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 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! November 6, 2005 Lies...By Greyhawk...and the lying liars who tell them. Jimmy's also been testifying at legal hearings. Are there laws covering that? During one 48-hour period, Massey said under oath, his platoon set up roadblocks and killed "30-plus" civilians.All thrust, no vector. Posted by Greyhawk / November 6, 2005 11:57 PM | Permalink 3 TrackBacksI originally wrote the post below last December. Finally, one of the major papers has seen the light about Jimmy Massey. Michelle Malkin has more. Possibly more important than the Massey expose' itself is reporter Ron Harris's question: Why did Read More The Jim Crow era always struck me as a mass psychosis. After the Civil War and Reconstruction the South successfully fought to institute a new form of legalized racism in place of slavery. And there was no sense to it. Read More Marine Staff Sergeant Jimmy Massey -- who didn't mind throwing his fellow Marines to the wolves in an attempt to gain celebrity -- is a liar. At least that's the conclusion of some news outlets, almost two years after Massey began to wreak havoc on the... Read More 14 Comments |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
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The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
Well, if he testified under oath then he ought to be prosecuted. By the way, I wonder what ever happened to the military officer who sent 500 phony "letters from soliders" to newspapers across the United States? From the sound of the USA Today story, it didn't seem like they were going to do anything to him for getting caught at propaganda.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-10-14-letters-usat_x.htm
Greyhawk, I'm sure you splashed the Light Colonel's fraud across your website. After all, you wouldn't be just a partisan shill who winks when the Republicans lie their way into a war, invent phony war heroes (Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman) and invent phony stories from the field, would you?
Perish the thought!
So on the one hand, we have a blogger highlighting how Massey fabricated instances of war crimes he claims he and his fellow soldiers carried out. He tells wildly varying versions of these lies to newspaper reporters, television interviewers, in a book, and under oath at court hearings over the course of the past two years.
On the other hand, we have a commenter implying equivalence between Massey's dishonest campaign of libel and slander to Caraccilo writing up a form letter describing the good his soldiers are doing in Iraq, asking various soldiers to sign copies of it, and then sending those copies to the soldiers' hometown papers.
Hmmm.
Yeah, there's definitely a partisan shill here. But my vote for who the shill is doesn't go to the guy calling out Massey for spreading his imaginary Kerry-esque stories of war crimes.
Kolb is in a fantasy world here equivocating those two events. I have first hand familiarity with the letter writing campaign he speaks of and it wasn't at all the way it was made out to be. Those form letters were supposed to be an example or template for the Soldiers in the unit--not to be copied verbatim. Nobody forced the Soldiers to send them and nobody checked. There was no coersion, they sent them of their own free will. In the end, that is what came back to haunt them because a fabricated campaign like Kolb suggests would've been better organized and would've had intentional variations in the letters. Because LTC Caraccilo and his staff weren't checking or orchestrating it the way the press implies, many Soldiers evidently decided the letter looked good as-is and sent it out rather than making their own. Why have an example for them to use? Because Soldiers can get in deep trouble for dithering into politics and some of them probably didn't fully appreciate the scope of what the organization as a whole had accomplished. None of the substance of the letters was disputed, because it was all fact. The templates provided substance for them and kept them out of the political lane. Now contrast that with the other clown you are comparing this to, who outright fabricated things and what his motives likely were. I hope you can see the difference, Kolb.
Translation: Any lie is okay as long as the U.S. government or its representatives tell it. Same goes for torture ... er, "fraternity pranks." It even includes lying your way into an imperial war at a cost of $250 billion and rising + 2,000+ U.S. troops killed + 15,000+ U.S. troops wounded + tens of thosuands of Iraqis killed and wounded. But, oh, we're doing this for their "freedom."
Yeah, right. Tell it to the Ministry of Love, wingnuts.
"There was no coersion, they sent them of their own free will."
Yeah, right. You've got some a-hole of a light colonel with a form letter. You're an enlisted man. You're going to tell me there wasn't coercion? Gee, I think I'll just sprout wings and fly to Pluto next week.
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"Because Soldiers can get in deep trouble for dithering into politics"
What, for sending forged letters that back up the government's propaganda machine? The proof is in the pudding. What ever happened to the light colonel for dithering in politics? From the looks of the USA Today story: Nothing.
