Adrienne Kinne, Blue Falcon
Time reports that Spain’s National Court has decided to re-indict three American soldiers for killing a Spanish journalist in Baghdad’s Hotel Palestine during the last hours of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
On April 8, 2003, one day before U.S. troops officially captured Baghdad, a U.S. tank fired a single incendiary shell on the hotel, killing Couso, a cameraman for Spain’s Telecinco television station, and Reuters journalist Taras Protsyuk. Since then, Couso’s colleagues and family have pursued a criminal investigation against the U.S. military. Their initial case, filed in May 2003, was eventually dismissed by Spain’s National Court, which cited a lack of jurisdiction. But when the higher Supreme Court reviewed the case in December 2006, it disagreed. The case was returned to the National Court, which in 2007 issued arrest warrants against Sgt. Thomas Gibson, the tank sergeant who fired the shell, Captain Philip Wolford, who ordered the attack, and commanding officer Colonel Philip deCamp.
But on July 26, Spain’s Supreme Court again ruled that the case should continue. On Thursday morning, the National Court took up the investigation for the third time, again ordering the three men to appear in its courtroom or face extradition.
One of the main witnesses against the three Americans is Adrienne Kinne, co-chair of the IVAW board and hardcore member of the International Socialist Organization. Here’s her profile which I snapped several months ago before she removed it;
Yep, she’s another of those Iraq veterans who never left the US. But somehow shr thinks her testimony about events halfway around the world is relevent in relation to the Palestine Hotel incident. Like Kinne told aging hippie, Amy Goodman at Democracy Now!;
…there were journalists staying at the Palestine Hotel and this hotel was listed as a potential target, I went to my officer in charge, and I told him that there are journalists staying at this hotel who think they’re safe, and yet we have this hotel listed as a potential target, and somehow the dots are not being connected here, and shouldn’t we make an effort to make sure that the right people know the situation?
And unfortunately, my officer in charge, similarly to any time I raised concerns about things that we were collecting or intelligence that we were reporting, basically told me that it was not my job to analyze. It was my job to collect and pass on information and that someone somewhere higher up the chain knew what they were doing.
Kinne claims that if her supervisor had listened to her, those Spanish journalists would have been saved. But, while everyone on Amy Goodman’s side of the discussion applauds Kinne for being a “whistleblower”, I think she’s a Blue Falcon because the Spanish National Court is ready to try three Americans for the death of two journalists in downtown Baghdad and she sides with the Spanish courts.
SSG Shawn Gibson, the tanker who fired the shot into the hotel says he was receiving indirect fire at the same time he saw someone on the roof of the hotel with binoculars and he spent ten minutes getting permission to fire. Maybe if Adrienne Kinne had spent some time in Iraq, she’d understand why Gibson fired – but it’s much easier to be a Blue Falcon.
Category: Antiwar crowd, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military issues, Usual Suspects
A hotel will almost always be considered an off-limits target UNLESS it is being used to house the enemy or if the enemy is using it as a base of hostilities. The reason her supervisor likely blew her off is because she was stating the obvious. She would get destroyed in cross examination… What is wrong with these people who think they know it all. If she actually read the LOW she would realize her “testimony” is completely misleading and contrary to real life.
We have a Naval Station and Naval Air Station at Rota, Spain (where I spent quite some time) as well as an Air Force base at Torrejon (sp?).
I think that the Government of Spain ought to understand that unless they quash these indictments, that those bases and the thousands of civilian jobs they create, could vanish.
I seldom say something like this about a female but as a proud native of the formerly great state of Vermont I just want to punch that bitch in the head.
I wish the gov’t still had the balls to follow thru on your suggestion AW1Tim
@ AW1Tim, Rota is too crucial for supply ventures and such for ships entering the Med. There is no way that the Navy would allow such a thing to happen regardless of how we feel.
I can’t comprehend how someone that was stateside could even be a witness to such a thing. As I see it, it seems all like hearsay testimony to me, but I’m not a lawyer….
Is she the same person that wanted to hand out IVAW fliers to Behavioral health patients that were going to the VA clinic?
Cunt
If the Obama administration rolls over for this and attempts to turn three of our brothers over to a foreign government, do you think we’d accept it?
