©2005 UrbisMedia
When the people at the top lie and deceive it has a way of percolating down to the bottom. The Iraq war has been nothing if not a barrage of lies and deceptions from the outset. More often than not, the troops at the bottom are exploited by the lies as much as is the general public. But they lie, too. The most recent disclosure has been the report on Pat Tillman, the pro football player who considered fighting for his country (you know, the country that was under imminent and dire threat by the non-existent weapons of mass destruction of Saddam Hussein), rather than accept a multi-million dollar contract to play for the Arizona Cardinals. Tillman went to Afghanistan to hunt Al Qaeda, and was killed in a fire-fight. His “heroic” death got major play in the press, a chance for the Pentagon to play up the sacrifice of “an Army of One.” It was a lie. Tillman was killed by his own comrades, who did not make sufficient effort to distinguish him from the enemy. The Army lied to Tillman’s brother, also a ranger serving nearby where his brother was killed, burned evidence of the “friendly fire” incident, and deceived the parents until after the funeral. The Pentagon has its agenda and, too often, the truth seems to get in the way, even when the truth has no strategic consequences
They did the same thing with Private Jessica Lynch, who’s story of “heroism” and vanquishing of the enemy was cocked up out of events that began with a mistake in which her vehicle was driven out of position, in which injuries were caused by its crash and, as it turned out, instead of Pvt Lynch killing the enemy, it was enemy doctors who seem to have saved her life. But that wasn’t what the voice over that accompanied the video tape of Lynch being “rescued” by crack assault units who also supposedly vanquished many enemy and saved Pvt Lynch from what some clueless and beguiled commentators repeated torture and rape. Unlike Tillman, Lynch could talk, but that was long after the deceptions had had their propagandistic effect and she had recuperated, returned to some vague hollow in West Virginia, and became bothered enough by the truth to give some interviews and write a book to try to set the record straight. But by then she had served her purpose and the military seemed done with her.
Pictures, it was always said in B.P. days (that’s Before Photoshop), don’t lie. But the Abu Ghraib photos weren’t “Photoshopped” and the Pentagon boys were caught with their “you-know-whats” in their hands. Unfortunately, there appear to be no audiotapes incriminating those further up the chain of command, so the lies turn to alleging the torture and humiliation of prisoners were an aberration committed by some other enlistees at the bottom of the blame ladder. You know, those kids from Appalachia get up to some kinky stuff. But apparently, there was sneaking around the edges of the Geneva Conventions, and recently, several soldiers have come forward putting their careers on the line by attesting that Guantanamo has all but been a university for this sort of thing, even up to staging fake interrogations for visiting brass who could then go back and report what a model operation they have been running.
So why should the Italians be willing to swallow the cocked up story that was fed them as to the killing of Nicola Calipari and the wounding of Guiilana Sgrena by American checkpoint soldiers who felt that they were “threatened” by the car they were riding in to the airport. The Italians refuse to buy the story, but whatever the truth of it, should anyone be inclined to put much credence in anything the Bush gang has to say. The lying has become so endemic of this administration, and insulated from scrutiny by executive branch cover-ups, staged “news conferences,” and a complaint Republican majority Congress, that, becoming the norm, it has become journalistically “ho-hum.” It may even be, as a recent Washington Post article, in which Downing Street notes seem to indicate, that Prime Minister Blair might have been intimidated into fashioning British intelligence on WMDs to fit the pre-established Iraq invasion plans of Bush and his neo-cons. When the lying gets to this level the only credible thing left is that truth was a victim of “friendly fire.”
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©2005, James A. Clapp (UrbisMedia Ltd. Pub. 5.15.2005)