Progressive Congressman Raúl Grijalva was called out by his opponent in the Congressional District 3 race, Republican Gabriela Saucedo Mercer, for being a traitor. Saucedo Mercer restated the claim made by so many for many years, during a debate last week in Tucson, Arizona.
Saucedo Mercer challenged the congressman’s recent affinity for service men and women due to his support for organizations like Code Pink. She called Grijalva “disingenuous” in light of his support for a Code Pink operation that provided supplies to Hamas.
“In my book that is treason,” said Saucedo Mercer. In his usual intimidating style, Grijalva warned Saucedo Mercer, “You should be “very, very careful in how you use a weapon such as treason and accuse somebody else without any merit.” To which Saucedo Mercer responded, “What else would you call it but treason?”
According to Brietbart, “Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) along with Representatives Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Henry Waxman (D-CA) secured diplomatic courtesy letters that allowed anti-American Code Pink activists to travel to Fallujah, Iraq. The radicals traveled to Fallujah in late 2004 to donate $600,000 worth of humanitarian aid to the people who had just killed 51 Americans and wounded 560 more earlier that month. Operation Phantom Fury in Fallujah was the heaviest US urban combat since the Vietnam War.”
Later Waxman said that he did not intend to assist insurgents” in Iraq when he provided a diplomatic letter in December 2004 to Code Pink’s parent organization Global Exchange. According to Brietbart, “Code Pink and Global Exchange co-founder Medea Benjamin bragged at the time that the aid was intended for families of the “other side” in Fallujah.”
In a letter dated 2004, Grijalva wrote in support of the Global Exchange trip. He specifically requested assistance from the U.S. Embassy in Jordan for Fernando Suarez del Solar, who would be “travelling to the Iraqi-Jordanian border” to Palestinian/Hamas camps.
Suarez del Solar described his life in 2012, as one that “fell apart’ after the death of his son Jesus Alberto “in a distant land, Iraq, during the American invasion, on the pretext that it had weapons of mass destruction, which, it was later revealed that it was a lie then nefarious president George W. Bush.”
Suarez del Solar is now asking “that we unite in a fight” for “the Dream Act, the to stop the deportations and family separations, to stop the points of review in our neighborhoods, to achieve in California driver’s license for all, so none are asked to produce documents. We fight together because the weapons of our youths will be books and their headquarters the schools to achieve a better world.”
Saucedo Mercer has been an activist against the indoctrination of children in the classroom. Just this past year, she worked with other education activists to craft legislation that would prevent teachers from politicizing curriculum and exploiting children for political purposes. That legislation was fought by the powerful teacher’s union.
Grijalva attacked Saucedo Mercer the next day on Facebook, “At last night’s debate Mrs. Mercer accused me – again – of being a wild-eyed traitor. In case your conservative friends are sending you their favorite two-year-old chain e-mails, here are the facts,” wrote Grijalva, with a link to the liberal Media Matters which claimed to debunk Saucedo Mercer’s accusation.
The October 2010 Media Matters article merely says the group did not get all the way to Fallujah and there is no proof that the money went to terrorists. MM cites an AP article in which it was reported that: “Parents of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq emotionally expressed their opposition to the war and occupation Tuesday during a visit to Jordan as part of a humanitarian aid campaign to help Iraqis displaced by fighting in Fallujah last month.”
However, in an October 2010 article, the Daily Caller reports, “Outrage was reignited after Lt. Col. Robert “Buzz” Patterson (USAF-Ret.) described in detail in his latest book, Conduct Unbecoming, the connection between the radical antiwar group Code Pink and the groups” for which Grijalva, Boxer and Waxman issued letters of support. “The blockbuster from the New York Times bestselling author, released just prior to the ninth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks, provides groundbreaking evidence of the anti-American military actions taken by Code Pink in their protests against the Iraq War.”
Saucedo Mercer questions Grijalva’s support for Code Pink, “ As a United States Marine mother and supporter of our men and women in uniform I find it reprehensible that members of the US Congress would stoop so low as to facilitate the Code Pink organizations travel into a war zone and to go behind enemy lines to render aid and encouragement to that enemy. Code Pink is a well known organization with ties to Communists leaders like Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. Code Pink indulges in mocking military funerals and Grijalva supports them? What kind of human beings are they?”
One Latina Marine mom said she agreed with Saucedo Mercer and was outraged that “this local Congressman would so easily sign his name to a document facilitating the travel of people bent on helping our enemies, in essence helping those who were at the time killing Marines. She says that Grijalva’s “action epitomizes the definition of a traitor in time of war. His mere association with the likes of Code Pink are very telling; Dime con quien andas y te diré quien eres. In English that means; tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are.”
