Aaron Hughes to toss his medal at NATO in Chicago
We talked about Aaron Hughes the other day. He was a truck driver stationed in Kuwait and drove supplies into Iraq in the early months of the war and now he’s the head spokesperson for IVAW in Chicago based on his unique view of the war in Afghanistan.
Tom sends us this video from Democracy Now! in which Aaron is interviewed by Amy Goodman and Nermeen Shaikh because he’s threatening to throw his GWOT Medal and his Army Commendation Medal at NATO this weekend in Chicago. If you’re having trouble sleeping tonight, this is the video you need. It’ll put you right out.
He starts out spewing out the little speech with all of the same talking points of his previous video and he doesn’t stray from those talking points through the whole interview. When ever the interviewers ask him to stray from his points, he says he doesn’t know.
He complains that as a truck driver he was only trained to kill, not to build democracies;
There’s a real moral disconnect between the idea that our military can build a democracy and the idea that our military is trained and designed to control, dominate and kill people. … Occupations don’t build democracies, don’t extend individuals’ freedoms.
Yeah, Aaron, I know you weren’t in Afghanistan, so you wouldn’t be able to ask those Afghan school girls if the Americans haven’t helped them any, what with girls just recently being allowed to go to school, in the school houses that we built. But I’m sure if look far and wide through the ranks of IVAW, you might find someone who has been there and can explain it to you.
Aaron also explains that the only people who are qualified to bring democracy to Afghanistan have studied the problem for years. Yet here is Aaron, with his degree in Art Theory telling us how to run our foreign and defense policies. I guess in Art Theory they don’t teach the word “irony” to their students.
PS: Aaron loves birds!
Category: Iraq Veterans Against the War, Shitbags
woh woh woh…”medals of honor”??? F–k these morons 38:06
What happened with Germany, Japan, and South Korea’s occupation? Oh, they were successful.
So, this truck driver (I grant that he was subject to many IED’s) comes home, discovers that he’s really an wuss/asshole, so decides that he will drink the kool-aid, read from a script and proclaim US military doctrine to some half-assed news outlet.
How did we come to this?
Where did our ROE go wrong. We should kill and annihilate anything that gets in our way. Hadji only understands power, strength and courage. Asshats like him depict us weak cowards..
So he’s a tosser…glad we got that straighten out.
So Aaron loves birds? Bet he’ll get a lot of ’em from this website.
I have one question for this dude: “Who gives a shit if you throw your medals?”
So? They’re his medals/awards. He can toss ’em if he wants, wherever he wants. It’s a free country (so far).
Just as it’s our right to publicly mock and verbally abuse his wussy self.
Consider yourself mocked and abused, douchebag boy.
ooooh hes teaching NATO something byt htrowing away his Arcom. Why the whole alliance is rocked by this
What’s up with the wearing of the DCU jackets? Is that the standard IVAW douche-bag attire.
The wearing of the fatigue jackets was passe when VVAW did it 30 years ago.
Insults are just another way of sticking one’s head in the ground.
I still wanna know WTF NATO had to do with his mission in Kuwait and Iraq – and why this dipstick threw his medals at NATO rather than over the fence at 1600 Penn Ave, Wash DC.
Hondo, I posted somewhere yesterday, those asshats don’t have the balls to stand on the sidewalk toss their shit over the WH Fence. I hear tell it could be that NPS Police would be all over them like flea’s on a blue tick hound.
Why is always the Combat Support guys?
@10
Yeah insulting, because wearing uniform parts and appearing as a disheveled veteran is much better to stigmatize veterans than actually giving a cognitive argument and appearing in a professional manner.
I’ve read the biographies of VVAW founders and similar organizations. Initially they protested in suits and attempted to take legitimate actions to advance their cause through the political process. Since that approach didn’t work, they went with the counter-culture approach and adopted appearances that fit in with the misconceptions of the left and media on what how a veteran should appear.
