Posted on 11/06/2005 5:25:33 AM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
WASHINGTON - For more than a year, former Marine Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey has been telling anybody who would listen about the atrocities that he and other Marines committed in Iraq.
In scores of newspaper, magazine and broadcast stories, at a Canadian immigration hearing and in numerous speeches across the country, Massey told how he and other Marines recklessly, sometimes intentionally killed dozens of innocent Iraqi civilians.
Among his claims:
Marines fired on and killed peaceful Iraqi protesters.
Americans shot a 4-year-old Iraqi girl in the head.
Tractor-trailers were filled with the bodies of civilian men, women and children killed by American artillery.
Massey's claims have gained him celebrity. Last month, Massey's book, Kill, Kill, Kill, was released in France. His allegations have been reported in nationwide publications such as Vanity Fair and USA Today, as well as numerous broadcast reports. Earlier this year, he joined the anti-war bus tour of Cindy Sheehan and he's spoken at Cornell and Syracuse universities, among others.
News organizations worldwide published or broadcast Massey's claims without any corroboration and in most cases without investigation. Outside of the Marines, almost no one has seriously questioned whether Massey, a 12-year veteran who was honorably discharged, was telling the truth.
He wasn't.
Each of his claims is either demonstrably false or exaggerated - according to his fellow Marines, Massey's own admissions, and the five journalists who were embedded with Massey's unit, including a reporter and photographer from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and reporters from the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal.
Massey, 34, was discharged in December 2003, shortly after returning from Iraq due to depression and post-traumatic stress syndrome.
He began turning up in the press and broadcast last spring with stories about military atrocities. Massey's primary thrust has been that Marines from his battalion - some of whom, he told a Minneapolis audience were ''psychopathic killers'' - recklessly shot and killed Iraqi civilians, sometimes, he said, upon orders from their commanders.
I'm a politics junkie, and I've never heard of this guy. He may be like Jerry Lewis, wildly popular in France, but I think the MSM heard of him and never pushed him. I could be wrong...but I've not heard of him.
It makes my blood boil to read this.
You are spot on when you opine that the news "professionals" were too busy trying to paint a lousy picture to do even the most basic research.
You would think that making slanderous statements like these would require at least basic collaboration from other verifiable sources, but...no.
If I were a Marine or ex-Marine, I would beat the tar out of this guy if I ever met him face to face for the slander he has perpetrated on his (no longer) fellow Marines.
Shunning would be best, but this guy is too far gone to be affected by shunning.
Dan Rather has got to be involved in all this somehow.
Cf. Blue Falcon
He may have received a medical discharge for PST.
However, there should be some legal way to end his PST ravings.
Thank you for posting the article. Where did you find the complete article?
I'm sure the DNC has already called him for job opportunities. I assume Michael Moore already has him cast for his latest hit piece.
The Post Dispatch is a left wing propaganda rag. It is the only newspaper in town, and this year I finally cancelled my subscription after 25 years of their crap. Giving them kudo's for finally printing a story after watching the pos traitor spread his lies for over a year isn't anything I'm going to do. Something must have forced them to do this. Probably afraid that some other publication would point out that they had the truth and sat on it, since they had an embedded reporter.
We at FR had him pegged as a liar.
"I meant that's what my unit did," he said.
This son of a bitch had better pray that nobody from his unit catches up with him. I can't see members of Massey's former unit having a sense of humor about this.
NOTORIeTY is the more accurate term here, not celebrity.
This pretty much explains everything... The press creating the news again:
Q: Tell me about the story of the civilian deaths that is recounted in the Sacramento Bee article.
A: I had actually forgotten about this. I had it repressed in my mind. I am writing a book. A French journalist is helping me with the structure of it. She drove down here after the story in The Mountaineer. She investigated and found out it was true. ...
Gassey..er, I mean Massey, sure looks like Elton John.
"You can't blame the embedded reporters for this."
Oh Pleeeze. Yeah the poor reporters have nowhere to go, no one will listen to them. Give me a break!
The paper's editor resigned yesterday, so maybe the reporter couldn't get the story out till now. There's been a few people informing me that the paper is a leftist rag, so maybe some things are changing for the better now. I hope so. This idiot's lies should not stand.
Yeh...and what's more, he looks awfully smiley for a guy who should be on trial for committing atrocities.../s
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.