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Confederate

February 09, 2007

A Gathering of Eagles

Via Bill Faith of Small Town Veteran, A Veterans group calling themselves "A Gathering of Eagles" will be on hand to protect the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial in Washington, D.C. on March 17, against anti-war protesters they feel might intend to deface the monument dedicated to the more than 58,000 Americans who lost their lives fighting the Vietnam War. Anti-war protestors recently defaced the steps of the U.S Capitol with anti-war slogans.

From the "Gathering of Eagles" Web page:

"We'll be there to act as a countervailing force against the Cindy Sheehan-Jane Fonda march from the Vietnam Memorial to the Pentagon," retired Navy Capt. Larry Bailey said. "We will protect the Vietnam Memorial. If they try to deface it, there will be some violence, I guarantee you."

Bailey and thousands of his fellow Vietnam vets are worried that the anti-war protesters will damage the wall, just as they spray-painted the steps of the Capitol at their last march.

The wall is sacred to the men and women who fought in that war.

"It is our contact with our dead brothers -- those who lost their lives in the cause of their country," Bailey said.

And so it is that Washington will see a Gathering of Eagles - Americans determined to stand up against leftist propagandists who denigrate U.S. troops and the mission for which they sometimes sacrifice their lives.

Retired Col. Harry Riley organized the Gathering of Eagles. Organizers hope thousands will show up in Washington from as far away as Hawaii, and they won't only be Vietnam veterans. Families, friends and veterans of other wars, including Iraq, and soldiers still on active duty, will be there to defend the Wall.

It is shameful that this overwatch even needs to occur, but as the recent incident at the Capitol indicates, some anti-war protesters—and please note that we're only talking about a small minority of those protestors, I hope—feel there is something to gain by such seething displays of unbridled contempt for this country.

That said, looking at the participants in this march, I think that the "Gathering of Eagles" has every reason to feel concerned.

The leftist Web site MarchonPentagon.org describes the anti-war demonstrators this way: "The March on the Pentagon has already attracted more than 1,500 endorsers, including prominent individuals and national and grassroots organizations. Students on college campuses and in high schools will be attending in large numbers. There will be a large turnout from the Muslim and Arab American community, which is organizing throughout the country."

The movement is well-financed. Its sponsor list is lengthy and contains highly recognizable names, as well as those of Fonda and Sheehan:

  • Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark (who offered his services to defend Saddam Hussein)
  • Ultra-liberal Congresswoman Maxine Waters
  • Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney
  • Ron Kovic, Vietnam veteran and author of "Born on the 4th of July"
  • Mahdi Bray, executive director, Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation
  • Waleed Bader, vice chair of the National Council of Arab Americans and former president of Arab Muslim American Federation
  • Medea Benjamin, co-founder, CODEPINK and Global Exchange
  • Free Palestine Alliance
  • Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation
  • Islamic Political Party of America
  • FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front)
  • Islamic-National Congress
  • Gay Liberation Network
  • Muslim Student Association
  • Jibril Hough, chairman, Islamic Political Party of America

It may be worth noting that for a march apparently organized by leftists, the overwhelming majority of sponsoring groups have a radical Islamic focus.

The Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation is one of the groups that threatened a "Sheikdown" of U.S Airways after the removal of six imams from a Minneapolis- to-Phoenix flight in which the imams performed what one airline pilot stated was "a terrorist probe in the airline industry."

A 2004 Chicago Tribune article states that the MSA is the American face of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that seeks to impose radical Islamist sharia law as the government of the United States. The terrorist group Hamas is also a wing of the Brotherhood, and the Brotherhood was financially supported by none other than Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomeini's movement is also responsible for kidnapping American embassy personnel for 444 days from 1979-81.

Osama Bin Laden was influence by professors closely alligned with the Brotherhood, and his current cavemate, Ayman al-Zawahiri joined the group at age 14 before "graduating" to found al Qaeda with bin Laden.

Mahdi Bray, current leader of that group and a supporter of the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups according to JihadWatch, protested on behalf of both Ahmad Abu-Ali (charged with plotting to kill President Bush), and Abdurrahman Alamoudi, a man convicted in a plot to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

Waleed Bader, vice chair of the National Council of Arab Americans and former president of Arab Muslim American Federation, previous protested against the "occupation of Iraq and Palestine." The National Council of Arab Americans called the creation of the state of Israel as the "Palestinian Catastrophe (Nakba) of 1948" just this past July.

The Free Palestine Alliance has attempted to stifle the business of Caterpillar Corporation (the bulldozer folks), saying that they want "to expose Caterpillar’s complicity in Israel’s war crimes." This "complicity" is apparently the IDF practice of using Caterpillar bulldozers to destroy tunnels used to smuggle firearms and explosives to terrorist groups in Gaza, which are then used to target Israeli civilians.

The Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, better known as FMLN, is a communist organization from El Salvador formed in 1970 which fought a civil war against that country's government in the 1980s, and was once identified as a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organization before putting down their arms to become a purely political party.

The Muslim Student Association, with multiple chapters at universities around the country, has been investigated for funding terrorism multiple times. A Speaker from the group was once quoted by Robert Spenser as saying, "The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it." The MSA has invited neo-Nazis to speak at forums sponsored by the group.

These primarily Islamist groups are among the vanguard of those sponsoring the anti-war march scheduled in the nation's capitol for March 17. Based upon this roll call of Islamists, terror supporters, and neo-Nazi admirers playing a leading roll in the anti-war march, I'd say that the Gathering of Eagles has every reason to be concerned for the sanctity of the powerful monument known simply as The Wall.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at February 9, 2007 10:20 AM
Comments

I just put a reminder up in my calender I will be there with my 18 year old just as we were there to counter-protest the anti-war idiots. I look forward to standing with true hero's and against Islamic cowards.

