Phony Soldiers and Otherwise

By Greyhawk

Don Surber:

Senate Plurality Leader Harry Reid voted against denouncing the Betray Us ad, in which a general that Reid voted to put into battle was smeared by MoveOn.

Today, Reid denounced Rush Limbaugh for calling the phony “soldier” Jesse MacBeth a phony soldier.

Since we pretty much started the whole discussion here some time ago, I must say I'd enjoy seeing the Senate debate the entire story of Jesse MacBeth and his claims:

...according to Macbeth, his squad of Rangers gunned down Iraqis praying inside a mosque on a holy day, then hung some of the bodies from rafters, and defaced the mosque with graffiti. Macbeth's hand held the smoking gun, and his testimony in this interview shows clearly that the Marines who are now in trouble for very similar actions are not the exception to US tactics in Iraq, but represent only one in many incidents of war crimes[*].
<...>
What was the assault on Fallujah like?
Fallujah is where we slaughtered people in mosques. We provoked the people there. Some people escaped from the mosques and saw us. We would dig holes and leave mass graves of children, women, and old men. We were ordered to let people die on the street. We were told that the Geneva Convention means nothing to us in combat.

We were ordered to fire on peaceful protesters in Fallujah. Somebody threw a rock at us, and an officer said that he thought it was a grenade. Then we were ordered to fire. When it's daylight in Iraq, it's daylight! Nobody really thought it was a grenade.

What did your division do?
I was in the Third Ranger Battalion. Our job was to strike fear in the hearts of the Iraqi people.

We would go into people's houses and plow down entire families. We would interrogate people. If we didn't like the answers that they gave, then we would kill the youngest child. If they gave more answers that we didn't like, then we'd move on to the rest of the family. They could've been innocent people.

We would leave the bodies in the streets and blame it on the Shi'ites or the Sunnis. [In Fallujah] we were ordered to go into mosques and slaughter people while they were praying. I won't go into full detail because I'm still haunted by the memories.

Those stories made MacBeth a welcome addition to team IVAW:

Of course, the reality is that MacBeth washed out of basic training, then pepetrated fraud in an attempt to gain VA benefits, moved on to launch his brief "I'm a war criminal" career, and found a welcome reception from the Iraq Veterans Against the War. That organization did find the courage to "issue a statement" after we exposed the poser. As I mentioned at the time,

Note the gutless weasels don't refute MacBeth, just say that "questions have been raised". Nor do they actually expel him from their ranks - they just don't "in any way endorse" him.

No veteran could fail to spot MacBeth as a phony - it took about 3 seconds. But IVAW couldn't do it until after he was outed by milbloggers.

Draw your own conclusions.

Anyhow, fast forward one year:

A man who tried to position himself as a leader of the anti-war movement by claiming to have participated in war crimes while serving in Iraq is facing federal charges of falsifying his record.

A complaint unsealed Friday in U.S. District Court in Seattle charged 23-year-old Jesse Adam Macbeth with one count of using or possessing a forged or altered military discharge certificate, and one count of making false statements in seeking benefits from the Veterans Administration.

Macbeth garnered much attention on blogs and in some alternative media after he began claiming in 2005 to have been awarded a Purple Heart for his service, which he said included slaughtering innocent civilians in a Fallujah mosque.
His story was contradicted by his true discharge form, showing that he was kicked out of the Army after six weeks at Fort Benning, Ga., in 2003 because of his "entry level performance and conduct."

And last month...

A Tacoma man who falsely claimed he was a decorated war hero when he took the stage at demonstrations held in opposition to the U.S.'s role in Iraq was sentenced this morning to five months in prison in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

Jesse MacBeth, 23, was also sentenced to three months in a halfway house after his release and three years of probation.

MacBeth claimed that he was an Army ranger who killed more than 200 people, many at close range, including some as they prayed in a mosque. He spoke at an anti-war rally in Tacoma and appeared in a 20-minute anti-war video that circulated widely on the Internet.

In reality, MacBeth made it through only six weeks of Army basic training and never set foot in Iraq.

Conservative bloggers exposed MacBeth in May 2006, destroying his credibility and embarrassing the Seattle company that produced the video about his exploits.

On June 7, MacBeth pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. MacBeth admitted that he filed a bogus claim for VA benefits in 2005, which included a fraudulent military-discharge form.

