The Federal Discrediting Process Reserved for a Proud Few

When U.S. Marine Brandon Raub spoke out, a false discrediting process begins...

Brandon Raub

(SALEM) - Americans were shocked over a multiple combat tour Marine, Brandon Raub, being arrested by police and federal agents over Facebook posts and placed in a psych ward in Virginia.

I think a lot of people believed that there was more than meets the eye; they reasoned that there must be 'something' on that Facebook page that legitimizes what many say amounts to a federal police kidnapping.

His posts were nothing that hasn't been written before, many times; they clearly are the reflection of a passionate person who loves his country and has been willing to dedicate him life to its greater principles. His mom Kathy Thomas told me over the phone that Brandon is a great person who does not have even the slightest intention that isn't disclosed and clear.

He is incensed with what the United States has become and he has a right to be unnerved over the new rules allowing U.S. politicians and their dogs of corruption to arrest anyone who challenges the legitimacy of federal rules, even as an intellectual. Rules like the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, are a threat to even the most basic American freedoms.

It seems clear that the Obama Administration is operating in a shameless mode lacking all form of concern for how something like this appears.

In the video below, AdamVsTheMan.com talks to Brandon in the Virginia psych ward where he is being held. The whole thing seems preposterous, why would the feds place in him in a place of this nature?

Simply to discredit him- and the problem is that they've run their course with this anti-Marine program already and people are beginning to wake up and realize it.

The whole act is a page from a book that the feds and others acting in a corrupt spirit use when they set out to soil the reputation of a good person and it is a trick that the corporate world knows plenty about also.

I know of another Marine who experienced the same thing, and he is a Medal of Honor winner.

U.S. Marines awarded the Medal of Honor for gallantry on the battlefield are, in American tradition, the quintessential hero; typically they are the most honored citizens in existence.

Dakota Meyer- Kunar Province

This indeed is the story of Dakota Meyer, a Marine Corps sergeant who was awarded the Congressional medal for saving 36 lives in the heat of extensive combat, in Afghanistan.

But instead of being honored, Dakota Meyer experienced retaliation for having blown the whistle on a former employer based in England, military defense contractor BAE Systems, that he believes was trying to sell military hardware to Pakistan that could in turn be used against U.S. forces.

Among the charges leveled by BAE against this Marine, was his being 'mentally unstable'. This, from a British military contractor that the former Marine took a post-service job with. Meyer contends that BAE Systems, was selling high powered sniper scopes to Pakistan. This was Meyer's second civilian job upon being discharged.

So the moral to this story is, when Marines with extreme credibility speak out, it makes the feds and corporate cousins sweat, and reminds the studied ones of Smedley Butler, the famous Medal of Honor-winning Marine General who raged publicly against the prospect of the U.S. military becoming a cash cow for this government.

Marines make them very uncomfortable when they speak out and just one such voice can make a real difference. This is the lesson learned during the time of S. Butler who was one of the greatest Americans to walk the face of this earth.

For more in Brandon Raub's story, check out another Marine Veteran's article, Update: Phone Interview with Brandon – Marine Held for Facebook Posts, Veterans Today Offers Full Support by Gordon Duff of Veterans Today

Kidnapped Marine vet Brandon Raub speaks out from psych ward

Tim King: Salem-News.com Editor and Writer

Al Franken and Tim King in Afghanistan

Tim King has more than twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. Tim is Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. His background includes covering the war in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, and reporting from the Iraq war in 2008. Tim is a former U.S. Marine who follows stories of Marines and Marine Veterans; he's covered British Royal Marines and in Iraq, Tim embedded with the same unit he served with in the 1980's.

He holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing from traditional mainstream news agencies like The Associated Press and Electronic Media Association; he also holds awards from the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs; and was presented with a 'Good Neighbor Award' for his reporting, by the The Red Cross.

Tim's years as a Human Rights reporter have taken on many dimensions; he has rallied for a long list of cultures and populations and continues to every day, with a strong and direct concentration on the 2009 Genocide of Tamil Hindus and Christians in Sri Lanka. As a result of his long list of reports exposing war crimes against Tamil people, Tim was invited to be the keynote speaker at the FeTNA (Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America) Conference in Baltimore, in July 2012. This is the largest annual gathering of North American Tamils; Tim addressed more than 3000 people and was presented with a traditional Sri Lanka ‘blessed garland’ and a shawl as per the tradition and custom of Tamil Nadu, India.

The notorious list comprising Tim's ancestors includes Pedro de Alvarado, the lieutenant of Hernando Cortez of Spain; King Phillip IV, Eleanor of Aquitaine and William the Conqueror. Perhaps most interestingly, King John; the dark force in the story Robin Hood, and also the last Spanish governor of California, a real person fictionalized as the arch rival of the character in Zorro, are in reality both Tim's multiple-great grandfathers.

Tim at his family ranch in Chino, California.

Others include a Confederate officer in the U.S. Civil War and a decorated 'hero' of the Mexican-American War and the so-called 'Indian Wars'. In fact on the east coast, Tim's lineage with the Slaughter and King families, pre-dates the Mayflower and several members of his family were soldiers in the Revolutionary War. He says his family's past; some of which is very dark; some quite chivalrous, presents a certain responsibility, and that in part drives his desire to see that people in today's world are not exploited or allowed to suffer in silence as victims of Human Rights violations, as people of previous times were.

In a personal capacity, Tim has written 2,026 articles as of March 2012 for Salem-News.com since the new format designed by Matt Lintz was launched in December, 2005. Serving readers with news from all over the globe, Tim's life is literally encircled by the endless news flow published by Salem-News.com, where more than 100 writers contribute stories from 23+ countries and regions.

Tim specializes in writing about political and military developments worldwide; and maintains that the label 'terrorist' is ill placed in many cases; specifically with the LTTE Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, where it was used as an excuse to slaughter people by the tens of thousands; and in Gaza, where a trapped population lives at the mercy of Israel's destructive military war crime grinder. At the center of all of this, Tim pays extremely close attention to the safety and welfare of journalists worldwide. You can write to Tim at this address: tim@salem-news.com. Visit Tim's Facebook page (facebook.com/TimKing.Reporter)