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Conclusion: There's no lie you people won't tell, and no lie that to which you won't raise the old stiff-armed salute -- as long as it comes from your fuhrer or his representatives.
Want to see the respect that the so-called "patriots" show for the fallen? Check this out:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/110605Z.shtml
So we have more and more proof that "Stolen Valor" soldiers exist today to take the anti-war side again. Just like the VietNam vets had to contend with until exposed by Glenna Whitley and B. G. Burkett. For those who haven't heard of B. G. Burkett, he wrote a book, called "Stolen Valor" in which he exposed many lying former and faux military men who claimed to be war heroes from VietNam. A couple of these frauds are still in Congress today.
Gee, Wilson, does your side ever find anyone who can actually tell the truth to make your points? Integrity does matter, you know.
Once again, our Men in Uniform are accused of atrocities by charlatans who try to inflate their self importance and gain recognition from a media which tells their lies because it fits their ideas of what a VietNam, oops, I mean Iraq, Baby-Killer is made of.
Maybe Massey can run for the Senate in a few years. Worked for Sen. Kerry (an anti-war liar of the first degree) and Sen. Harkin (merely a fabricator of more important events than he was involved in), so probably would work for Massey. Of course, it only works if you are a Dhimmicrat.
Subsunk
Wilson
Quick quiz:
He best way to counter a post that exposes blatant media willingness to rush to print any claim that insults US soldiers without minimal fact checking is to
a) provide a link to another published story that insults US soldiers
b) Do "a" then follow with yet another story from a different media outlet that insult US soldiers
c) Do "a" and "b" and invoke Godwin's law within four hours of the original post.
Your answer is "c". Thanks for playing.
Seems like Jimmy is just positioning himself for a run for the Presidency, nothing more. Clue to Jimmy: The last guy who used this tactic failed...
Clue to Kolb: You must have a learning disability. The templates provided in the letter writing campaign were facts, not lies, not propoganda in the sense you claim. Hence, no lies because they were verifyable facts. And there was no coercion, despite your moronic claim. They were given the template and they walked away. The brass would never know what, if anything, these troops actually sent. You also totally missed to clue train with the politics comment. The LTC did not dither into politics--the letters were about the mission and what the unit had accomplished--not pro or anti-Bush letters, which would've gotten them all into trouble. This was one of the key reasons for providing the example letter. Having one of the guys in your unit swerve into that lane will get everyone into trouble.
P:
And if soldiers in, say, Kosovo had sent 500 identical letters to U.S. newspapers, written by a light colonel, touting that deployment, you'd be saying the same thing, right? That little stunt was pure propaganda and it was entirely political because it was aimed at swaying public opinion. The light colonel probably wasn't punished, and it probably is because the higher-ups had not only approved of the propaganda but had told the light colonel to do it.
By the way, isn't it amusing to see so much concern for "truth" from those who get their news from the Moonie Times and FauxNews?
Yup, I'd say the same about that one too. No, it wasn't political because it does not endorse politicians or political views, and yes it does sway public opinion. Read "On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War" and see why maintaining public support is important to us and the accomplishment of our mission. No, it wasn't propoganda because that means it would have to be much better orchestrated to meet the classic criteria for that. No, nobody above the LTC in question told him to do it and moreover he didn't make anyone below him do it--he just provided some facts and a template for them to write their own letters *if* *they* *chose* *to*. He had no way of knowing if they did or what they wrote so there was no ethical violation there and no fraud, which is why he wasn't punished AFAIK. Just like in Basic Training when the drill sergeants tell you to write your parents when you first get there. They don't screen what you write.
Now obviously the big point you are missing, and it is telling, is that the things in those letters were provable facts (after all, reporters would check), whereas the guy you used this incident as an analogy for outright fabricated stuff under oath.
"No, it wasn't propoganda because that means it would have to be much better orchestrated to meet the classic criteria for that."
Then would we also say the Iraq War isn't a war because the U.S. leadership has done such an incompetent job of leading it? What, they shouldn't punish the light colonel for politicking on the job on the grounds that he botched the job?
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"No, nobody above the LTC in question told him to do it and moreover he didn't make anyone below him do it--he just provided some facts and a template for them to write their own letters *if* *they* *chose* *to*."
Apparently PowerPointSamurai has even less regard for military leadership than I do. Because I think that when a light colonel solicits "volunteers" to send letters, those letters are going to get sent like it or not. There's no "choice" involved.