IT'S A HOAX

Guys, I have received word from an unimpeachable source that the story of the 300 casualties is an absolute HOAX. I have requested permission to quote the full e-mail from the individual who wrote to me, and am awaiting that. If he gives permission, I'll quote in full, but suffice it to say that he was in-country at the time and spoke to those who were there, and his reputation is absolutely beyond reproach.

I can't write much today or tomorrow about it because I won't be at my computer, but as soon as possible, I will pull together as much research as I can. In the meantime, I am going to do everything in my power to see HOW this was done and WHO did it.

Nobody hates this war more than the families of the Marines and soldiers who are fighting and dying for it, and for anyone to think that they are actually helping in some kind of anti-war cause by dummying up a bogus list of war dead is not only morally bankrupt but absolutely counter-productive.

I must admit that this is the first time I have been taken in by an Internet hoax, and I apologize for posting without checking further, but I confess, they got me right in the gut; and I reacted emotionally, which is the first thing any journalist, even an Internet journalist, learns not to do.

It was the damn list. How do you fake NINE PAGES of names, ranks, and units? I still haven't figured that out, but I intend to try.

Whoever did this is lying scum of the earth--HOW DARE THEY manipulate the minds and hearts of those of us who have family and friends serving this country? Nobody hates this war more than me, but to perpetrate such a terrible lie is the lowest form of humanity.

I'm going to ride this like a bucking bronco and see if I can rally other bloggers not only to reveal the hoax, but to make it absolutely clear that such lies will not be tolerated in the anti-war community. I will also notify organizations such as Military Families Speak Out and Veterans Against the War that this is a hoax and to not only not let themselves be taken in, but to denounce it whenever possible.

As soon as I hear from my source, if he gives permission, I will post his e-mail in full.

In the meantime, check back in a few days and I'll have further updates.

MYTH? TRUTH? or a LITTLE OF BOTH?

"Well, it appears to be a troubled story."
--Thomas Ricks, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner for his war correspondence for the Washington Post, author of the bestselling book, FIASCO, The Military Adventure in Iraq, in an e-mail to me, today, October 30, 2006.


Guys, as soon as I posted the piece about 300 supposedly dead American soldiers and Marines from the incident which occurred on October 10, 2006 in Iraq, I was haunted that, if it were true, nothing had been reported from any of the mainstream media outlets, and if it were NOT true, then the nine-page, single-spaced casualty list complete with names, ranks, and units that I had printed up was somehow bogus, either made up or otherwise manipulated, and believe me, there are far more things more reprehensible or despicable.

But before I could do further research, our telephone service went out--we live in a rural area--and since we're working off an ancient dial-up system, I could not get online again for two days.

As soon as I was able to, I sent a fax with the entire article and casualty list to Democratic Congressman John Murtha's office with a request that he look into it and find out the truth of it, and I also sent e-mails to Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post, and Michael Gordon, who is the war correspondent for the New York Times and author of the bestselling book, COBRA II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq. I also contacted Bob Herbert, who is a columnist for the New York Times and the best one I've found for sensitivity to, and sympathy with, the families of our military fighting men and women.

My hope was that these award-winning journalists would have far greater contacts than I would, and I knew that, controversial though Rep. Murtha may be, he is retired after a career spanning more than 30 years in the Marine Reserves, is a long-time Capitol Hill hawk who supported this war in the beginning, and has the ear of many in the Pentagon who would give anything to be able to howl in protest over the way this war is being handled but don't dare unless they're willing to give up their careers immediately afterward, so they tell him, and he takes the flak from well-meaning people who have the unmitigated gall to question the patriotism of a man who fought bravely and with honor in defending our country (but that's another blog.)

Anyway, I only sent my inquiries out this morning, and each of these individuals often receive hundreds of requests every week, but so far, Tom Ricks did get right back to me, and he said that this story was "troubled," and he gave me a URL to click on for further study.

But believe it or not--our phones went out again!!

At any rate, I FINALLY got to check out the URL, and the piece I read seems to be related to a different, but similar, story about under-reporting of military casualties.

If this story is a myth, I absolutely do NOT want to give it any legitimacy or "legs" on my blog. An opinionated loudmouth broad I may be, but I tell truth here, I do not spread rumors and lies.

