“Former Army Ranger” Claims War Crimes in Iraq
I picked this up from Little Green Footballs this morning.
It seems a man named Jessie MacBeth has done an interview regarding his time in Iraq as a Ranger. The interview is done in three parts over on YouTube and are quite interesting to listen to, if only to hear a clear echo of testimony from the 1970’s by a man named John Kerry.
As far as looking at details that provide indications as to the supporting facts, Uncle Jimbo, with his tag team partner, Matt lend their life experience of many years of Army life (with much time spent in the Special Operations world between them) and…they think the dude is a fake. They and their cxommenters point out dramatic irregularities with the photo Jessie has on the net. It seems many uniform infractions are noted, and that, wouldn’t be allowed in one of those official pictures.
Me? Well, I’m a Navy guy who went to an Amry school. I will say I spent time playing agressor against the Army ROTC guys, at the urging omy my Army ROTC classmates, who did go to Ranger School during summer time. From the stories they told, and having spent four years with these men, Jessie sure doesn’t seem to be the type that would have lasted in such training, let alone a Ranger field unit.
I found it strange that Jessie never seemed to digress into a worl of what most civilians would consider a strange language, full of acroynms and codewords. There are at least four “dialects” spoken, with the uniquness a relation to the service branch, and then there is also “Chief” or “Sargent” subdialects, but I digress. Jessie used the term “hooah” once in the early part of the interview, and, as I reflect on that, it didn’t seem like more than a word to him. I’d have thought a Ranger would use it as though it was a natural part of his vocabulary, with a noticable “accent” to it. Throughout the rest of the speaking, he spoke English that just about anyone could follow, except for his stutter. I think his stuttering would have also been a major problem with him getting into any unit where rapid and consise communications demark the difference between life and death.
Lisening to him talk, I heard:
- The war was based on lies;
- The war was for oil;
- Our country has become the terrorists;
- Our men had killed, in cold blood, Iraqi civilians “I didn’t keep count, but at least 200 by my hand;”
- He loved his country;
- He would fight for this country, but not for the President;
- The only fighting he would do was to get George Bush out of office.
Pardon me, but aren’t almost all of those sentiments/statements the same ones used by John Kerry in the early 70s? The model is even the same, where a service member claims the military is commiting genocide, and he even was a part of it. He needs a great lawyer, if his statements are true, for he is what we would call a serial murderer, and, if he had bothered to spent a few moments reading history, specifically the reports of the Nuremburg Trials, he would know that following orders of your superiors is no defense at all for your immoral actions.
Jessie seemed pretty calm when discussing the entire issue. I have a good friend who is working thru PTSD from his days as a Marine in Vietnam. He still tells me, even within his group therapy, it is difficult to discuss many things that happened back then, and he is a strong man. Jessie seems to be a wallflower, and not really affected by the brutality of killing 200 people himslef, let alone the many others he claims to have witnessed in the building the Air Force bombed.
The bottom line to me: His story is superficial to the point I’d say he may never have been in the service, but if he was, he was an administrative or logisitcs worker, far, far from the front. In addition, he doesn’t have the demeanor of ex-service personnel.
I think this young man got handed a script, prepared by anti-war activists, and he memorized it. I think he got sold down the river and the blogosphere will soon have cross-examined enough of Jessie’s life to proclaim this is just one more hoax in a series.
Update 5/23/2006: As Jim Neighbors would have said….”SURPRISE!, SURPRISE!, SURPRISE!!!!” It seems Jessie’s Army service record is not found in the US ARMY records. The many of “An Army of Davids” chimed in well within 24 hours and ferreted out the truth based on their discrete knowledge. BZ!
On the other hand, the interview didn’t have to be around long in this counrty, only long enough to get loose, like a bad case of the swine flu. I’m sure many people in the rest of the world have downloaded the three parts from YouTube and they are making their rounds to whip up anti-US opinion.
All we need now is Dan Rather to come back to comment on how the Jessie MacBeth videos were fake, but accurate…