Posted by: Rightmom at February 9, 2007 10:28 AM

What "Caterpillar’s complicity in Israel’s war crimes" refers to is the practice of the IDF of using armored Cat bulldozers to destroy the houses of the families of suicide bombers. Since large extended families are the norm in Palestine, this form of collective punishment generally results in dozens being made homeless in revenge for the actions of one person. It's also illegal under international law and the Geneva Convention (not that that's ever bothered the IDF anyway). It also results in deaths, as when American activist Rachel Corrie was killed by one such vehicle trying to defend a Palestinian family. PS The charming folk at Little Green Footballs jokingly refer to this brave American as Saint Pancake.

Posted by: Mack at February 9, 2007 11:15 AM

You post is somewhat correct. You just need to cross out "a Palestinian family" and replace with "weapons smuggling tunnels."

Posted by: BohicaTwentyTwo at February 9, 2007 11:28 AM

So you think Rachel Corrie died defending a "weapons smuggling tunnel"? I suppose you believe in the mythical Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction" as well? Dream on.

Posted by: Mack at February 9, 2007 11:36 AM

Corrie was trying to defend a Palestinian family? They must have been very slow. As bulldozers typicall move slower than a old guy in a walker, pardon me if I don't buy your explanation.

The way I hear it, the IDF was destorying a weapons smuggling tunnel, and if my memory serves me correctly, that particular tunnel terminated in a Palestinian home.

As for the group Corrie was a part of, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), they have some rather interesting views.

Here's a telling picture of Corrie's fellow "peace activists" in the ISM holding AK-47s and posing with terrorists from the al Aksa Martyrs Brigades.

Nice friends you've got there, Mack.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at February 9, 2007 11:37 AM

Readers can (try to) make up their own minds on the circumstances of Rachel Corrie's death by looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Corrie. My point remains that using bulldozers to destroy the homes of Palestinian families, often making several generations of a family homeless, (and this practice is well documented) is a sure way to create new terrorists. As that great military genius Donald Rumsfeld once mused, "Are we killing terrorists faster than we're creating them?" (or something along those lines). At the rate the Israelis are going, they'll have to kill ALL the Palestinian people to arrive at a final solution.

Posted by: Mack at February 9, 2007 12:14 PM

you think Rachel Corrie died defending a "weapons smuggling tunnel"?

She died cuz she was a retard who had no understanding of the basic physics of F=MA

Posted by: Purple Avenger at February 9, 2007 01:41 PM

CY - no peace protester will deface the Vietnam Vet memorial. It would be terrible publicity. And most of them think of it as a symbol of the waste and loss of Vietnam; they think it's an anti-war monument.

You may get a few of the extreme-extreme-right trying that as provocation and to blame the protesters, but even that I can't imagine.

It's just not realistic to think that the memorial is in any danger.

Posted by: Jake Ketcher at February 9, 2007 02:39 PM

CY - no peace protester will deface the Vietnam Vet memorial. It would be terrible publicity.

You presume rational thought. This is not necessarily the case.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at February 9, 2007 02:43 PM

It would be terrible publicity? You mean like spitting on Iraq veterans? That type of bad publicity. You underestimate their hatred. Read through CY's post again. Look at some of the groups there and think again.

Posted by: BohicaTwentyTwo at February 9, 2007 03:03 PM

Purple - agreed, it would take a criminal lunatic.

But I think, and most would agree, that realistic threat assessment is of primary importance to security planning. And it's just not realistic to think peace marchers pose a threat of defacement the Vietnam Vet memorial.

Peace marchers are predisposed to pacifism - and that's the whole problem that many conservatives have with them.

Posted by: Jake Ketcher at February 9, 2007 04:48 PM

Peace marchers are predisposed to pacifism

Not really. Had they not been throwing rocks and crap (a very pacifist thing I'll admit) at the guardsmen at Kent State, some of them would never have been laying on the ground dead.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at February 9, 2007 06:24 PM

Peace marchers are predisposed to pacifism - and that's the whole problem that many conservatives have with them.

Wonder why the Park Service is putting up a snow fence to keep the protesters away from the memorial and staffing up...?? Maybe they know something you don't know? ANSWER is not a "Peace" Organization...Peace is merely a bludgeon they use to attack our government.

Rachel Corrie was a terrorist that got exactly what was coming to her.

Posted by: Pierre at February 10, 2007 11:15 AM

Years ago I went to a "pro gun" rally at the state house in Tallahassee. No fences were needed.

I planned to stick around to help with the "cleanup"...but the funny thing was, no cleanup was needed. There was no trash on the ground and not even the flower beds around the state house lawn had been trampled. One of the state police who was there said to me it was the most courteous and well behaved crowd he'd ever seen demonstrate there. The property was left exactly as we'd found it.

Ever since that day, I figure you can tell a lot about a group of people by how they respect (or disrespect as the case may be) the common public property.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at February 10, 2007 02:26 PM

Peace marchers are predisposed to pacifism - and that's the whole problem that many conservatives have with them.

Not that I've seen. They tend to be rude, crude, threatening and unable to explain why they believe what they do.
There are some that do not agree with the war who are not the above, however, in several years, I have *yet* to meet a polite, well-mannered peace marcher who will even try to use logic or reason.

Posted by: Foxfier at February 11, 2007 02:02 AM