Beer in the Headlights

Matthis Chiroux is the kind of young American US military recruiters love.

"I was from a poor, white family from the south, and I did badly in school," the now 24-year-old told AFP.

"I was 'filet mignon' for recruiters. They started phoning me when I was in 10th grade," or around 16 years old, he added.

Chiroux joined the US army straight out of high school nearly six years ago, and worked his way up from private to sergeant.

He served in Afghanistan, Germany, Japan, and the Philippines and was due to be deployed next month in Iraq.

On Thursday, he refused to go, saying he considers Iraq an illegal war.

"I stand before you today with the strength and clarity and resolve to declare to the military, my government and the world that this soldier will not be deploying to Iraq," Chiroux said in the sun-filled rotunda of a congressional building in Washington.

"My decision is based on my desire to no longer continue violating my core values to support an illegal and unconstitutional occupation... I refuse to participate in the Iraq occupation," he said, as a dozen veterans of the five-year-old Iraq war looked on.

Minutes earlier, Chiroux had cried openly as he listened to former comrades-in-arms testify before members of Congress about the failings of the Iraq war.

The testimonies were the first before Congress by Iraq veterans who have turned against the five-year-old war.

A group of veterans sitting in the hearing room gazed blankly as their comrades' testimonies shattered the official version that the US effort in Iraq is succeeding.

Almost to a man, the soldiers who testified denounced serious flaws in the chain of command in Iraq.

So these veterans represent a fair cross section of those who have served in OIF, right?

Nope.

What the AFP reporter who penned the story neglects to mention is that SGT Chiroux is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. Odd, isn't it?

Right there on the front page of the IVAW page is a photo of SGT Chiroux. The page even mentions that the soldiers testifying are all members of IVAW:

Sgt. Chiroux made made his announcement in the Cannon House Office Building Rotunda after members of Iraq Veterans Against the War testified before the Congressional Progressive Caucus during Winter Soldier on the Hill.

Congressional Progressive Caucus? You mean the group chaired by Rep. Barbara Lee of Berkeley, CA? Yep, Berkeley. Ground zero for militant moonbattery.

Rep. Lee and her far-left associates don't have any form agenda when they bring in a bunch of lying cowards to perjure themselves in front of their committee, do they?

Why not subpoena Jesse Macbeth? He can tell them all about the war crimes he was directed to commit while serving in Iraq.

All of this is so familiar...

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan.