audio picks up Rove saying to Jodie Evans, “No, no, no I didn’t say go ahead. I looked at…You get away!

Two men intervened and pulled Jodie Evans away from Rove.

Jodie Evans can be heard yelling at Rove, “Look what you did! You outed a CIA officer! You lied to take us to war! You ruined a country! Totally ruined a country!”

Other Code Pink members continued to harass Rove througout his presentation, forcing him to cut short his talk and cancel a booksigning for the guests who paid $25 or $40 (with or without Rove’s book) to hear him speak at the Saban Theater.

Jodie Evans was a bundler, donor and an early fundraiser host for Barack Obama. She has maintained ties to Obama and his administration since taking power in January 2009 with high level briefings, meetings at the White House and at fundraisers.

Jodie Evans also maintains ties to terrorist groups and state sponsors of terrorism, even going so far as soliciting the Muslim Brotherhood and their jihadi supporters to “join us in cleansing our country” by helping Code Pink kidnap former President Bush and other Bush administration officials, including Rove.

Jodie Evans worked with Saddam Hussein before Iraq’s liberation and has said in recent years that she wishes Saddam were still in power. Jodie Evans also works with Hamas and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to name just a few of her terrorist allies.

As one of the few liberals in America who has supported the war in Iraq (See www.honorfreedom.com) I found deep historical value in Rove’s account of what actually happened in the White House during the months leading up to the war, and I was inspired by his willingness to call out those Democratic senators who voted for the war, but later abandoned the president once it became unpopular.

On January 5, 2007 ABC News reported that 28 of the 77 senators who originally voted for the war said they would have voted differently. Not surprisingly, Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, John Edwards, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, all of whom challenged Bush for the presidency eventually turned against the war.

Of course, Bush’s post-9/11 popularity was 90 percent, the highest of any president in American history, and Democrats knew the only hope they had of winning was to undermine the morality of the war. Undermining the morality of the war meant that it didn’t matter if America achieved victory in Iraq.

The Democratic Party knew that if they could create a myth that Bush started the war under false pretenses, they could not only call him a failure; they could call him a liar. If that were true, they could discredit all of Bush’s successes.

Chapter 21 of Rove’s book – “Bush Was Right on Iraq” – sets the record straight. It is a thorough account of what really happened in the months leading up to the war. Rove starts with the history of Saddam Hussein’s attempt to compile weapons of mass destruction and sites specific examples of Democratic leaders who argue that point to the nation, including former President Bill Clinton, Vice-President Al Gore and current U.S. Senator majority leader Harry Reid.

Rove also mentions that on February 5, 2003, only a few weeks before the war, Democratic U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller publicly tied Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden in an interview with Wolf Blitzer. The media however, only criticized Bush and Cheney for making the same connection, and falsely accused the administration of tying Iraq to 9/11, which was something the administration never did.

What Bush and Cheney actually asserted was that there were contacts between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda brokered by Sudanese Islamist leaders, which was also reported by the 9/11 Commission (See page 61 of the paperback version which outlines the non-aggression pact brokered between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda by Turabi. Upon release of the report, the New York Times incorrectly reported on the front page that the 9/11 Commission found no tie between the two.)

Although there were conflicting reports that Iraqi intelligence had suspected involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (bomb-maker Abdul Rahman Yasin fled to Iraq after the 1993 WTC bombing and was essentially given asylum) the FBI did conclude that Iraqi intelligence was behind attempted assassination of President Bush 41 during his 1993 post-presidential visit to Kuwait (see “U.S. Strikes Iraq for Plot to Kill Bush, The Washington Post, June 27, 1993 which outlines how President Clinton fired 23 tomahawk cruise missiles into Iraq’s intelligence headquarters in retaliation).

All of these issues probably created additional concerns about Saddam Hussein’s determination to harm U.S. interests, but Bush’s actual justification for using military force against Saddam Hussein was simple; 9/11 was a wake up call that made government officials realize how vulnerable our nation was, and our national security strategy had to become more pro-active to prevent any other future possible attacks.

Since Iraq was still refusing to give U.N. weapons inspectors unfettered access to search for weapons of mass destruction as required by U.N. Resolution 687, both Congress and the White House decided we needed to finally enforce those resolutions, which is what the international legislation actually mandated.

Using the same intelligence as the White House, the House of Representatives voted 296-133 and the Senate voted 77-23 in support of the 2002 resolution that authorized President Bush to use all necessary force to enforce any U.N. resolutions pertaining to Iraq. Rove also points out that despite the myth that the White House misled Congress about Iraq harboring weapons of mass destruction, Congress had access to the same intelligence reports the White House did.

Perhaps the most valuable mention in Rove’s book is his historical review of American foreign policy. Rove points out that the removal of Saddam Hussein did not start out as a policy under George W. Bush, but was actually an extension of President Clinton’s.

In 1998, President Clinton enacted the “Iraq Liberation Act,” (ILA) which made it official American foreign policy to support the removal of Saddam Hussein. Shortly after passing the Iraq Liberation Act, Clinton launched Operation Desert Fox, a massive bombing campaign designed to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.

The liberation of Iraq was not a Republican or neo-conservative policy decision. It was an extension of the policy created by President Clinton who also had the insight to see the danger that Saddam Hussein presented to his own people and nations abroad.

Rove does not disappoint his readers. He takes personal responsibility for the Bush administration’s failure to respond to the Far Left attacks on the president.

“So who was responsible for the failure to respond? I was. I should have stepped forward, rung the warning bell, and pressed for full-scale response. I didn’t . . . the hope was that the charges would evaporate. The opposite happened. Our critics pounded us relentlessly. And the public saw our silence as a plea of nolo contendere . . . (but) the charge that Bush lied was itself a lie.”

Rove’s book is hopefully only the first account of many that will set the record straight about President Bush and the liberation of Iraq. Irrespective of one’s partisan loyalty, “Courage and Consequences” is an important historical perspective that should be read for consideration.

Jeffrey Scott Shapiro is the National Organizer of HONOR FREEDOM (www.honorfreedom.com) an organization dedicated correcting historical record President Bush and the war in Iraq. He previously interned for President Clinton in the White House and served on U.S. Senator John Kerry’s 2004 presidential election legal team.