Puttin' the Hammer Down with Style

[onmyknees]

Col. Allen West doing his part to keep the House in the control of conservatives. Memo to Mr. Murphy....Might be time to start working on that concession speech. Kudos to The Tea Party Colonel. This is the way to deal with whiny libs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=R-lDL9_qDDs

[Ben]

These Lib dudes disagree --

[Jericho]

Oops!

[broncofan]

I see that about 23 minutes after Jericho's last post OMK posted another propaganda piece on another thread. I don't know about you but when you've got something hanging in the air like this you lose any credibility you may have had by not coming back and defending your original post. Will OMK respond to the revelations about the Tea Party Colonel's (or whatever this assclown's self-appointed title is) military record? Surely what we heard about the mock execution is all liberal propaganda? Surely what these men in Ben's youtube video were talking about is only true in the liberal blogosphere and on pinko sites like Huffington Post?

It would be nice if OMK would set this one straight before moving on to the next topic and if prior form is any indication he is just about to respond with a devastating rebuttal!!!

[Prospero]

Bronco - the odious one never ever responds with debate or intelligence to any challenge or refutation of his lies. He simply slithers onwards leaving a stinking trail of illusory misinformation. It's all sheer bullshit.

Odd how he is an increasingly lone voice in here. I hope that reflects a wider reality - and that the lies and the monstrous reality of that predator par excellance Romney and his lickspittle sidekick of a VO choice are becoming clearer every day to the US public.

[Prospero]

So Allen West Wants to Talk About His Military Record...
George Zornick on September 28, 2012 - 5:03 PM ET
Tea Party superstar Representative Allen West released one of the toughest attack ads of the campaign season on Friday, contrasting his military career with his Democratic opponent’s arrest as a teenager following a drunken bar night—complete with a mug shot:



Transcript:

Feb. 16, 2003, Fort Hood, Texas. Lt. Col. Allen West had just received deployment orders, and prepares his men to go to war. That night, South Beach, Miami: Patrick Murphy is thrown out of a club for fighting, covered in alcohol, and unable to stand. Murphy then confronts and verbally assaults a police officer. Patrick Murphy was arrested and taken to jail. Two men, a country in crisis—you decide.

To make the point even more bluntly, the West campaign put out a press release along with the ad saying that Murphy is a “spoiled brat who knows nothing of duty, honor or service.”

The voters of Florida’s 18th District will have to decide if they want to hold Murphy’s run-in with the law against him. But it’s odd that West trumpets “duty, honor and service” in comparison to the transgression, while touting his military career—because his record there is, by almost any measure, more ignominious than an arrest for drunk and disorderly conduct.

West resigned from the military in 2004, following an incident involving his unit’s treatment of an Iraqi man. West himself was charged with two violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including one against assault, and agreed to retire after an Article 15 hearing in order to avoid a court martial.

According to a 2004 account in The New York Times, West let the soldiers under his command beat the Iraqi man, whom West believed was involved in an attempt on his life. (No evidence was ever found implicating the man). Then, he staged a mock execution:

Soon, the soldiers began striking and shoving Mr. Hamoodi. They were not instructed to do so by Colonel West but they were not stopped, either, they said. ‘I didn’t know it was wrong to hit a detainee,” a 20-year-old soldier from Daytona Beach said at the hearing. Colonel West testified that he would have stopped the beating ”had it become too excessive.”

Eventually, the colonel and his soldiers moved Mr. Hamoodi outside, and threatened him with death. Colonel West said he fired a warning shot in the air and began counting down from five. He asked his soldiers to put Mr. Hamoodi’s head in a sand-filled barrel usually used for clearing weapons. At the end of his count, Colonel West fired a shot into the barrel, angling his gun away from the Iraqi’s head, he testified.

Far from being a scab on his political career, this episode actually helped propel West’s fortunes on the right. He initially became a minor cause célèbre among right-wing bloggers who felt West was being persecuted by those insisting on “political correctness” in a combat zone. West exploited this status as he was running for Congress, appearing on right-wing outlets to denounce the Army’s rules of engagement, which he believed were handcuffing American troops in their battle against the “Islamic enemy.”

West’s campaign was, in fact, a mini-crusade against Islam. On the trail, he declared that “Islam is a totalitarian theocratic political ideology, it is not a religion. It has not been a religion since 622 AD.” He also informed supporters at one town hall that jihad “is not a perversion” of the Koran—“they’re doing exactly what this book says.” Once he arrived in Congress, he singled out Representative Keith Ellison—one of two Muslim colleagues—as someone that “really does represent the antithesis of the principles upon which this country was established.”

But West has rarely returned to the topic of the incident in Iraq that ended his military career since being elected to office. For the same reason his campaign now believes an arrest will hurt Murphy, it’s not going to be helpful to remind voters in the general election that he was charged with assault by the US Army and nearly court-martialed.

