Top Five Military Lies Australian Disinformation Publicist Chrenkoff is famous for his blog that touts "Good News From Iraq". What Chrenkoff and the mass media never mention is that the military lies repeatedly,unabashedly, and compulsively to the American public. Despite claims to the contrary, these lies are geared toward building American support for Bush Administration policy domestically rather than deceiving the Iraqi insurgency. Consider these incidents in light of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, the WMD claims prior to the Iraq war, and Rumsfeld's statment before the war quoting Churchill that "sometimes the truth is so precious it must be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies."...You can't say he didn't warn us! Here's the list: 1. Pat Tillman: The citation for Tillman's Silver Star stated that "his voice was heard issuing commands to take the fight to the enemy forces." What he was actually shouting, according to a fellow Ranger at the scene, was "Cease fire! Friendlies!" as he tried to stop the other element of his divided platoon from mistakenly engaging them with machine-gun fire. Such after-action mendacity not only taints Tillman's posthumous decoration but could have kept the Army from learning lessons from the incident, particularly about small unit maneuvers and communications in hostile terrain, that may save other soldiers. Read It 2. The Fallujah Assault: The U.S. military is reportedly distributing misinformation to the media as part of a campaign of psychological operations. This according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. The paper has uncovered incidents where the military has sent spokespersons to major news networks to deliberately lie about military operations in Iraq in an effort to deceive the Iraqi resistance. In one case, on Oct. 14, a Marine spokesperson appeared on CNN from Fallujah and said "Troops crossed the line of departure." CNN was soon reporting the battle for Fallujah had begun. In fact it wouldn't begin for another three weeks. A senior Pentagon official told CNN that Gilbert's remarks were "technically true but misleading." It was an attempt to get CNN "to report something not true," the official said. The military claimed it wanted to see how Iraqi fighters responded to the so-called news report. Anyone who repeats the claims of the military without independent confirmation is either a witless nitcompoop, or believes that a higher strategic purpose can be achieved through deception. Read It: 3. The toppling of the Saddam Statue: Earlier this year, another Los Angeles Times scoop (6/3/04) revealed that one of the most enduring images of the war-- the toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein in a Baghdad square on April 9, 2003-- was a U.S. Army psychological warfare operation staged to look like a spontaneous Iraqi action: "As the Iraqi regime was collapsing on April 9, 2003, Marines converged on Firdos Square in central Baghdad, site of an enormous statue of Saddam Hussein. It was a Marine colonel-- not joyous Iraqi civilians, as was widely assumed from the TV images -- who decided to topple the statue, the Army report said. And it was a quick-thinking Army psychological operations team that made it appear to be a spontaneous Iraqi undertaking." Read It: 4. There is no draft: David M. Miyasato enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve in 1987, served three years of active duty during the first Gulf War and received an honorable discharge in 1991. He remained on inactive status for five more years, until 1996. Since then, the Kaua'i resident has married, started an auto window tinting business and this year, he and his wife had their first child. But in September, Miyasato received a letter from the Army recalling him to active duty and directing him to report to a military facility in South Carolina on Tuesday. "I was shocked," Miyasato said yesterday. "I never expected to see something like that after being out of the service for 13 years." Miyasato is now suing the Secretary of the Army, asking a court to prevent the Army from ordering him to active duty. He is also asking for a court judgment declaring that he fulfilled all his obligations to the military. Read It: 5. Isolated Individuals Did It: A former military spokesman in Iraq said Saturday new pictures showing apparent abuse of Iraqi prisoners were the acts of an isolated few but will be used by some to try to tarnish the entire U.S. military. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, now based in Qatar, spoke on the pan-Arab television network a day after the U.S. military launched a criminal investigation into photographs that appear to show Navy SEALs in Iraq sitting on hooded and handcuffed detainees. Other photos show what appear to be bloodied prisoners, one with a gun to his head. Read It: Chrenkoff and the mass media repeatedly repeat military spin as if it were the gospel truth. Anyone who believes what the military says without independent confirmation is either a witless nitcompoop, or is willing to lie for strategic purposes. The price we pay is lost credibility in the eyes of the rest of the world as we view our own actions through blood-coloured glasses. "When you trade your values for the hope of winning, you end up losing and having no values, so you keep losing." -- Howard Dean, "You Have The Power"