[Note: This is the latest segment in an ongoing series about Code Pink and its co-founder Jodie Evans. Click here to read earlier articles.]
In a wide-ranging interview released this week by MIPtalk, Obama funder, terrorist sympathizer and Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans spoke about her meetings with the Taliban and President Barack Obama. She lauded the Taliban for bringing peace and justice to Afghanistan while saying that the U.S. has failed to deliver either.
In a separate interview with Lauren Steiner, Jodie Evans went further in her criticism of the United States saying that we had created “hell on earth” in Afghanistan.
Jodie Evans also spoke about being called on by Obama’s Deputy Chief of Staff for a morning-after briefing following her hand delivery of a propaganda package to Obama about Afghanistan.
Jodie Evans admits in the interview she does “a lot to not support the troops.”
It has also been revealed by another source that despite their history of working to get our soldiers killed abroad and waging psychological war against the troops on the homefront, Jodie Evans and Code Pink were allowed to visit an Indiana National Guard unit at a base in Afghanistan.
Jodie Evans was a founding member of Obama’s campaign finance team, recruited in February 2007 to co-host Obama’s breakthrough Hollywood fundraiser with the Dreamworks trio of Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Later in 2007 she was appointed a fundraising bundler by Obama’s presidential campaign. She also donated tens of thousands of dollars to various Obama campaign vehicles in 2007 and 2008.
Obama’s last known in-person meeting with Jodie Evans was at a high dollar San Francisco fundraiser where he allowed himself to be filmed accepting a propaganda package opposing America’s victory in the Af-Pak front in the war on terror.
The Obama administration recently worked with Jodie Evans and Code Pink through the White House Office of Public Engagement to undermine public support for Obama’s surge in Afghanistan in the days after his speech at West Point announcing the new strategy.
The MIPtalk interview with Jodie Evans was conducted October 23rd by Brad Rowe at Code Pink’s Venice, California headquarters. It was posted online December 15th by Rowe who made sure to post a Twitter message to Big Government about its release before he Tweeted Code Pink. If Rowe thought Jodie Evans would come off as the humanitarian superhero Rowe (and she) portrays her to be, he is mistaken.
MIPtalk bills itself as “Conversations with the world’s Most Interesting People.” While Evans has a compelling life story (don’t we all?), her work with state sponsors of terrorism and terrorist groups like the Taliban and Hamas paint her in an unsympathetic, treasonous light to patriotic Americans.
Jodie Evans’ meetings with the Taliban were not mentioned in her and other Code Pink leaders’ reports about their trip to Afghanistan. However, Jodie Evans’ friend and idol Jane Fonda mentioned the meetings in comments that were reported by Big Government.
The interview with MIPtalk is the only known interview of Jodie Evans herself speaking about meeting the Taliban.
Jodie Evans seems to have gotten quite pally with the Taliban, affectionately calling them by the nickname “The Tali” during the interview. She compares the Taliban’s treatment of women favorably to how the Afghan warlords treat women, glossing over the world-renowned atrocities committed against women by the Taliban.
When I was trying to keep us from invading Afghanistan eight years ago, you know, people were arguing, ‘But what about the women?’ And I was saying the warlords are worse than the Taliban, if there could be such a thing.
Because the Taliban at least creates a structure, and they don’t the rape the women. They just kinda keep them in their rooms, quiet. And you know, if you follow the rules, you’re okay. If you don’t, you’re in a lot of trouble.
But that’s true with the warlords. But the warlords are just, there are no rules. They go in and if they see somebody they like, just go in at night and rape them. They rape, you know, go in and rape your children. I mean, they’re still doing that and so the problem is as we go there, the warlords are horrific. We put them in as the governors of provinces that now the Taliban have taken back, and then the warlords are the ministers. They are raping, you know, people in their villages. You know, women are trying to get justice. They can’t get justice and they’re out in the streets. So we — the U.S. — are supporting these horrific war criminals as what we think should be leadership.
What Jodie Evans accuses the Afghan warlords of doing is precisely what the government of Saddam Hussein did to Iraqi women.
That was perfectly acceptable to Jodie Evans in 2003 when she went to Baghdad with Code Pink as a guest of Saddam’s government to lobby the world to keep the genocidal state sponsor of terrorism in power.
Jodie Evans has professed her wish that Saddam were back in power in Iraq even after Saddam’s killing fields and rape rooms were revealed to the world.
Jodie Evans also favorably compares the Taliban to the U.S.
Why is the Taliban in power in Afghanistan again? Because they deliver peace and justice and we, the United States, do not deliver that. We deliver chaos and corruption.
Evans goes on to accuse the U.S. of “creating terrorism”:
What causes terrorism is disrespect, a lack of justice and poverty.
We are creating that in Afghanistan. We are creating terrorism. Our presence creates terrorists. Not for us, because the Taliban is a nationalist organization, but for Afghanistan.
If we continue to create a world where there is poverty and disrespect, there will continue to be terrorism. I mean whether it’s al Qaeda, I mean we’ve made these boogie men.
The Taliban actually wanted to negotiate with the U.S. government. We talked to some of “the Tali” that said this, that they tried to negotiate with the U.S. government under Bush to turn in Osama, or to let him go to Yemen or something else, so that we wouldn’t attack Afghanistan. And U.S. wouldn’t make that deal.