But Friday’s ad may have opened the door to that topic. Murphy’s campaign immediately responded by pointing out the episode and that West’s military career wasn’t so “honorable” after all. That’s an attack that could get more play in the weeks ahead—but either way, there’s no doubt this is becoming one of the ugliest and most brutal congressional races in the country.

[Prospero]

Written some months ago- but revealing.


Beware the Rise of Congressman Allen West
Do you know Allen West? If not, you should. A lot of folks think he'll be president someday.

He's a 50-year-old Army vet and the congressman from Florida's 22nd District—a polyglot district stretching from the ghettos of northern Fort Lauderdale to the snootiest enclaves of Palm Beach County. West was booted from the military in 2004 after torturing an Iraqi cop whom he suspected of plotting a surprise attack on his unit.

West's subsequent reprimand and forced resignation became a minor media event and earned him plenty of fans, none of whom were too concerned that the cop was probably innocent. "If it's about the lives of my soldiers at stake," said West, "I'd go through hell with a gasoline can." That's pure catnip to a certain kind of American; the kind that pines for an old-fashioned desperado to lead us through the encircling throngs of blubbery bureaucrats who've gummed up our institutions and made us feel inferior to the commie Chinese. (With whom West thinks we should enter an arms race.) After his discharge, West received thousands of supportive letters from Americans around the country.


The erstwhile Lieutenant Colonel Allen West put in time as a high school history teacher before launching an unsuccessful campaign for the House of Representatives in 2008. He finally attained national office in 2010, on the strength of rabble-rousing videos like the one featured here.

Nowadays, he's most famous for sparring with terrified Democrats at town hall meetings, and for his relentless Muslim-baiting. Put a microphone in front of the man, and he'll recount the names and dates of every skirmish between a Western military power and an army of Mohammedans from the 7th century onwards. (Only he doesn't call them "Western military powers" and "armies of Mohammedans," but rather "us" and "the Muslims.") It's a lucrative schtick, because in the last quarter, Lt. Col. Rep. West managed to raise an unbelievable $1.5 million for his re-election campaign.

That might not sound like much, and compared to the money that gets tossed around in presidential campaigns, it isn't. But Allen West is a representative—the lowest form of congressional life. And he's a freshman. Yet he's managed to out-raise Florida's senatorial candidates. In the last quarter, George Lemieux, the super-establishment GOPer who worked as Gov. Charlie Crist's Chief of Staff, raised only $950,000 to run against entrenched Democrat Bill Nelson. No other Sunshine State candidate even came within spitting distance of West's numbers. The Democrat who intends to run for West's seat in 2012, a young man named Patrick Murphy, briefly felt like a big man for raising $400,000 last quarter. No longer.

What's it mean? Why should you care? Well, the smart money's beginning to hint that Allen West will abort his run at a second House term and head straight for the Senate. If so, he'll kick ass. As the Miami Herald pointed out, West's current district is full of liberals. If he runs for Senate, his political fate will be decided largely by north Floridians. Those are Terry Jones' people, and they like Allen West. A lot.


The goal of Allen West's political life seems to be to rebrand the United States' "War on Terror" as part of an ongoing, millenium-long struggle between the forces of Islam and the forces of Christendom. He's never explained what victory would look like, perhaps because the details would be too ghastly for even the most bloodthirsty Islamophobes to think about. The closest he's come to offering specifics is implying that Palestinians ought to be relocated to Jordan. And, maybe, this: On July 24th, West will sponsor a Capitol Hill briefing on the state of the Muslim Brotherhood's infiltration of America. The group responsible for the briefing, Citizens For National Security, will report the findings of four task forces, the job of one of which is to identify "Islamic" businesses, social and religious organizations, schools, and so on, throughout North America.

Not "terrorist" businesses, or even "Wahabbist" or "conservative Muslim" businesses. Just "Islamic" businesses.

This is apparently what wins you campaign donations in the United States of America, 2011. A quick googling reveals that the "Draft Allen West for President" movement has more devotees than that of any other representative in the country. Muslims, take note: It's West's world. You're just living in it.

[Marts]

and that the lies and the monstrous reality of that predator par excellance Romney and his lickspittle sidekick of a VO choice are become clearer every day to the US public.

And from we onlookers across the pond here in dear old Blighty.

[fred41]

Actually there's nothing for OMK to defend...It seems to me that he's merely pointing out that West's campaign is being handled well so far...and from what I'm reading...it is.

Many of the posters following the OP are trying to point out an event in West's military record is more detrimental than the arrest of his opponent...however it really isn't shocking to West's supporters, in fact it probably helped him in the "type" of campaign he's created. It's probably only an outrage,at this point,to people who weren't going to vote for West anyway.
But we'll have to wait and see.

[robertlouis]

stop feeding the fucking troll!