Thor,
Oh, I know. However we did cave into them once before. The Spanish socialists got all their goons together and forced the US Navy to remove all their nuclear submarines which used to stage out of Rota. Within a month, the Spaniards were rioting because they had lost their jobs when the subs pulled out.
There wasn’t much call for downsizing Rota’s American presence after THAT affair. That’s sort of what triggered my responce.
Spain’s economy is teetering on the way towards Greece’s disaster, and the threatened loss of so many jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars might have a wonderful effect upon the Spanish Judge’s attitudes regarding these indictments. 🙂
Paychecks and stuff like that do have a way of expanding one’s views…
Wasn’t Jules Crittenden on the location with the Army for that? I remember reading on his site and in Thunder Run about that.
I also remember reading that they stopped receiving indirect after they put a round into the hotel. I also know that I trust journalists about as far as I can throw a Nimitz class carrier.
Attention all journalists: If you insist on loitering in a war zone, you must be willing to accept that you may get dead.
Attention Spain: Being as the last time you won a war was something like 500 years ago, allow us to teach you a thing or to about modern warfare and journalists: If they insist on loitering in a war zone, they must be willing to accept that they may get dead.
Now, who’s going to hold trials for all the journalists whose presence prevented or delayed the return of fire and resulted in greater numbers military casualties?
If our “Gubbment” attempts to force these three into extradition to stand trial overseas in a Spanish kangaroo court, we need to start an Underground Railroad to put them into hiding around the country.
it’s nice to see some people can put actual words together to support their distaste of this story, unlike jonp’s daydreams of violence and Sean’s eloquence.
kinne’s testimony might help these guys if they didn’t have the information she was trying to convey or if it points to their beliefs regarding where the fire was coming from.
@jonp – I’m a current Army officer and also from VT. I like being from there but some of the progressive socialist assholes from there piss me off.
“Is she the same person that wanted to hand out IVAW fliers to Behavioral health patients that were going to the VA clinic?”
No, that was Crystal Davis:
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=19732&cpage=1#comment-199940
The judgement that gets passed on this website is just so bewildering to me. So much judgement, but so little understanding. CPT Me said, “What is wrong with these people who think they know it all.” Do you not think all the people who comment on here regularly act like they know it all?
I can’t speak for others, but yes, I absolutely and unquestionably know it all.
I hope this clears up your bewilderment.
Yeah, just as I expected.
Lighten up, anon. Learn to recognize sarcasm. The commenters on this board are not an autonomous unit and we don’t all see things exactly the same way. Jonn has a knack for spotting bullshitters, particularly in the anti-war crowd, that I find amusing and that keeps me coming back. I don’t consider my combat experience sufficient to make me a voice of authority on foreign policy, but I do know a bit about military life and the way it has been grossly misrepresented and misunderstood by the general public, and so I am quick to contradict those that perpetuate such myths. Few are as guilty of this as the anti-war movement.
Perpetuate such myths? What myths do you speak of? Please enlighten me 🙂
You can start here:
http://matthisresists.us/
Pure, unadulterated bullshit.
Or how about this:
“My son served 3 combat tours as a US Marine. My family suffered tremendous strain and stress with each re-deployment, and we were lucky to see him come home alive, but broken in a way that no one understands…”
-Elaine Brower
“The point is there is nothing wrong with my son…He didn’t tell his Sgt. he had “flashbacks” it was assumed he did! He never said that to anyone, and never experienced them.”
-Elaine Brower
“Baby Killers!”
-Elaine Brower to U.S. Marines at Coney Island
‘Elaine Brower of Staten Island said her son’s experience fighting terrorists should be considered an asset to the city. “We know that he has counter-terrorism expertise and that’s what this city is currently looking for,” she said. “This is unacceptable.”‘
-NY Daily News
Hypocrisy, thy name is Elaine.
Okay I can give you credit on that….but you said the anti-war movement was guilty of perpetuating myths. That may be a bit of a generalization, don’t ya think?
Hey Slick, how about “baby killers”? Isn’t that a “bit of a generalization”? Maybe just some good old unwashed hippies perpetuation myths?