That's from the Seattle Times. The Eastern Arizona Courier adds that...

In November 2003, while living in Pima, Macbeth interviewed with a Courier reporter and fabricated stories of combat injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder and watching fellow soldiers die.

Subsequent to his interview with the Courier, Macbeth’s stories included tales of war crimes and a variety of atrocities.

If I were Rush Limbaugh, I'd join in Reid's call for intense Senatorial debate on this issue. I'd love to read in the Senate record exactly why Reid - who couldn't summon the outrage (or simple decency) to condemn MoveOn for attacking General Petraeus, is so outraged that Rush Limbaugh called MacBeth a "phony".

Speaking of phonies, fake Vietnam combat vet Tom Harkin also quickly criticized Limbaugh for calling phony war criminal (but actual criminal) Jesse MacBeth a "phony soldier".

HARKIN: I’ll just close, Mr. President, by noting that in August, seven soldiers published an op-ed in the New York Times criticizing the current strategy in Iraq. Tragically, two of those soldiers were subsequently killed in action, making the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

I can only assume by Mr. Limbaugh’s definition that they too were “phony soldiers.” Now what’s most despicable is that Mr. Limbaugh says these provocative things to make more money. So he castigates our soldiers, this makes more news, more people tune in, he makes more money.

Well, I don’t know. Maybe he was just high on his drugs again. I don’t know whether he was or not. If so, he ought to let us know. But that shouldn’t be an excuse.

I can understand why Harkin feels compelled to rush to the defense of a fellow fraudulent combat veteran (it's a "Band of Brothers" thing), but I'm not sure why he can only assume Limbaugh's condemnation of a phony soldier must also be applied to real ones. I wouldn't in a million years have equated MacBeth with real soldiers, but Harkin has.

For the record, here's what I wrote in response to the NYT 7 (see "View from the Tunnel" at link), whose opinions I respect, and who are the real deal, and anything but phony. They did an excellent job in re-stating what virtually everyone here recognizes as the challenges we are confronting, though they fell a bit short in clarifying exactly how they feel we should resolve them (lack of clear consensus being a common product of group efforts). So I'd love to hear - for the record - various U.S. Senators announce whether they concur with the actual solutions somewhat vaguely implied in their editorial. Specifically, that although we could win this thing if Americans would stand back and let us unleash the required amount of carnage (in other words, if we could actually do what Jesse MacBeth and his IVAW pals accuse us of doing anyway)...

While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse — namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force.

...our reluctance to do so dictates that

...it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit.

Which is pretty much what we're doing - the only difference I can discern from current policy being if they are advocating extension of "as they see fit" to slaughter of weaker elements in Iraqi society - but the authors are unclear on this point.

Now that would be a worthy discussion among the members of the world's most prestigious elected body. Or the US Senate can pretend radio personality Rush Limbaugh attacked the messengers, express their complete and total outrage at that most egregious and imaginary affront, and avoid the issue altogether.

Back to you, Tom and Harry.

*****

Footnotes:

* …the Marines who are now in trouble for very similar actions are not the exception to US tactics in Iraq, but represent only one in many incidents of war crimes. - It's worth remembering that the original intended purpose of the MacBeth video was to lend additional weight to congressman Jack Murtha's then-current claims that Marines in Iraq were "cold blooded killers" who were slaughtering women and children...

There is a current story in the US press about a squad of Marines that are being investigated for "war crimes" after they murdered a whole Iraqi family one night a few months back. US officials are approaching this story as if this wasn't standard procedure, and are focusing on holding the individual Marines accountable. Jessie Macbeth blows the lid off that story.

Ironically, even as MacBeth was being sentenced for his fraud those Marines were being cleared of the charges brought against them. (One is now suing Jack Murtha - see here for the latest). Likewise, while ostensibly "anti-war" the real function of Iraq Veterans Against the War is to publicize similar claims that US troops in Iraq routinely commit atrocities as part of US policy - see their recent thinly disguised press release in The Nation magazine for example. (Actually investigated here with some responses from other military members serving in Iraq here).

*****

And here's our complete Jesse MacBeth coverage from May, 2006:

22 May

23 May

24 May

25 May

26 May

27 May

28 May

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Posted by Greyhawk / October 2, 2007 1:39 PM | Permalink