The House Oversight Committee has released a Report into the misinformation around the death of Pat Tillman and the rescue of Jessica Lynch and it, as suspected, leads to the White House and Rove.
The report details all kinds of changing stories and faulty memories in the 'higher ups' but still comes to the conclusion that:
Neither case involved an act of omission. The misinformation was not caused by overlooking or misunderstanding relevant facts. Instead, in both cases affirmative acts created new facts that were significantly different than what the soldiers in the field knew to be true. And in both cases the fictional accounts proved to be compelling public narratives at difficult times in the war.
I was listening to public radio (WRFG) on Friday and listened to Pat Tillman’s mother and brother tell the story of how and why the military covered up the death of their loved one. They basically said the military intentionally killed their son and brother for political propaganda for re-election. The soldier that actually confessed to killing him said that he saw Tillman waving his hands in the air, but still fired. He never said why and against military rules, everything Tillman had on at the time of death was burned to hide the evidence that he was killed by American weaponry.
Given the recent discussions (here and elsewhere) about how the media and the government shape and, in many cases, outright manufacture the reality we see, I thought it'd be worth posting this essay here. Originally published in Peace Review 2007, I've also crossposted it to The Crusty Polemicist. Join me below the fold, won't you?
Heroes are created by popular demand, sometimes out of the scantiest materials, or none at all. – Gerald Johnson, American Heroes and Hero Worship, Harper and Brothers, 1943
Those with long memories and large libraries will recall that there are few instances of the creation of a popular hero without the invention of a poet, or creative writer, or an uncritical and echoing media.
Precisely five years ago the U.S. media were transfixed on the heroic rescue of a captured U.S. Army Pfc. named Jessica Lynch, who supposedly had emerged from her hellhole in Iraq, guns blazing, in a daring operation to save her. The invasion of Iraq had just started to run into some difficulties – amid signs that Americans might not be greeted with flowers after all – and the Lynch rescue helped rally the country and had significant propaganda value.
And propaganda, as it turned out, was at the heart of it.
News would shortly emerge -- after the fall of Baghdad -- that the Lynch rescue was almost nothing like it was pictured in the press, most notably in a Washington Post account which was headlined "She Was Fighting to the Death." Two months later, on June 17, 2003, the Post ran a 5,000-word front-page piece that partly corrected that original account but also defended much of it.
BAGHDAD - The U.S. military said Wednesday that two women used as suicide bombers in attacks earlier this month had undergone psychiatric treatment but there is no indication they had Down syndrome as Iraqi and U.S. officials initially had claimed.
On Sept 11th, 2007, President George W. Bush will announce progress is being made on the Iraq front of America's long war on terror. The bad actors have left the stage, while Dems look set to lose complete control of the national narrative yet again.
Karl Rove and Abu may be gone. But that doesn't change the fact that everything in the Bush White House remains political. With all the bad news crashing in on Republicans, we need to understand their need to mix things up but quick.
Do Dems understand how the real battles are won and lost; and that when George Bush presents Ted Olson as America's next Attorney-General this will be the unveiling of a 'reformed Republican party' repackaged, not to win war with Iran, but to win against Dems in 2008?
In the aftermath of September 11th America became, to itself, a nation of heroes.
We bestowed the word amongst ourselves freely, as if the smallest of gestures – displaying patriotic placards and vehicular flags – were heroic. As if we imagined that a nation full of heroes would somehow be safer, more secure.
Nearly six years on we still fling the word hero around amply, carelessly, in every direction. Every soldier is a hero, and every protestor. So too every insider who speaks out, years too late, and every journalist late just the same. All are heroes to someone, of course, but are they to be heroes to us all?
I don't know how many people remember Shoshana Johnson, but she was apart of 507th Maintenance Company, along with Jessica Lynch, who just recently testified before Congress about her ordeal and how the military tried to use it as PR stunt.
In 2003, Johnson, then an Army specialist, was held for 22 days by Iraqi forces. Four other soldiers in her 507th Maintenance Company, including Jessica Lynch, were held. Lynch, who is white, became a national hero; her life became a TV movie, and she quickly received a million-dollar advance for her book, which never became the bestseller publishers had hoped for.
Last week Keith Olbermann delivered a whithering verbal assault on the New Jersey nutjobs accused of plotting a terrorist attack on Fort Dix. These brain surgeons took a video of their training exercises to a Photo Mat for duplication. Olbermann succinctly articulated what everyone else was thinking about these jerks:
Olbermann: "In other words, the FBI has arrested six morons."
But for some reason, Glenn Beck is offended by Olbermann's insult.
Brought to you by... News Corpse The Internet's Chronicle Of Media Decay.
This is a case that I have been following for a long time. The case of Army Pvt. Lavena Johnson has been under the nations radar for two years. But it now looks as if things are finally beginning to move.... See video of latest developments here.
This is the weekly review of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Last week's highlights included a hearing about the misinformation lies and propaganda the military used to portray Pat Tillman's friendly fire death and Jessica Lynch's capture and rescue from a hospital in Iraq. The other big story was the issuing of subpoenas to Condoleezza Rice and to the Republican National Committee for emails related to the US Attorney scandal and other White House shenanigans.
The wars leave us all wary. Soldiers in Afghanistan tire. Troops in Iraq are exhausted. The people in the states are fatigued. Families and friends are drained. America wants its soldiers to come home, alive. Citizens cry when chatting with their Representatives. They shriek when telephoning their Senators. They write to the President. Our countrymen spoke with their vote. yet, the combat continues. The United States stays the course. It is not the long days and longer nights of worry that weigh on the expectant public; it is the lies.
When Alberto Gonzales went to Capitol Hill to tell a Senate Committee "I don't recall" more than sixty times, George Bush was regularly updated on the testimony:
Q But did the President actually see the testimony?
MS. PERINO: He got regular updates from us while we were on the road -- we were on the road that day, on the way to Ohio.
Q So how can he say he has increased confidence if he got updates from other people? So he didn't actually see the testimony, himself, because --
MS. PERINO: He got updates from us, and I think he saw some news coverage of it later that day.
So, what was his reaction to Jessica Lynch and the family of Pat Tillman testifying before a House Committee about the distortions and lies from Bush's Defense Department?
Q Did the President have an opportunity to see or review any of the testimony from the Tillman family or Jessica Lynch on the Hill yesterday?
MS. PERINO: I don't believe so, since he was traveling and he had a full day yesterday. And I haven't talked to him today in terms of whether he saw any news coverage of it.
Q Well, maybe if you could check on that -- as the Commander-in-Chief --
MS. PERINO: I would doubt it. I mean, he was on the road all day. He didn't get home until about 8:30 p.m. last night.
On Wednesday at 2:00pm ET, the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs will be holding a hearing on the mental health issues faced by returning combat veterans. IAVA Legislative Director Patrick Campbell will be talking about recent efforts by the VA to address these issues, and about his own experiences in Iraq. Ellen and Randy Omvig, whose son Joshua committed suicide just a few months after returning from a tour of duty in Iraq, will be speaking on the panel with him.
One of the biggest shams in the "American Iraqi Occupation" was brought to light yesterday as Mary Tillman, Kevin Tillman and Jessica Lynch talked about the true story of Pat Tillman's death and Jessica Lynch's injuries and subsequent capture.
I could write something comparing what the Tillmans and Ms. Lynch said versus what we, the American Public, were told. But a picture is worth a thousand words, so I was thinking of something like a visual aid. But because I'm a sucky artist, I'm using videos. So think of this as a "video aid."
The following is one diarist's attempt to illustrate how the neocon-driven White House tried to distort the truth and confuse the American Public. Enjoy!