Agh,,,, Perpetuating, not perpetuation, in #25.
UpNorth- Yes I agree that Elaine calling troops “baby killers” is definitely a generalization, which is why I told Scott I would give him credit for that. But I am still not convinced that all those in the anti-war movement are “good old unwashed hippies” or that they are all guilty of perpetuating myths. Hasty generalizations = logical fallacy
No, I don’t. It would be a generalization if I said “Everyone in the anti-war movement is guilty of perpetuating myths.” Many of the people who are at the forefront of the movement routinely portray those who enlist in the military as poor chumps without any better options, those in the military as pawns of an imperialistic scheme who are too dumb to do anything but follow orders, and those who get out of the military as guaranteed to be permanently damaged, prone to homelessness, addiction, violence and underachievement after being chewed up and shat out by the evil machine. One need not dig deep at all to find a host of posers, IVAW being the most prominent example, attempting to both inflate the nature of their experiences (e.g. Berggren claiming PTSD from non-deployment) to fit the anti-war narrative of what veterans are like, or pretending that individual negative experiences are illustrative of the whole (see e.g. Matthis’ repeated attempts to paint everyone in the army as a rapist, since he was one). This shit perpetuates myths about veterans being disproportionately damaged goods, and detracts from efforts to get those who TRULY need treatment to seek it; why would any honorable veteran want to acknowledge having anything in common with a whiner like Berggren or a fucking liar like Matthis?
I know many vets diagnosed with PTSD, some who were part of some genuinely horrific events, things that Matthis and Berggren’s military experience only allows them to write philosophical fiction on. Many of these vets, if not most, dealt with their trauma while at the same time pursuing undergraduate or advanced degrees, holding full time jobs, raising families and just generally trying to put the past behind them. They don’t make for interesting news, they don’t sit on street corners with signs, and they don’t fit preconceived notions of what PTSD looks like, but they are dealing with it all the same.
Hey J, unlike Kinne I actually have seen Iraqis in the wild. 2004-2005, came back with a CIB and Schrapnel, TBI, and a Permanent loss of movement range in my right shoulder.
This Bitch is getting 3 men who actually fought for this country into a Murder beef because she sat on her Fat Socialist ass in some CONUS base listening to telephone conversations and figures every Snuffy in 3ID had to know these guys were Journalists.
Elaine Brower? another Cunt who calls all Troops Baby Killers except her darling son who served 3 tours, but got fired from NYPD.
Mattis? another ManCunt, a druggie and rapist who’s sum total combat zone time is about a week sucking down BK and Cinnabon at Kabul.
The fact that Kinne is a Truther might serve to undermine whatever testimony she plans to offer. Here she is on IVAW’s Wikipedia page, in a photo holding a sign that says, “9-11 Was an Inside Job.”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ivaw.jpg
As for Rota, Gibraltar is not far from there and I bet we could convince the Brits to work with us in supporting the MARG’s that go into the Med.
The government needs to tell the Spani’s to go fuck off.
For the record, there is a difference between Internet commenters and a person who seems to radiate the know-it all vibe while publicly holding herself out as a witness and/or subject matter expert in a traditional LOW case involving real people and real consequences. But fir her it’s about the cause and nor reality or decorum. CPT Ls comment adds proof that she would be a lousy witness.
#30
CPT L, while I support yours and others ultimate portrayal of Kinne’s character, in the interest of accuracy I feel I need to point out that it is not in fact Kinne holding the sign, but some one 1 or two rows behind her. Careful examination of the picture shows she’s raising her hand to adjust her hair, while the post for the sign disappears behind her head.
Do you have any other data showing Kinne is a truther?
Ah, you’re right. I always thought she was holding the sign. Looked again and saw what you saw.
The Truthers do like her, though.
New Nsa Whistleblower Speaks
Inside Account of U.S. Eavesdropping on Americans
U.S. Illegally Spied on NGO’s, Targeted Reporters
Marching with more than one Truther still clouds her integrity on this particular matter in terms of being a reliable and unbiased, non conspiracy theory prone witness. If you look, some dude behind her is wearing a truther shirt, which appears different from whoever is holding the sign.