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Propaganda Finally Exposed: Deliberate and Calculated Lies
No one should be surprised by today's testimony on Capitol Hill. The Congress, under Democratic management, has finally resumed its responsibility for oversight of the Executive Branch after years of the Republicans wielding the Bush rubber stamp and saying "Thank you, sir! May I have another!" as our civil liberties are flushed away.
Kevin Tillman, in speaking about how the Pentagon turned his brother Pat Tillman's tragic death into just another political public relations stunt, spoke truth to power testified that
his brother had been "transferred to an intensive care unit for continued CPR after most of his head had been taken off by multiple .556 rounds is not misleading."
"These are deliberate and calculated lies," he said.
Pat Tillman and his family deserved better than blatant and repeated lies. The arrogance continues, as the Pentagon announced that those responsible would be subjected to "corrective action." A slap in the face to a deceased veteran and his grieving family.
The fact that the Pentagon would even consider manufacturing such a story for political purposes should shock the conscience of every citizen of this nation. The fact that it has done so and the administration has stood idly by, tacitly accepting the benefits of these lies is reprehensible.
Pat Tillman gave his life for this country and each one of its citizens. Even so, in voluntarily providing service to this nation, he was forced to serve under the command of these ungrateful, spineless, meretricious, ham-fisted liars. They should be ashamed, as should anyone who supported them then or who supports them now. The President should publicly and personally apologize the each of the Tillman family members and should identify, fire and prosecute every individual at the Pentagon responsible for this travesty. Any bets on whether he will bother to do so?
How's that for "supporting the troops"?
The Jessica Lynch story is but the icing on the cake to this carnival of mendacity and incompetence (to mix metaphors). She put it rather elequently when testified about the official story propounded by the Pentagon and the Administration:
"It was not true," she said before gently chiding the military. "The truth is always more heroic than the hype."
The media is no less complicit in this blatant propagandizing: it was, after all, a story precisely calculated (no doubt by the Bush political operatives) to be perfect fodder for the news cycle, the publishing circuit and the made-for-TV movie.
Little girl "Rambo" indeed.
It is all-too-telling that the vast majority of the citizens of this country were taken in by these tactics. How can this nation strive to the greatness it professes when its citizens fail to think for themselves, to seek the truth and to grant reality open access to the public discourse.
In the next war (god forbid), remember to be appropriately suspicious when you wake up to a cable news show airing footage of a few soldiers trying to pull down a statue in the public square. Next time, ask yourself: Why are soldiers engaging this symbolic, made-for-TV action with no discernable military purpose? Who ordered them to do so and why? Where are the citizens, the candy, the flowers?