Outing a Liar: Marine Gets Caught Pulling a John Kerry
MFOgilvie
by Jim Kouri, CPP
Outing a Liar: Hero Marine Gets Caught Pulling a John Kerry
November 10, 2005 11:09 AM EST
When the Abu Graib story broke, thanks to Mary Mapes of Rathergate
fame, the mainstream news media collectively hyperventilated. In fact,
the venerable New York Times ran more stories about the abuse at that
Iraqi military prison than any other news story in recent history.
The allegations leveled against the US military fit perfectly with the
liberal media's view of American soldiers and intelligence officers:
that they are brutal, ruthless killers and torturers. Even Democrat
politicians appeared to become unhinged with their vitriol as they
pointed to media reports regarding Abu Graib and, to a lesser degree,
the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba military detention center. Senator Dick Durbin
likened our military to Nazis, our detention centers to gulags, and our
tactics to the killing fields of Cambodia. Senator Ted Kennedy
complained the Saddam's torture chambers were under new management,
meaning United States Arms Forces Management.
The news media practically celebrated their prowess at revealing the
horrors occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan, even making up some stories
such as the Koran being flushed down a toilet at Gitmo's military
prison. Sometimes the blogosphere and talk radio caught the deceptions,
other times they remained unrefuted. The idea of women's panties being
placed on the heads of captured combatants even filtered into America's
entertainment media. Most journalists appeared to equate women's
undergarments used as sombreros with bamboo splinters shoved under
one's fingernails. Of course, newsmen overreacted to this fashion faux
pas because they prefer to wear their panties around their waists.
Then, like manna from heaven, they mainstream media's prayers were
answered: they found Marine Sergeant Jimmy Massey -- or perhaps he
found them. Massey confirmed the reporters' worst suspicions about the
US armed forces. Or so they thought.
Massey, fresh from the battlefields and streets of Iraq, told reporters
and anyone who'd listen to him that Marines murdering innocent Iraqi
civilians. Also, Sgt. Massey described the atrocities that he and other
Marines committed in Iraq.
Newspapers, magazines and broadcast news organizations used Massey as
an eyewitness to the rampant brutality they suspected but now could
prove. Finally, the war on terrorism provided its own John Kerry, who,
during the Vietnam conflict, told similar stories about atrocities
committed by US servicemen. During a Canadian immigration hearing and
in numerous speeches across the country, Massey told frightening tales
of how he and other Marines recklessly, sometimes intentionally,
murdered and mutilated scores of innocent Iraqi civilians.
Some of his claims, repeated often by the mainstream news media and the
MoveOn.Org crowd include:
Marines fired on and killed peaceful Iraqi protesters.
Americans shot a 4-year-old Iraqi girl in the head.
A tractor-trailer was filled with the bodies of civilian men, women and
children killed by American artillery.
Massey's stories garnered him a certain degree of fortune and fame. He
received a sweetheart book deal and his allegations are covered in top
US publications such as Vanity Fair and USA Today. He even joined the
antiwar bus tour of Cindy Sheehan so that he could horn-in on her
massive media attention. In between TV and radio appearances and giving
speeches at universities across the nation, the Marine non-commissioned
officer hosted book signings where he described the horrors inflicted
by America's sons and daughters on the innocent Iraqis.
It's no surprise that news organizations circulated Massey's eyewitness
testimony without any sort of corroboration and without investigation.
Except for the Marine Corp, most people hearing Massey never questioned
Massey's honesty. Afterall, he was a decorated Marine veteran with 12
years of experience under his belt.
Then something strange occurred: the St. Louis Post-Dispatch began to
question Sgt. Massey's tales of atrocities and misconduct by US
Marines. Soon embedded reporters who shared MRE's with our fighting men
and women also began to wonder about the stories being told by Sgt.
Massey. The Marine Corps conducted their own investigation and reported
that Massey's allegations were totally unsubstantiated.
Some journalists who bothered to investigate Massey discovered he even
lied about his life after returning from Iraq. For instance, he told
reporters that he lost his civilian job because his superiors didn't
much care for his antiwar grandstanding. It was later discovered that
Massey quit his job in order to devote more time to antiwar activities
and his pursuit of celebrity. Some observers suspected that, like
Senator John Kerry, Massey wished to use his stories of Iraq in order
to begin a political career.
When a few journalists began to succeed in casting doubt on Sgt.
Massey's allegations, he backtracked from allegations he made in a 2004
radio interview and elsewhere that he had seen a tractor-trailer filled
with the bodies of Iraqi civilians when Marines entered an Iraqi
military prison outside Baghdad.
He told listeners that the scene was so bad "that the plasma from the
body and skin was decomposing and literally oozing out of the crevices
of the tractor-trailer bed."