However, I have still not been able to completely discount this story, and this list of names bothers me a great deal. I could not list for you the names and ranks of all the guys my son serves with in his unit, much less make up an alphabatized list of hundreds that spread out over various units in the Army, Marines, and CIA.

I really don't think anybody could, frankly. And after the way wartime casualty lists were manipulated so grossly during the Vietnam war in order to fool the American people into thinking the war was going well, and with a controversial election coming up...I do think it is absolutely possible to cover-up something like this...for a while. But cover-ups and conspiracy theories always start to fall apart when you realize that it would depend upon a large number of fallible human beings to keep such a secret for any length of time. After all, there was only ONE "Deep Throat."

I am deeply disturbed to think that anyone, anywhere, no matter how much they hate this war and want to see it ended, would actually take a real list of, say, personnel employed on a base, or a list of casualties that covered, say, several months, and combined those numbers into a bogus list, because these are real people with real families. It would be a despicable thing to do.

On the other hand, if this list is real, and these deaths are being covered up, then I would hope that whoever ordered the cover-up burns in hell throughout eternity.

I assure you that I will continue to dig until I find--if not the truth--then a preponderance of evidence that I can present to my readers that will ease their minds one way or the other.

Suffice it to say that the Department of Defense released the names today of more young men who have been killed this bloody horror of a month, bringing the official total to more than 100 for one month alone. If even this pace keeps up, we'll easily have more than 5,000 dead before those who sent them to their deaths finally leave their death-grip on power.

Do pay attention to the news, however, and notice sudden flurries of activity deliberately designed to make it look as if the so-called "war on terror" or the war in Iraq are going better, or that there will be a change in management of the war, or anything that will make it look like things aren't as bad as they really are so that you'll be lulled into thinking it's all going to be all right after all, so why change?

Be careful what you believe, on either side, and vote smart.

WE'RE BEING LIED TO ABOUT THE WAR DEAD; TAKE THAT INTO THE VOTING BOOTH

"By now, it should be clearly obvious that the reporting of fatal casualties in both Iraq and Afghanistan are really understated. For example, we had a young officer in here about three days ago who was talking with several of us. He is assigned to the air field from which the dead are shipped back to Dover, Md. According to him, last month, he supervised the loading of over one hundred and seventy military caskets but amazingly, the official DoD reportage had only a fraction of that. Of course he has no names, only numbers, and perhaps some high officer or Halliburton thief is shipping dope or underaged girls back to the states inside the boxes but this man had no reason to lie. It will be interesting to see if the DoD website shows the deaths of the Falcon incident. Time will tell but they won't."
--300+U.S. Casualties: Forward Base Falcon "Coverup", reported by Brian Harring, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2006 from Houston Independent Media Center.


Remember back, oh, about three weeks ago--October 10, 2006, to be precise--when the evening news showed vivid footage of an ammunition dump on a major American military base outside Baghdad going off in a spectacular explosion? It was visible for miles around, absolutely massive, and was followed by other, gigantic explosions.

Remember how it was widely reported that no one was hurt or killed in that incident?

Didn't you find that just plain ODD? I know I did. I didn't see how such an accident could occur without the loss of at least a couple of guards' lives. I waited for several days for follow-up reporting, for an explanation as to what happened, for a list of casualties.

It never came.

At least, not on the evening news, nor have I read it in any of my usual news sources--none of the major newspapers have bothered to check out what really happened that day. But at http://houston.indymedia.org, I came across an article after all about the incident and automatically hit the print button, and I was surprised when it printed out 14 pages. That seemed like an awfully long article for a few explosions on a military base in a warzone.

Turns out, it wasn't a long article after all.

It was a casualty list.

Let me repeat that in case you are reading too quickly or just took a sip of coffee and so didn't quite get that.

IT IS A CASUALTY LIST. MORE THAN 300 NAMES, RANKS, AND UNITS OF DEAD AMERICAN SOLDIERS & MARINES, AS WELL AS A FEW CIA OFFICERS, TRANSLATORS, AND CIVILIAN CONTRACTORS. BUT THE VAST MAJORITY ARE AMERICAN TROOPS. KILLED IN THE MASSIVE SERIES OF EXPLOSIONS THAT WENT ON AND ON AND ON ALL NIGHT LONG ACCORDING TO WITNESS REPORTS.

