Don't be fooled. The peddling of a lie.
June 19, 2005
Doing the morning news, I run across this entry from echidne on The American Street, pointing to Jim Lampley on The Huffington Post.
A Bush-watcher website identified as TBRNews.org is reporting under the byline of “domestic intelligence reporter” Brian Harring that the Department of Defense is using a cynical tactic to mislead the public regarding the true death toll for American military personnel in Iraq. Harring claims he has an internal pdf. file from the D.O.D. which establishes that nearly 9000 Americans have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom, but that the official number has been held to 1713 by designating as Iraq deaths only those who perish on Iraqi soil. The remainder, he says, are military personnel who have died en route to Germany or in German hospitals– casualties of the war, but not listed in the official death toll.
If this is true it would explain the apparent statistical discrepancy between dead and wounded. A combat action which produces nearly eight times as many officially wounded– 13000 plus– as officially dead…well, it’s not the norm. It goes without saying it would also further jolt a public majority already disturbed by the war’s “progress” and eager to see the troops come home.
I smelled something fishy. 7,000 under-reported deaths? I didn't think that would be easily hidden. So I checked the comments and someone said the guy behind the site went by various aliases and had been soundly discredited. She suggested a Google search on the name "Walter Storch". When I saw the link to a story on "Karl Rove Seen at Homosexual Orgies", I knew where we were headed. More informatively, DKos had a diary entry dating from the Gannon/Guckert timeframe delving into who the people behind TBRNews.org are. The answer: Holocaust deniers. Youch and a half!
These people are connected to a bunch of lies and bogus conspiracy theories. It appears they're in the conspiracy theory industry. I link to the DKos diary and an SPLC article included in that diary entry from my comment on The American Street (below)
(comment left on The American Street) Not only is this story BS, it's BS from a site closely tied to Holocaust deniers. Several people linked to the DKos diary entry exposing TBRNews, but the need to cry "BEWARE" needs to be made louder. This story is almost certainly false, false false. [update 8/20: The two DKos diaries are mysteriously missing, possibly as a result of a recent maintenance work? I'm hoping, rather than pressure from TBRNews.] I think it's also interesting to note the connections of the people behind this conspiracy theory to the same people who advanced conspiracy theories about 9/11 (specifically blaming Israel) and indirectly to conspiracy theories about the Oklahoma City Federal Building. I'm always dismissive of such crazy conpspiracy theories. I shake my head and question why people are willing to buy into this stuff so readily. Some of these "left-wing" conspiracy theories actually turn out to be formulated by extreme right-wing crackpots. Read this entry from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Note not only that the 9/11 theories and Holocaust deniers. Note the connections to retired general Partin - supposedly a reputable source who claimed the Oklahoma City Federal building bombing involved multiple bombs. I bet a bit of digging could come up with some other familiar far out theories that tie back to this crowd. There's far too many real and documentable things out there to focus such crap. It's especially important now that documents are leaking out of the US and UK governments showing the big players all knew we were lying our way into war in Iraq that we stay focused, vet carefully the information we rely on. We can't afford to get Dan Rather'ed or Newsweek'ed on this. Watch your backs. Now, I advance my own possible conspiracy theory :^)
Or at least some questions. There's lots of information on the Internet and some of it is false. Some of it is just wrong. Some of it is lies. The Walter Storches of the world know they're lying, because they forge documents and make up stories claiming eyewitnesses and such. When I look around at supposedly "left-wing"-friendly conspiracy theories, like Bush being in on 9/11 or alternate theories of the Oklahoma City bombing or the theories questioning that a plane that crashed into the Pentagon.... and I see these are things coming from the extreme right.
Are they trying to spread lies and disinformation for profit? Or are they they trying to devalue the quality of information in general? Or are they creating wacky theories that'll be repeated by gullible left-wing radicals? Or is it simply in the larger pursuit of advancing their specific pet anti-semitic lies?
I suspect it is all these things. Spreading lies that can be debunked and make the left look foolish would certainly be something they're interested in doing. How else do you explain a site that's supposedly a "Bush watch" site promoting Karl Rove gay orgy stories or unreported American deaths in Iraq or this response to an "email" from a right-wing reader from Walter Storch? Remember, this guy is appearantly a holocaust denier. And he's claiming to be a lefty? That pretty much makes it clear.
It reminds me of Tommy Lee Jones in Men In Black, stopping to pick up a tabloid ala Weekly World News. The reason? That's where the real stuff on aliens was printed, but because it was so totally discredited, no one actually believed it.
[Update: This Huffington Post article is a recycle of old disinformation. I found a diary entry from DKos last month on this same info, based on the same source. It was eventually debunked there too.]
[Update 8/20: Because the DKos articles disappeared, I offer the Google cache entry of them. WARNING: Beware the "Voice from the White House", 9000 dead GIs?? icasualties.org response: "not remotely possible"]
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