Remember Jimmy Massey, the marine, getting ripped on here at DU?

[meganmonkey]

If you don't, here's something to jog your memories:

Is Jimmy Massey telling the truth about Iraq? (Marine atrocities made up?)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1904901#1907430

Well, here's the latest:

Furore over ex-marine's account of killing of civilians

For 20 months, former US marine Staff Sergeant Jimmy Massey has claimed in numerous interviews that he and his platoon killed unarmed civilians during the invasion of Iraq. Last year The Independent on Sunday was one of the first newspapers to publish his story, which has never been challenged by the Marine Corps. But now that Mr Massey's autobiography, Kill, Kill, Kill, has been published in France and is being considered for publication in the US, a reporter who was embedded with the 1,200-man battalion has questioned the veracity of his claims.

Earlier this month Ron Harris wrote a series in his newspaper, the St Louis Post-Dispatch, under headlines that included, "Is Jimmy Massey Telling the Truth About Iraq?". The articles seized on minor discrepancies of detail and implied that, because Mr Massey suffers from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, he is less than reliable. Mr Harris's articles were immediately taken up by the pro-war lobby, triggering diatribes against Mr Massey on the internet. The first piece was circulated to media by Lt Col Richard Long, public affairs officer at Marine Corps headquarters and director of the embedded reporter programme in Iraq.

But when Mr Harris appeared on CNN to accuse Mr Massey of lying, claiming he had witnessed the incidents described by the marine, he in turn was challenged by another journalist. Jeff Schmerker, a reporter for The Mountaineer in North Carolina, said Mr Harris told him that he did not see the events with his own eyes. The St Louis Post-Dispatch man was assigned to a different company in the battalion from Mr Massey's. The sergeant's main charge is not denied by the reporter or the Marine Corps. "Yes, marines killed civilians," said Mr Harris. "I even reported on the shooting and killing of a British TV crew while I was in Iraq."

In December 2004, the Marine Corps spokesman at the Pentagon, Major Douglas Powell, told MSNBC: "We're not saying he's lying, but his perception of what the situation was in relation to the rules of engagement, and what was justified, is different than ours." Yet Mr Harris has contacted several other newspapers that published stories on Mr Massey and asked them to retract their articles publicly. The Sacramento Bee ran an editorial confessing, "It was an error of judgement. Before we published the story, we should have called the Marine Corps for a response."


http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article328159.ece

LBN thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1936656#1937400

------------------------

You'd think DUers would know enough about swiftboating to not fall for this kind of shit....

:shrug:

[BrklynLiberal]

1. War is Hell..and many good people do horrible things. That is what the

military teaches them to do. It is sad that after making them into killing machines, the military then abandons them after they are caught just doing the job they were trained to do.
No matter how you slice it...war is a tragedy for everyone involved.

[Jara sang]

10. Except for the generals and policy makers.

They walk away with a bunch of loot.

[BrklynLiberal]

11. That is true. The old men sit at desks and send the young to die.

[tblue37]

20. An appropriate A. E. Housman (1859-1936) poem:

Here dead lie we because we did not choose
To live and shame the land from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;
But young men think it is, and we were young. (1936)

[patrice]

2. It's partly the nature of this blog environment.

Questioning and Dissent that IS tolerated constructively by recognizable Group-Members becomes less tolerable when "group" membership is un-identified, i.e. the need to know something about the person other than the ability to post.

People's emotional loads ARE High! The U.S. is generally Very Stressed OUT.

We hate this Invasion.

The America I grew up with went away. We need to find it again. Something Important has changed and a lot of us are making important personal decisions about what that means about each person's behavioral Choices, and the Consequences thereof. This is difficult.

[BJW]

3. Thx for Catch--also, have you been following

the two Iraqi men claiming they were arrested without cause, rounded up and abused and tortured?

Seems pretty clear that they're getting the swiftboater treatment too, and of course, by extension, the clear implication is that claims of abuse and torture are to be treated with significant skepticism.

Last night I caught some Faux pundit going on about how suppposedly they (whoever "they" is--he didn't say) train the insurgents to claim abuse and torture. It's part of their training.

Not that many of these men were simply rounded up at their home at 3 a.m., handcuffed and hooded and taken away for "questioning" to undisclosed locations, even though we'd repeatedly seen videos of exactly that.

Nah, they're "trained" to claim abuse.

[bettyellen]

4. so the reporter Harris is discredited, and that photographer has not

actually disputed his claims either, from what i've seen. this leaves military PR flaks and RW nuts alone in discrediting this guy?
not too suprising.