According to the article, this base was constructed with the assistance of Iraqi contractors, and it is believed that one or more of them provided specific information to insurgents as to the most important and vulnerable targets within the huge base to direct the 82mm mortar rounds, Grad and Katyusha rockets so that they would strike tank rounds, artillery shells, and small-arms ammunition at the base, called Forward Operating Base Falcon. Once the ammunition was ignited, explosions and fires followed for the rest of the night, gutting the base.

Something like $1 BILLION worth of ammunition, artillery and rocket rounds, tons of fuel, six Apache helicopters, Humvees, and supply trucks were also damaged or destroyed.

There were 3000 people living on that base--not the 100 reported by the Pentagon. More than one-tenth did not make it out alive. There were also 165 seriously injured requiring major medical attention and 39 suffering lesser injuries. There were also 122 memobers of the Iraqi army killed and 90 seriously injured. They are not included on the list I am holding that goes on for NINE PAGES, single-spaced, in alphabetical order.

This list came from the U.S. military hospital at al-Habbaniyah, located 70km west of Baghdad.

And here is the report made two days after the incident, on Oct. 12, in Stars & Stripes Midease Edition, reported by Joseph Giordono:

Insurgent mortar fire hit an American military ammunition dump late Tueday night, setting off huge explosions and rattling windows and nerves throughout the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, military and civilian officials said Wednesday.

Tank rounds, artillery shells and small-arms ammunition at the Forward Operating Base Falcon site were ignited by the explosion and subsequent fire, casting an orange glow overnight and into Wednesday morning. No injuries were reported by late Wednesday.

And yet, satellite pictures and reports from neutral sources detailed the extensive damage, and BBC reporters took note of no less than NINE large American military transports with prominent Red Cross markings were observed leaving the base the next day.

FOB Falcon was home base to mostly the 4th Infantry Division, stationed at Ft. Bliss, Texas.

I understand why casualties in wartime are often under-reported. It has to do with morale of the troops and it has to do with not wanting to give any emotional ammunition to the enemy.

But during the Vietnam war, we saw a diabolical manipulating of casualty figures, done deliberatly to manipulate the American public into thinking the war was going well when it was, in fact, an endless horror of almost 60,000 of our brightest and best.

This casualty list brings the dead in Iraq well over the 2,801 reported so far--to well over 3.000. And if what that young soldier reported is true, that we've had many many more dead loaded onto planes heading to Dover--which are censored by the Pentagon--then who knows how many boys and girls have lost their lives in that hell hole.

The Bush administration and Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon lied in order to get us into their photo-op political-campaign war, and I can't help but believe that these casualties were not hidden from the media for purposes of morale, but to LIE TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE JUST BEFORE AN ELECTION SO THEY WOULD VOTE IN IGNORANCE.

I've got a casualty list NINE PAGES LONG in my hand right now. For one incident at one base on one day of this endless war.

When you go into the voting booth, I beg of you, vote for truth.

SEND A MESSAGE TO WASHINGTON SO LOUD & CLEAR THAT EVEN RUMSFELD WILL HEAR

"Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can't be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that…Somehow, the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes."
--Kevin Tillman, brother to slain football star-turned Army Ranger Pat Tillman, "After Pat's Birthday," posted to Truthdig.org Oct. 19, 2006. Kevin, also an Army Ranger, took part in the initial invasion of Iraq and also served in Afghanistan.



"They shall not return to us, the resolute, the young,
The eager and whole-hearted whom we gave:
But the men who left them thriftily to die in their own dung,
Shall they come with years and honour to the grave?"
--Rudyard Kipling, in his poem, "Mesopotamia," written in 1917 after a gruesome military disaster resulting in the deaths of thousands of British troops during their invasion of Iraq. "Kipling wanted to know why the men who sent the soldiers to their deaths day after day, week after week, month after month in a futile exercise of arrogance and stupidity still managed to escape punishment," says Newsweek correspondent Christopher Dickey in his online piece quoting the poem, "A Brother's Rage," Newsweek, MSNBC.com, posted Oct.24.



