Sunday, March 23, 2008

More IVAW Cover Up and Clean Up

Members of the IVAW seem to be on a cover-up/clean-up tear. Earlier this month they very belatedly doctored their founder's page when the question of Jimmy Massey, IVAW co-founder and established fraud came up.

I have been working on a page (Missing Testifiers and Testimonies) with copious links detailing earlier statements by IVAW members for which the claimants or the claims went MIA at Winter Soldier. I was going to add a link to a post about a statement by IVAW's Jen Hogg, even though that would be a bit out of the normal. Sgt. Hogg was not an OEF or OIF veteran, and as such would not have been likely to testify at WSI, and most especially not at those panels that touched on such as war crimes and atrocities.

However, last January Stan Goff posted an article at The Huffington Post entitled Winter Soldier. In the comments to that, a person signed as jrockbg claimed to have been a Marine who served in Ramadi, and he took exception to the widespread atrocity claim, saying "I never once saw an 'atrocity' or criminal act of any kind".

The IVAW's Jen Hogg replied to him, with among other things this:
When my unit came home (I was not sent with them because mechanics were deployed as infantry, and as a female I was barred) one of the older guys told me a story. He said they would arrest Iraqi's in night raids and turn them in only to be later asked to go get them again after they were released, as they were now wanted. He told me (E-6, in his 40's, pro-war) that they would just shoot the guys when that happened. He said this as if it were normal and ok.
I addressed that in the post Enough Already With "I Was Told...", "I Didn't Actually See..."!

That led to another post Discussion With Jen Hogg, IVAW, involving Jen Hogg and containing a reply I had received via e-mail from the PAO (Public Affairs Officer) of the 42nd ID, LTC. Goldenberg.

I was going to add that to the list of MIA material for the simple reason that Jen Hogg's allusion to the execution of detainees as a "normal" practice and reaction to a kind of "catch and release" frustration was not supported by any of the actual WSI testifiers!

As I started to do so, I went back to the Huffington Post page, and found that Jen Hogg's comments were now gone! The page actually shows that there were five replies in comments, but only two are available any longer. Jen Hogg's "as if were normal and ok" comment is gone, as is a rely to that from jrockbg and one from a condescending and faux morally superior something called timm0 who presents a reasonable argument for abolishing police departments or something.

However, the Google Cache is on the job, and had all the comments, and is now screen capped and archived.

So back to the Missing Testifiers and Testimonies page, and now you'll know why Jen Hogg was added. I think it is important to remember that Sgt. Hogg posted that comment as a reply to a person claiming to be a Marine veteran of Iraq who was saying he had not seen any war crimes or atrocities, and Sgt. Hogg apparently believed hers was a proper reply to that.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Huffpo missed this one...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/users/profile/SGTHogg

Anonymous said...

I didn't remove them and I still stand by my comment as something I was told, and using it to question if just because we didn't see something doesn't mean it didn't happened, as the Marine was implying. But Dennis and I have been over this.

It was never something I intended for Winter Soldier and was not spoken of there.

Its a bit disingenuous to say IVAW covered it up, when it's not our website.

I do appreciate this community keeping IVAW on its toes about keeping the integrity of our statements clean, but at the same time I don't see much movement towards encouraging service members to come forward if they are seeing things that go against policy or morality.

If the things IVAW members claim aren't really happening then it would do no harm to making whistleblowing easier to do for military members.

Just a thought...

Anonymous said...

He said...She said arguments don't count for much of anything in a court of law Jen....without conclusive proof...IE forensic's (Oh LT Caroline Mendelson, LA County Coroners Office?) Where is the CSI setup up just for the IVAW?.....all IVAW wannabes report immediately to 4th & Main, downtown Los Angeles... code three. KMA-3030.....2000 hrs.

Anonymous said...

I'm glad to see Jen wouldn't touch the sign up screen....'Mere Jen....My oh my! What a cutie....Is yo momma married? How about you?

*tacky* I know...*blat*

Denis Keohane said...

"...but at the same time I don't see much movement towards encouraging service members to come forward if they are seeing things that go against policy or morality."

Jen,

That can only mean you haven't read much of this blog! For months it has stressed the point that anyone participating or witnessing crimes is morally and legally obliged to do just that, come forward, on the record! The legal record, not leftist theatre, which is all that WSI was and was intended to be!

Last January I wrote this here to Army Sergeant:

"You are not a lawyer but you are an NCO. You, like me, know that when a person comes into possession of any information or material that can be critical to the investigation of a serious crime they are legally and morally obligated to reveal that information to the legal authorities."

The point that I and many others have been making ever since IVAW first announced its planned WSI was exactly that: the moral and legal obligation to come forward in the proper manner - one that allows for full investigation, for a dual reason: that the guilty are found to be so and that the innocent are not unfairly smeared by innuendo, insinuation or association, which is the only thing that the first WSI accomplished - a smear of millions who had not done as the VVAW led much of the country to believe they had done! When you made that reply to the poster at HuffPo you wrote of a soldier who told you that he and others executed detainees, and you wrote that in your opinion he said it as though it was "normal". You chose to say that in that way, Jen!

People reading that could well come away from your words thinking that our soldiers "normally" executed people! That was, by the way, your intent! You were, after all, seeking to counter someone claiming to have been a Marine in Iraq who said that he had seen no such crimes but that if he had he and the members of his unit would have reported it and it would have been taken very seriously!

IVAW has called the theatre they produced an investigation. It was nothing of the sort. As even left leaning feminists wrote:

"Saturday's hearings opened with the Divide To Conquer: Gender and Sexuality in the Military. From the title of the panel, we were looking forward to this panel….

The panel was an embarrassment….

A panel at Winter Soldiers promises testimony. Testimony is based on what you saw. A witness in a court of a law attempting to 'testify' to what they themselves didn't witness would be reduced to rubble under cross examination. For this panel, such requirements were largely tossed out…."

http://www.democracy-project.com/archives/003701.html

Anonymous said...

I am jrockbg. To clarify, I am a US Army soldier. I was with an Army unit stationed in Ramadi. All coalition forces in the Anbar province were under the 2nd Mar Div commanded by Maj. Gen. Huck when I was there.

timm0 said...

"condescending and faux morally superior something called timm0"

You know, if I weren't also intellectually superior, I'd be insulted by that comment.

I vaguely recall the post in question, though I can't find the original comment. My recollection of the point I intended to make back then is that there would always be opportunity for people to do the wrong thing - especially in a place like a war/occupation zone. I'd be surprised if there weren't unconscionable acts committed in Iraq by US forces. I took no sides, jumped neither on nor off any bandwagon, and have nothing that proves nor disproves anyone's accusations and defense (at least I never intended to).

So what was your issue?

Anonymous said...

It is very interesting for me to read this blog. Thanx for it. I like such topics and anything connected to this matter. I would like to read a bit more on that blog soon.

Anonymous said...

I searched for the left leaning feminist comments, they were from a group of bloggers, the third estate, who said racist things and seemed to diss the panel not because of what was said but because one panelist (who the racism was directed towards) dared question whether having a female president/commander in chief would make everything better for women. If you look at the other posts on that site they are very pro-hillary. So it isn't exactly right to say "left" leaning feminists. Those were pro-hillary racists. I would bet large sums of money that if someone had praised Hillary that same blog would have would have been fallin over itself to sing praises. The same blog you quote didn't even understand what the whole panel was about- it claimed it was about sexual assault when that wasn't even in the title.

You also seem to have tried to turn what Jen said into something more. She just said some soldier made a comment like it was normal. She didn't claim what he said was a normal occurence. Just sayin.