[alfredo]

5. though I didn't engage in any of the discussions, I know enough to

wait for verification before deciding if the person is genuine or not.


If you look at snopes.com you will see that most hoaxes come from the political right, aimed at a political right or religious audience. Us on the left and center are at a disadvantage, we tend to tell the truth. Still we should question info that seems to support our position.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

8. I read the transcript of the interview on DemocracyNow...

and I think Massey has stretched the truth occasionally, maybe subconciously, but he obviously abhors what is happening over there. I'm not sure how much of what he says is factual.

[alfredo]

12. The grain of salt applies to all.

[w13rd0]

6. Listen and verify...

...should be our MO, rather than the methodology of the right, which is to shout down and smear...

[stillcool]

7. So sad...

my anger at those who castrated this guy is turning into sorrow, that people have to behave like people, and react from whatever vested interest they are clinging to. We are all teachers and students, and what we learn is what we teach. Maybe this will serve as both a teaching and learning experience for those who re-read these posts.

[libnnc]

9. This guy's from my hometown

Lots of soldiers serving from WNC will come back to that community needing serious help. I don't know if they will get it.

[dennisnyc]

18. you can recommend that the veterans get in touch with

Military Families Speak Out:
www.mfso.org

or
Iraq vets against the war:
www.ivaw.net

or
Veterans for Peace:
www.veteransforpeace.org

with this war, it's really the anti-war people that are doing the most to help the vets when they get back! --this administration is abandoning them!

[dennisnyc]

13. Massey in his own words, link here for Democracy Now interview:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/14/1447248

[meganmonkey]

14. Thanks for posting that link!

[dennisnyc]

15. no problem. watching him speak, struggling toward the honesty

and anger that are very real for him was revealing for me.
His having PTSD and the confusion that arises from that is really important for veterans. Too bad the current resident of the white house is trying to dismantle the Veterans' Administration.....

and also check out his full rebuttal article at

http://www.counterpunch.org/massey11102005.html

[BJW]

21. Definitely PTSD symptoms include

brain fogginess for one

[Tom Joad]

16. Very Important. Support those who resist.

Thanks so much MeganM!

For a list of those in the military who resist, go to
http://www.tomjoad.org/WarHeroes.htm
I will update the site with this latest info on the smear of Jimmy Massey.

These resisters need to get all the support we can offer. They are being attacked on all sides...commanders conveniently "lose" CO applications, or simply sit on them for months. Or, while they are being processed, and word gets around that they are CO applicants, they are harassed, sometimes physically attacked. Then, sometimes their applications are denied, and since they still refuse to participate, they are liable to be imprisoned... like Dale Bartell (a Mennonite... they sent a Mennonite to a year in prison!)...or Kevin Benderman (sentenced to 15 months after refusing his second deployment to Iraq...) or Camilo Meija, who was sentenced to one year (he served 9 months... (ironically, he was sentence about the same week as Jeremy Sivits, who received a similar sentence for his part in the mistreatment of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison. Refuse to kill and torture gets Camilo the same term as complying. We know Jeremy was in court only to get the commanders off the hook.)

Please, do all you can to support these folks. The newest resister is Katherine Jashinski, who refusing deployment to Afghanistan. These soldiers are on the front line of war resistance.

I will end with these words from Camilo Mejia:

I am only a regular person that got tired of being afraid to follow his own conscience. For far too long I allowed others to direct my actions even when I knew that they were wrong....To those who have called me a coward I say that they are wrong, and that without knowing it, they are also right. They are wrong when they think that I left the war for fear of being killed. I admit that fear was there, but there was also the fear of killing innocent people, the fear of putting myself in a position where to survive means to kill, there was the fear of losing my soul in the process of saving my body, the fear of losing myself to my daughter, to the people who love me, to the man I used to be, the man I wanted to be. I was afraid of waking up one morning to realize my humanity had abandoned me.
Camilo Mejia, from his statement upon receiving the "Courageous Resister Award", August 2004

[dennisnyc]

17. Wars will be stopped only when soldiers refuse to fight...

Wars will be stopped only when soldiers refuse to fight, when workers refuse to load weapons onto ships and aircraft, when people boycott the economic outposts of Empire that are strung across the globe.
--Arundati Roy

[NNN0LHI]

19. In the USSR if you didn't toe the party line you were crazy too n/t

[meganmonkey]

22. Kick