I don't know if I have any readers left out there, since I have not posted since the 18th of August, just before my son returned--safely and in one piece, thank glorious God--from his harrowing, deadly second deployment to the vicious Anbar province of Iraq with the Marine Corps.

I did not post during my son's leave because I was trying to help him sort through his rage and grief over what had happened to him and his buddies in Iraq, and his fear of having to go back--YET AGAIN--to the same place for the same exercise in death-defying futility.

My son is a proud Marine, who served bravely and well--as did all his surviving buddies, with and without all their arms and legs--and he will return to that bloody and terrible place should the Marines ask it of him, which could very well happen.

But he is bitter and almost completely worn down by the sheer mental and physical and emotional exhaustion of recovering from one deployment, while, at the same time, enduring YET MORE war-training in YET ANOTHER desert while, all along, dreading the likelihood of going back and then, YET AGAIN, being forced to survive ANOTHER deployment to HELL before coming home to start the cycle ALL OVER AGAIN.

In case those of you who still think the Republicans are the family-values party, consider this: the military active-duty divorce rate has DOUBLED since the Iraq war began. It is impossible to manage a marriage and raise children when you are gone many months or a year or more to a harrowing war, have some time home, and then get sent back out to risk death for more months and years of absence, come home, and then get sent back out again. Military families understand that separation is a part and parcel of their lives, but not like this, not with this kind of awful endless stress. No one serving in any American war ever has had to deal with this. Once they did their duty, previous veterans, they got to come home, with or without the parades.

When Donald Rumsfeld literally grabbed a war-weary Army Stryker-force out of line as they were due to go home after a whole year in-country, and forced them to stay an extra four months, he not only doomed to die those who were subsequently sent home in body bags but he doomed a number of marriages that simply cannot stand the strain.

When my son heard what had happened to the Stryker force, he was horrified. "That's CRIMINAL," he said, "Somebody should be OUTRAGED. Why aren't more people OUTRAGED?"

I told him, This is why I do Blue Inkblots. Somebody should be outraged.

Of course, none of this counts the horrifying numbers of troops returning home with massive brain injuries, amputations, and desperate cases of post traumatic stress who, thanks to the stretched-thin ranks, get sent back anyway.

Then we're all shocked and awed when atrocities occur. As if anything that could possibly be perpetrated by a stressed-out soldier or Marine on the enemy can come CLOSE to the slaughter of Iraqi-on-Iraqi that is taking place to the tune of thousands of civilians being blown apart and tortured to death every single solitary day by their own countrymen.

And if you still think that the Republican party is the patriotic, support-the-troops party, consider this little dose of reality:

Bob Geiger, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America took a look at 324 legislative votes in the last five years which affected American troops and veterans. Legislative proposals included veteran's benefits, health care, and medical research dedicated towards injured soldiers (head injuries, etc.) Based on these votes, the IAVA calculated which senators and congressmen had a history of supporting the troops, and which didn't, and graded them on a curve. You can see the full results at the IAVA website. But Bob has put the Senate rankings in order of letter grade, and produced this handy chart…
--posted by Hunter on Daily Kos, Oct. 24, 2006.

(Guys, I did my best to copy over that chart here but was unable to do so. Suffice it to say that Democrats out-performed Republicans TWO TO ONE on voting for veteran's rights and the care of our active-duty troops. Most of the Republicans in close elections made D's on his curve.

* A reader has just posted the address for the rankings: http//www.vawatchdog.org. Click on "vote veterans" to be able to see the congressional rankings, including those of your own congressperson.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., a growing number of more than 100 active-duty American troops have submitted a petition to congress urging that the war be brought to an end and the troops brought home. They are able to do this without fear of repercussion because of the Military Whistle-Blower Protection Act.

According to RawStory.com:

Hutto explained that the idea of issuing Appeals for Redress originated in early 2006,
when he was deployed off the coast of Iraq on the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt.

"An old buddy of mine, who was a member of the GI movement back in the early 1970s," Hutto explained, "sent me a 30th anniversary copy of Soldiers in Revolt, written by David Cortwright. The book chronicles the GI movement within the military during the Vietnam War who advocated to end that war and bring the troops home."

Hutto continued, "One of the avenues that they used, which was a legal one, is appealing to their political leaders in Washington. By 1971 over 250,000 of these active duty servicemen had appealed to the Congress people."