According to reporters, he repeated the story in a Post-Dispatch
interview. But when told that the newspaper's photographs and
eyewitness reports had identified the trailer contents as all men,
mostly in uniform, Massey confessed that he had never seen the bodies.
He told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he received his information
from "intelligence reports." When asked if those reports were official
documents, he answered, "No, that's what the other Marines told me."
Massey's stories seemed to morph on a daily basis. For example, he
would tell his audiences and interviewers of an event he said he'd
never forget: Guys in his unit shooting civilian Iraqis in a red
automobile.
Massey said Marines fired at the vehicle after it failed to stop at a
checkpoint. Then he said the Marines stormed the car. Sometimes he said
three of the men were killed immediately while the fourth was wounded
and covered in blood; sometimes he said the fourth man was
"miraculously unscathed."
Sometimes he said the Marines left the three men on the side of the
road to die without medical treatment while the fourth man exclaimed:
"Why did you shoot my brother?" In other versions, he said the man made
the statement as medical personnel were attempting to treat the three
other men, or as the survivor sat near the car, or to Massey
personally.
There is no evidence that any of the versions occurred, according to
the Post-Dispatch.
In one tale Massey often spins, he and his fellow platoon members fired
upon a group of innocent demonstrators who protested the Marine
presence in Baghdad. Massey said that the demonstrators were protesting
the Marines' presence. Supposedly the Marines heard a shot and in panic
began shooting protesters.
There were different versions of that story, as well. In one version,
the demonstrators were near a checkpoint. In another version, they were
outside a prison on a road about 200 meters away. In still another
version they were from 5 to 15 miles from Baghdad International
Airport.
Not satisfied with denigrating his fellow soldiers in his own country,
Massey told a version of the story before an immigration hearing in
Canada. He was displaying his support for an American soldier trying to
flee to US. He told Canadians, that he and the Marines killed four of
the demonstrators. But in other interviews, the number jumped to 10
demonstrators. In another nine demonstrators were murdered but one
crawled away.
During the investigation into Massey's allegations, many Marines and
journalists who were in the military complex the morning of the alleged
massacre, none could recall such an occurrence.
In fact, they said that during the first week to two weeks inside
Baghdad, they never saw any protesters. Ron Haviv, an independent
photographer embedded with the unit, told the Dispatch-Port that he
never saw any protesters or demonstrators, with or without signs.
"Basically, the only people who were on the streets in the first week
were there to loot," said Haviv, who has covered conflicts across the
globe, including the first Gulf War, Haiti, Yugoslavia and Russia.
Lt. Kevin Shea, the commander of Massey's platoon, recalls that on the
morning after they arrived, about 20 Iraqis from a nearby community did
approach the Marines to ask what was happening. Shea said that he had
explained what the Marines were doing and that the Iraqis had gone back
to their homes.
In a speech in Syracuse in March, the Post Standard newspaper quoted
him as saying, "The reason the Marines teach you discipline . . . is so
that you can confront the enemy and kill him. . . . Or so you can put a
bullet into a 6-year-old, which is what I did. "
In the interview with the Post-Dispatch, Massey said he never
personally had shot a child.
"I meant that's what my unit did," he said.
He could not provide details. Nor could he name any Marine who could
corroborate any of his stories.
"Admitting guilt is a hard thing to do," he said.
In other speeches, Massey has said he personally shot a 6-year-old
child. In some versions, the child was a boy; at other times, a girl.
In short, there were so many holes in Massey's stories, you could march
a Marine battalion threw them. When pressed for corroboration, he would
confess to not seeing these incidents but being told about them by
other Marines. Sound familiar? That's exactly what John Kerry said
after he gave speeches and testified before congress about atrocities
committed during the Vietnam War. And the news media bought his stories
without the least bit of corroboration. Same as the media did with Sgt.
Jimmy Massey. Why? Because too many journalists wanted to believe these
phony stories. They fit in nicely with their personal view of soldiers,
intelligence officers even police officers.
One question Americans should ask is why isn't Sgt. Massey locked up
for the atrocities he admits he committed in Iraq? How about a special
prosecutor to investigate Massey and his newfound friends and allies in
the antiwar movement?
mattog...@aol.com
Knickkk...@Hang-up.com wrote:
> On 11 Nov 2005 06:12:21 -0800, "MFOgilvie"
> <matthew....@lmco.com> wrote:
>
>
> >The allegations leveled against the US military fit perfectly with the
> >liberal media's view of American soldiers and intelligence officers:
> >that they are brutal, ruthless killers and torturers.
>
>
> The issue is ADMINISTRATION sanctioning torture and abuse which the
> military carried out.
Which has not happened, so your claim is bogus, as usual.