It makes you curious about why we are really in Afghanistan, which is the question for the Afghans.
And I can promise you Obama and his administration have no idea why we’re there. They keep giving us another reason. It changes as much as Bush changed why we were in Iraq. Because if it’s really about al Qaeda, al Qaeda hasn’t been there for four years at least. Maybe there’s a few remnants, but it’s not Osama. There are more al Qaeda in Yemen and Somalia and Pakistan.
(Rowe: “Pennsylvania.”)
..and in Pennsylvania, exactly!
Were (sic) those people that, you know, brought down the towers all lived in the United States? And then none of them were from Iraq or Afghanistan.
(Rowe: “They were well educated people from Saudi Arabia and Egypt and Syria.”)
…Which is the difference between “the Tali” and al Qaeda, you know. They were very well educated and they’re from other countries. “The Tali” are uneducated warlords.
Jodie Evans trashes everything the U.S. does in Afghanistan, especially its humanitarian endeavors.
Everything we even spend money on is a disaster.
It should be pointed out however, that Jodie Evans’ anti-American propaganda talking points were not believed by some of the non-Code Pink members who accompanied her on the trip to Afghanistan.
Writing at Women on the Web, author Sara Davidson tells of two incidents where she and her traveling compatriot came close to flat out calling their hosts Jodie Evans and her fellow Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin liars.
The first was a conference of about sixty women from Afghanistan, Pakistan and India; the second was at Camp Eggers in Kabul.
“During tea breaks, we talk with the women, and when we leave, Rabia Roberts says, ‘No one wanted the American military to be gone.’ Code Pink co-founders Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin and former Army Colonel Ann (Wright) say that’s not what they heard. They’d drawn up a petition urging President Obama not to send more soldiers and to work for a political solution that leads to withdrawing all troops. They asked women at the Trialogue to sign it; some refused, but a dozen signed.
Rabia says, “I feel like we’ve been at two different conferences.”
The same thing happens when we visit Camp Eggers, an army base in the center of Kabul. Rabia and I speak with a dozen soliders (sic) from the Indiana National Guard who are perched on a tank, playing Texas Hold ‘Em and drinking Cokes. ‘We’re here to help people and make a difference,’ one says. ‘It’s not about money — we could make twice as much working for private security, but I’d rather wear the uniform.’
We also meet female soldiers, including an African American who says she hasn’t encountered any hostility from Afghan men. ‘They love me. They can’t do enough to help me. I guess they think I’m exotic.’ For these women soldiers, it is about money. They say they enlisted because, as one puts it, ‘I get free health care for my family, my kids get a free education, I can retire at 38 and get a pension the rest of my life.’
When I repeat this to Medea later, she says, ‘Sounds like socialism to me.’
Medea and Jodie say the soldiers they talked with want out of Afghanistan fast. They told us, ‘We hate them and they hate us.’
Rabia frowns. ‘I didn’t hear anyone speak like that.’
‘Must be the way we ask questions,’ Medea says.
‘Must be,’ Rabia replies.
Just as Jodie Evans and Code Pink did not write about meeting “the Tali” in their reports, they did not disclose their visit to Camp Eggers either.
Rabia Roberts, left, and Sara Davidson with Indiana National Guard soldiers at Camp Eggers, Kabul.
Jodie Evans spoke about her meeting with Obama after her trip to Afghanistan, but she did not say anything new. She did not go into much detail in the interview about her conversation with Obama’s Deputy Chief of Staff. She does complain about being told that Obama’s overall domestic and foreign policy strategy was dependent on how many votes the administration can get in Congress.
After I gave Obama those signatures, the next morning I got to be briefed by his Deputy Chief of Staff. It was horrific to hear, because on everything — on health care we’re making the wrong decisions. On energy policy we’re making the wrong decisions. And they’re compromising.
…When I asked ‘what’s the decision making points for this?’ (the Deputy Chief of Staff said) ‘It’s about how many votes people can get.’
And I said, ‘It doesn’t matter to me how many votes you get if you can’t do the right thing when it comes up. What does it matter, what do I care?’
Jodie Evans does not describe what she told Obama’s Deputy Chief of Staff about her meetings with “the Tali.”
When asked by Rowe about supporting the troops, Jodie Evans laughs.
I’m not so sure I could totally say I support the troops. I do a lot to not support the troops!…I guess how I support the troops is telling the truth. That’s how I support the troops.
Jodie Evans and Code Pink have accused the troops of being terrorists, murderers and assassins who wantonly murder women and children.
In the interview, Jodie Evans implies that she cares about our wounded soldiers, yet she and Code Pink delivered over $600,000 in cash and humanitarian aid to what Code Pink called “the other side” in Fallujah in late 2004 as the Marines were fighting house to house clearing al Qaeda in Mesopotamia from that Iraqi city.
Shortly after that Code Pink started taunting wounded soldiers and their families at the main gate to Walter Reed Army Medical Center as having been “Maimed for a lie.”
Just because President Obama does not publicly embrace Jodie Evans’ demands on the war and just because Jodie Evans publicly criticizes Obama’s policies doesn’t mean they’re not politically aligned, that they don’t share the same radical anti-American agenda.
That Obama and his administration work closely with Jodie Evans and Code Pink is a grave breach of national security and a betrayal of our troops and their families.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.