Jessica Lynch walks with a limp from the extensive wounds she received in the early days of the invasion of Iraq. Pat Tillman lies in a grave – gunned down by his own comrades in Afghanistan.
Both represent the sacrifices that soldiers make in service to their country. Sadly, both also became pawns of a propaganda machine created tosell an illegal and immoral war to a gullible American public.
The Pentagon’s propaganda machine fabricated Lynch as a petite female Rambo, holding off the enemy after her vehicle was hit by a rocket. In fact, the attack left her unconscious and unable to fight.
“Tales of great heroism were being told,” Lynch told a Congressional hearing Tuesday. “My parent’s home in Wirt county [West Virginia] was under siege of the media all repeating the story of the little girl Rambo from the hills who went down fighting. It was not true.”
Neither was the story of her “rescue,” videotaped by the Army at the height of the invasion. The Army told a harrowing tale of invading an Iraqi compound and liberating her. She was, in fact, in an abandoned medical facility and Iraqi medical staff led soldiers to her. No gunfire. No hostiles. Just a pickup of a prisoner left behind by fleeing forces.
“I am still confused as to why they chose to lie and tried to make me a legend when the real heroics of my fellow soldiers that day were, in fact, legendary,” Lynch said. “The American people did not need to be told elaborate tales. The truth of war is not always easy to hear but it always more heroic than the hype.”
When it came to hype, the Army had a ready-made opportunity with Pat Tillman, the NFL player who gave up a multi-million dollar career to join the military during the patriotic pathos of post-9/11 America.
Tillman, along with his brother, became an Army Ranger and went to Afghanistan where he died in combat. The Army said he died heroically fighting the enemy and awarded the slain soldier a Silver Star.
In fact, he died from “friendly fire” in a screw up of communications that brought his location under attack from other American soldiers.
The Army tried to cover it up.
The Army, brother Kevin Tillman, also in Afghanistan that day, concocted “intentional falsehoods” along with “deliberate and careful misrepresentations in portraying his death as the result of heroic engagement with the enemy.”
“We believe this narrative was intended to deceive the family but more importantly the American public,” Tillman said. “Pat’s death was clearly the result of fratricide (friendly fire). Revealing that Pat’s death was a fratricide would have been yet another political disaster in a month of political disasters … so the truth needed to be suppressed.”
Reports The Associated Press:
An Army Ranger who was with Pat Tillman when the former football star was cut down by friendly fire in Afghanistan said Tuesday a commanding officer had ordered him to keep quiet about what happened.
The military at first portrayed Tillman’s death as the result of heroic combat with the enemy. Army Spc. Bryan O’Neal told a congressional hearing that when he got the chance to talk to Tillman’s brother, who had been in a nearby convoy on the fateful day, “I was ordered not to tell him what happened.”
“You were ordered not to tell him?” repeated Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
“Roger that, sir,” replied O’Neal, dressed in his Army uniform.
Ideally, both Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman should be recognized as heroes who served their country in time of war.
Instead, they became pawns in a far-bigger war: a conflict of lies used to sell an invasion launched for fabricated reasons and fought – to this day – for political reasons that have nothing to do with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 or any actual threat to the peace and security of the United States.
Like all soldiers who have died, come home maimed or face a future of haunting nightmares from an insane war, they deserved far better.
15 thoughts on “Pawns of propaganda”
Yes, it is just a very evil sick game that is being played to enrich the elites and to create the false basis for more control over americans by removing constitutional rights in the name of a war on terrorism.
Threat, my ass. If there was such a threat, how come our southern border is open for anyone to stroll in with a nuclear suitcase bomb or some biological weapon? The socalled attacks by terrorists have mostly been staged by our own CIA or Israels Mossad. Anyone not know the truth about the attack on the USS Liberty by Israli Fighters? For one long day Israli Jets attacked our communications ship repeatedly killing nearly all aboard. This was no case of mistaken identity as the stars and stripes flew in full view. Our commanders knew of this attempted act meant to put the blame on socalled terrorists when it was Israel that killed those american sailors. That event was covered up just like so many other events that were treasonist and meant as false flag operations. Tonkin Bay Incedent was a hoax to justify attacking Viet Nam. It is just sickening how american soldiers and sailors have been murdered for the propaganda needed to convince citizens of the need to have war. The truth is they do it for profit. Exactly what Eisenhower warned us about in his fairwell speech. This nation has become a society that supports a huge war machine and therefore that machine creates conflicts to justify its very existence and ever increasing need for more money. They do this by creating boogy men in foriegn countries and tell us that we are in danger so we must spend untold amounts of money to be safe, when in truth there is no threat that justifies the trillions of dollars going into the pockets of war mongers and profiteers.
Sadly, it is the american taxpaying citizen that will suffer financially and physically and ultimately lose the very freedom we are told is being protected.
Oh, that’s easy…
Because Bush & Cheney know deep in their hearts that America is illegally occupying Iraq, so to make the last four years look like we’re at war, they use people like Jessica & Pat as symbols of how much fun war is and how our soldiers are working hard everyday!
Is it hard work illegally occupying a sovereign nation that didn’t attack our nation on 9/11 nor had the capability to launch a rock with a slip shot at us? Not really. It’s hard work making this illegal occupation look like World War II, though. This could be why the Bush Regime is illegally funding the insurgency behind the scenes with Saudi Arabia! Hey, I think that could very well be true.
Oh and don’t forget HALLIBURTON!
Not only has Halliburton been pilfering and plundering the American treasury by overcharging our country for services not rendered, but they would also like to get back into Iran to continue doing business with our enemy. Jees, people! It’s hard work doing business with the enemy, so Georgie is making Iraq look like a real war and Dick Cheney is behind the scenes telling his Baby to set up shop in Dubai so Halliburton can continue to do business with our enemy! See?
I wonder how our soldiers feel knowing they’re just pawns in Bush & Dick’s little Financial Transaction over there? Huh. I wonder.
Bush Regime: “It’s time for another “hero” to pulled up to form America’s psyche again!”
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Self Defense is an affirmative defense for homicide. To use it, you have to prove it. Fear is not proof. There has to be a real and credible threat.
There was no real and credible threat from Iraq or Afghanistan. Combined there are are not enough people in the two countries to run the American Bureaucracy. There are 22 million people working for government in the USA.
There was no credible threat of conquest.
That alone is enough to prove that we are not defending ourselves.
The war cannot be justified on the grounds of defending ourselves, so it must be glorified as a “clash of cultures” or the “liberation” of an oppressed people. If you must glorify the war, you must also glorify the warriors. Lost causes are fought with medals of valor.
Razor, the Nazis were damn close to creating the atomic bomb just before the war ended. We were using everything we could find to prevent it. And when the war ended we and the Russians grabed all the German scientists and their documents we could that were working on nuclear fission. They were greatly instrumental in our being the first to create the bomb and the Russians not far behind. In fact, without them, The Russians may not have been able to produce them for many years.
The same is true for the jet planes. The Germans already had working jets at the wars end. Given 6 more months they would have been flying them.
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