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Pentagon’s twisted tales of fake war heroes exposed
Posted By Emile Tayyip
“In war, truth is the first casualty,” said Greek dramatist Aeschylus somewhere around 500 BC.
“All warfare is based on deception,” proclaimed fifth century Chinese General Sun Tzu in his military manual, The Art of War.
These two quotes proved to be true last week when a Pentagon plot to twist stories of two of the most celebrated heroes of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars was revealed. One was Pat Tillman, the pro-football star who was mourned as a hero killed by Afghan fighters in 2004, while in fact he died by friendly fire. The other “hero” was a girl whose capture and rescue in the early days of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq inspired the TV drama-documentary 'Saving Jessica Lynch.'
Now both stories returned to haunt the Pentagon.
The two tales reveal a propaganda plot in which the truth was deliberately twisted to rally public support for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
On Tuesday, the two cases converged in a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government reform, chaired by the California Congressman Henry Waxman, a fierce critic of the Bush administration since the Democrats recaptured Congress last November.
Waxman vowed to follow both cases wherever they may lead. He says the Tillman affair may lead to a cover-up involving former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Private Jessica Lynch case may have a lesser impact on the Bush administration. Early news of her capture portrayed her as a hero who was saved by American supermen. The initial version was that Lynch was shot and stabbed after fighting off attackers until she ran out of ammunition, while the truth is that she was wounded when her Humvee was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. She later said she never fired her weapon because it jammed.
From early on, Lynch complained how she felt she had been used. This week she made her feelings crystal clear to Waxman's committee.
“I am still confused as to why they chose to lie and tried to make me a legend… The story of the little girl Rambo from the hills who went down fighting is not true," Lynch said. "The bottom line is, the American people are capable of determining their own ideals for heroes, and they don't need to be told elaborate lies."
Lynch’s case may be closed, but Tillman’s is not. His brother, Kevin Tillman, told Waxman's committee on Tuesday that the U.S. government “deliberately” lied about the circumstances of the death, wrongly reporting that Tillman died in a fight with the enemy instead of friendly fire.
Tillman was just 27 years old when he was killed by his comrades in Afghanistan in April 2004. This fact was known to members of his unit, but was instantly suppressed. The military hailed him as a hero and awarded him a Silver Star, the military's third highest award.
Waxman’s committee wants to know how “accurate information from the battlefield was delayed, distorted or suppressed'' to serve public relations goals, especially after a March 26 report from the Pentagon's inspector general identified nine officers who might be disciplined over Tillman’s case.
One of them, Lt. General Philip Kensinger, head of Army special operations in 2004, refused to testify to the committee on Tuesday, invoking his right to avoid self-incrimination.
But the information that emerged during the hearing was shocking enough.
An Army Ranger who was with Sgt. Tillman when he died told how he realized that friendly fire was to blame. He said he wanted to tell Tillman’s brother, who was serving in the same unit, but he was warned by his commander to stay out of trouble. “I was quite appalled that when I was actually able to speak to Kevin, I was ordered not to tell him what happened,” he said.
Kevin's testimony was even more damaging.
He accused the military of "deliberate and calculated lies," designed to transform his brother's tragic death into "an inspirational message" - carefully timed to divert attention from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal which broke out only days before the incident, as well as mounting U.S. casualties in Iraq.
The government's “deliberate and calculated lies… inspired countless Americans… but there was one small problem with this narrative, however: It was utter fiction,” Kevin told Waxman’s committee.
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