VVAW gave their playbook to IVAW, hence the continuation of the outfits, and the tossing of medals.
I insult because his behavior merits it.
Credit where credit is due, Joey. And derision where it is due as well.
Now go unplug your fucking meter already.
Steadfast&Loyal: if Hughes was a trucker, he was actually Combat Service Support (CSS). MI, CM, SC, MI, and arguably selected EN and AV units are Combat Support. Transportation and QM are Combat Service Support. Here’s my theory as to why proportionally so many anti-war types are from the CSS side of the house. Take it for what it’s worth. After Vietnam, “Big Army” decided to change the force structure in the USAR and ARNG. Prior to Vietnam the USAR and ARNG force structure had mirrored the Active Component, containing all types of units. This allowed LBJ to get the US involved in the Vietnam War by “stealth” and to in general avoid any large-scale mobilization during Vietnam. This in turn resulted in a disconnect between the military and US civilian population during Vietnam, and a popular backlash against same. The Army decided “never again”, and moved much of the Combat Service Support necessary to sustain long-term operations into the USAR. This was done to ensure that any major conflict would force a political decision to mobilize the Army’s reserve components – a decision that would only be made if the US population were supportive. (In contrast to the USAR, the ARNG retained many combat arms units, ostensibly to enable them to respond to civil disturbances and domestic crises.) As a result, CSS in-theater today has a disproportionate number of USAR and ARNG personnel and units – and many have performed multiple deployments. These persons are in many cases career “part-timers” and are understandably more likely to feel they’ve been “screwed, blued, and tattooed” than someone serving full-time by choice. This in turn IMO makes them somewhat more predisposed to turn anti-war after they return home. And, frankly, they may have a bit of a point about being “jerked around” – particularly if they’re CA, since the vast majority of CA units in the Army are USAR/ARNG. The vast majority of reservists are not adverse to service, and serve both professionally and well. But IMO, this does explain why proportionally more anti-war types seem to be from the USAR and ARNG… Read more »
“There’s a real moral disconnect between the idea that our military can build a democracy and the idea that our military is trained and designed to control, dominate and kill people. … Occupations don’t build democracies, don’t extend individuals’ freedoms.”
Pure ignorance. In 2003 3rd Brigade 101st Airborne and other units transitioned from combat to nation building extremely successfully. March through May of that year saw us conducted combat operations, initially against organized forces such as the Republican Guard. A month later we were handing out propane and restoring power to Kurds. Few military forces are capable of going from full-out combat with minimal RoE to nation building. The U.S. Army and our sister services are some of them.
Truth is that the Active Duty Army, with a few exceptions, really shit on the ARNG/USAR troops in the early part of the Iraq war.
When my MP unit was attached to the US Marines 3/7, 1st MEF, in Karbala they treated us like brothers. When we went back under 800th MP BDE(USAR) and moved up to Abu Ghraib, we noticed a stark difference in how Army Corps treated us. Everything for AD units, fuck the Guard/USAR seemed to be the functional attitude until we left.
We had to effectively steal big rigs to get our connexes back to Kuwait. Corps wouldn’t support us on our movement.
When we left, we gave our extras to a reserve Marine infantry BN that relieved us in place at Abu Ghraib. We told the Active Duty MI and LRRS units that moved into our area and Lorded it over us in to go fuck themselves, they could go get it from Corps. It got real bad for a time, with AD MI propeller beanie fucktards whining about their 8 hour 6 days a week shift while we were doing 12/12 with no days off plus extra shifts in the towers.
Art Theory? You have got to be goddamned kidding me. Lot of good that will do with nation building and spreading democracy, but degrees in the sciences and public policy require you to work to get them. I just finished freshman year as a biochemistry major, but I know I’d have a better shot now at actually contributing to nation building than he would even if had a Doctorate.
Do you think he’ll throw his diploma along with his awards since he got it via dirty government GI Bill money?