"None of the Marines know that there is a policy available to them," Madden added, "and that it’s everybody’s duty to support democracy and do it much more effectively than we are in exercising these rights in Iraq."

J.E. McNeil, a former military JAG lawyer, emphasized that all servicemen and women still have their rights as U.S. citizens and can exercise them when need be."

This is the tip of the iceberg of active-duty military members, from enlisted up to the highest ranks, who are horrified at the astonishing ineptitude with which they've been forced to fight this war, and want to see change, as requested by no less than eight retired generals just a few months ago.

Don't trust Pentagon predictions, either. When General Casey and others talk about how many Iraqi army troops have been trained and are ready to go, it belies the actual reality on the ground experienced by servicemembers like my son: At any one time, up to 50% of every Iraqi army battalion is AWOL or on leave. Plus, most of the Iraqi army refuses to serve away from their home districts. Casey himself requested six battalions of Iraqi army troops to help with the Baghdad massacres going on there, and TWO have shown up. This is why more American troops are being discussed for Baghdad. The much-vaunted Iraqi army is NOT standing up and we CAN'T stand down just because we've TRAINED them.

It is not unusual, in fact, for Iraqi army troops to refuse entry into neighborhoods that are responsible for most of the violence, because that neighborhood reflects their own tribal or religious sensibilities. Recently, we had to raid Sadr city, where most of the violence occurs, without notifying Iraq's prime minister. Bush can say what he wants, the truth on the ground is that we could not trust the Iraqi prime minister not to BETRAY US.

This insanity has got to stop. Just because Bush says, with great fanfare and press coverage, that he is no longer going to use the term stay the course does not mean that he will actually change that very course. In his recent much-publicized meeting with General Abizaid, the meeting lasted all of one-half hour.

The other photo-op meeting with generals was halted mid-meeting because of a power blackout coming from the insulated Green Zone of Baghdad, which prevented those generals from participating.

Remember when Dick Cheney's buddies out at Halliburton were given billions in no-bid contracts precisely to FIX all that? Where has that money gone?

Speaking of money, did you know that every single SECOND we spend another $6,300 in Iraq? The total tab could very well come to more than $1 TRILLION, or $6,600 in taxes paid by every man, woman, and child in this country. Or borrowed, I should say, because this president won't put the real costs in the Defense budget.

Instead, he has his rubber-stamp congress pass "emergency spending bills" in billions every year that he then borrows from China and others. That's how much the taxpayers will owe to foreign governments in the coming years, plus interest.

(So much for the $50 billion predicted by Donald Rumsfeld in the rush to war. Of course, let's not forget the $20 million that has been tucked away in the Defense department budget by these arrogant men for what? VICTORY CELEBRATIONS, in the biggest photo-op EVER. When they didn't get their "victory" this year, they just rolled the money on over into next-year's budget.)

I don't believe this country has ever witnessed a greater disconnect between an administration's photo-op, campaign war--and the reality of real war and it's real costs to our nation. Not even during Vietnam.

And as far as the much-hoped for Iraq Study Group headed by Bush family friend James Baker is concerned, who are supposed to come up with a major change in strategy after the elections, I saw Bush myself, say, "I don't have to do what the study group suggests. It's just suggestions."

Folks, the only way to stop the futility of the daily slaughter of our boys and girls over there is to fill Congress and the Senate with Democrats who will not assume the stance of See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil about this administration adopted by the Republicans who have served at its beck and call and whim for six long bloody horrifying years.

Yes, he will still hold the veto power which he has never used but will probably use daily with the Democrats, but at least he will not be allowed to run roughshod over congress any more. He will have to be held accountable for this terrible war.

Somebody, somewhere, has to end this madness.

And do you know who that is?

YOU.

Vote on November 7. Or vote absentee. But vote.

Vote to end the madness. Vote to end the insanity. Vote to stop a deaf dumb and blind administration from doing any more damage than they have already done, not just to this country, but to the world.

Vote for a REAL change in strategy in Iraq, not just a change in slogan. Do it now, because two years from now when we are voting new leadership...it may be too late.


They shall not return to us, the resolute, the young,
The eager and whole-hearted whom we gave:
But the men who left them thriftily to die in their own dung,
Shall they come with years and honour to the grave?