Zeroing in on Newspeak

Black and White and Full of Crap by Ted Rall (Common Dreams) revisits the Pat Tillman story, one year later, to see which parts of it hold up under closer scrutiny (spoiler: not much).

Tillman was the “the former NFL player who turned down a multi-million dollar football contract to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan” and was subsequently killed in action. First off, let’s not lose sight of the fact that Pat himself probably had his priorities straight. He had his facts all wrong and his brain was squeaky clean from a lifetime of government-approved media, but his heart was in the right place. He placed defending his country and way of life above making a lot of money. This is a good thing. The way these priorities were harnessed by the liars to whom he pledged allegiance should give even the staunchest, blindest supporters of “Amurka” pause. But it probably won’t.

As those that followed subsequent, well-hidden reports (or admissions), it turns out that Tillman had not “died trying to save fellow members of the 75th Ranger Regiment” as in the oft-repeated, official Pentagon version of the story. Tillman was just another “hapless victim of ‘friendly fire’”, another soldier who “died in a hail of American bullets, fired by troops who had ‘lost situational awareness to the point [that] they had no idea where they were.’” It seems to happen more and more often; a large percentage of American deaths in Afghanistan are come courtesy of American bullets.

The Pentagon knew what had happened immediately, going so far as to immediately “burn … Tillman’s Ranger uniform and body armor” to hide the large-caliber, American bullet holes in them. They cold-bloodedly (with a cruelty we have been repeatedly assured only our evil enemies possess) seized the opportunity to make political points from Tillman’s death, refraining from informing his “family or the public until weeks after” the media blitz was over, having firmly burned the legend of the all-American Tillman deep into every freedom-loving American’s brain.

And it just fits so well into the pattern of things that we’re all supposed to believe about America these days; things that exist only in a fantasy land inhabited by our leaders.

“The weapons of mass destruction turned out to be a figment of Donald Rumsfeld’s imagination. The Thanksgiving turkey Bush presented to the troops turned out to be plastic, as much of a staged photo op as the gloriously iconic and phony toppling of Saddam’s statue in Baghdad by jubilant Iraqi civilians—well, actually a few dozen marines and CIA-financed operatives.”

The other, brave soldier to return home, Jessica Lynch was also initially purported to have Rambo-ed her way through a part of Iraq, managing to empty both clips into Hussein hangers-ons before succumbing to possible rape at the hands of savages, from whom she was rescued in a daring nighttime mission. Also bunk.

“[She was] neither shot nor sexually violated, said she was injured when her vehicle crashed. She never got off a shot because her gun jammed. As she told reporters who were willing to listen, her Iraqi doctors and nurses had given her excellent care.”

See The war’s over, right? (earthli.com) for more details from the time. The pattern is repeated over and over; lies are spread instantly and ubiquitously whereas the truth, even when it comes, is reluctantly and sporadically disseminated. This helps only those in power — the rest of us Americans suffer as our image as “idiots who’ll believe anything” is further and further reinforced. Our TVs our the enemy, but we have to want it to be different. Otherwise, the status quo continues.

“Readers of the American press and viewers of American radio and television are likelier to see and believe loudly repeated lies over occasionally whispered truths told once or twice.”

This has to change before things get any better.