BS: Goebbels would be proud...

Subject: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 06:45 PM

U.S.ARMY'S FAKE LETTERS CAUSE STIR

A series of letters supposedly written by US troops in Iraq
detailing their successes in the country were all written by
their commander, it has emerged.

HERE

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: Mickey191
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 07:07 PM

Did they check George's handwriting?

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: Amos
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 07:26 PM

This is ridiculous and inflammatory, Greg. As I understand the story, the commander wrote the draft and only those who read it and wished to do so signed off on it and sent it home.

It was wrong of them to represent it as a personal letter, or not say that it was a duplicate, but they each meant for it to be sent home in their name. You make it sound like a much more grievous offense than it was, which is misleading and uncouth.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: Burke
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 07:30 PM

I just submitted a reply & it went away!!

This has been in our local newspaper a couple of times. Here's the Utica Observer-Dispatch article from this morning. At the time of writing, the responsible party had not been identified. "Six soldiers reached by GNS [Gannett News Service] directly or through their families said they agreed with the letter's thrust. But none of the soldiers said he wrote it and one said he didn't even sign it. "

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: akenaton
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 07:35 PM

Oh my Amos ....arnt you the sensitive one.
I wish our political leaders had your "ethics"   Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: Gareth
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 07:37 PM

"Six soldiers reached by GNS [Gannett News Service] directly or through their families said they agreed with the letter's thrust. But none of the soldiers said he wrote it and one said he didn't even sign it. "

Hmmm !

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: katlaughing
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 07:38 PM

It's propoganda and I am glad Greg has brought it to our attention, Amos. I can see it when one of us wants to send a letter to a politico about some cause but to deliberately take this kind of action with the troops is facetious at best...of course, it's business as usual for this administration. "Here, boys, let us tell your folks for you, just how good we all are doing over here! Now, you don't have to sign this or use it, but it sure would help to let all those folks back home know we're kicking ass and, oh, yes, you don't need to mention those six buddies who were killed the other day, or the other hundreds of you who won't be going home. Go ahead, sign it...your President will be proud!"

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: Amos
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 07:43 PM

Here's the bit I was thinking of, from the Boston Globe:

---

   'The letters come at a time when the Bush administration is trying to counter criticism of the war amid reports of Iraqi resistance and U.S. casualties.

   But the commander of the 2nd Battalion said Monday that the letter writing campaign was all his idea and had nothing to do with higher-level efforts.

   ''It gave our soldiers an opportunity to let their respective hometowns know what they are accomplishing here in Kirkuk,'' Lt. Col. Dominic Caraccilo wrote in an e-mail to ABC News.

   The commander said the letter was written by his staff, edited by him and then passed onto the soldiers. He said some soldiers chose not to send the letters home.' .....

---

Now it is well and good to object to the letter being misrepresented, but comparing it to a Goebbels campaign is unfair.

The administration does plenty of things that are fascist in nature and can be called such without any undue spin, IMHO.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: Burke
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 08:04 PM

I agree with Amos about comparing it to Goebbels. I think one of the commanders in the field got a bit carried away. It does bother me that not everyone signed & sent their own letters. The quote I put in above left out a line from an article that ran in Gannett Newspapers on Sunday.

"Six soldiers reached by GNS ... and one said he didn't even sign it. A seventh soldier didn't know about the letter until his father congratulated him for getting it published in the local newspaper in Beckley, W.Va."

It seems the story was broken by Gannett this weekend & the New York Times, the AP, and others picked it up.

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: artbrooks
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 08:11 PM

Please note that these letters allegedly originated with the 2nd Bn., 503d Airborne Regiment. Those of us who never had the inclination to jump out of perfectly good airplanes would not be too surprised to find a commanding officer passing around a sample letter...

But seriously, the actual quote from the unit's commander sounds more to me like it was a newsletter of something like that. The soldiers sent it home, signed or not, and the newspapers picked them up as "individual" productions. I think they need a higher class of editors at those papers, myself.

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 08:20 PM

When the commanding officer writes a letter and tells you it's being sent in your name, you'd need a good bit of nerve to tell him to shove it.

Except, of course, according to that story, they didn't even get the opportunity to refuse to have it sent in their name.

This is the kind of plotline that would crop up in the TV series Mash. And Hawkeye would have the right words for saying how this kind of thing just stinks. Turns soldiers into propaganda fodder.

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 08:22 PM

it is simply overzealousness by one more gung-ho military man! He should not have done it that way, no matter how well written it was...

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: Burke
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 09:00 PM

That BBC report kind of waters it down. Editors didn't see identical phrases, they saw identical letters. It was not a sample letter, it was not a newsletter, it was a form letter with only the names & hometowns changed. Read the article under the Gannett link, it has more comments from the people who actually signed the letters. It was a letter they were given & asked to sign. Maybe different units handled it differently, as some were forwarded by parents while others were mailed directly to local newspapers by or for the servicemen.

The Utica newspaper says they called the parents of the signee to verify information. It was caught by a newspaper that got 2 copies signed by different people.

From most of the reports I've looked at, I was inclined to see it as an over-zealous commander. The Washington Post puts it in a larger context of Bush trying to get his side of the story directly to the American people. A Google News search is interesting. As I've been following this thread, the headlines are getting stronger:
US Army sent fake Iraq letters
Bogus Letters From the Battlefield Cast Doubt on Bush ...
IRAQ LETTERS OF MASS DECEPTION
Army spin exposed by fake letters from troops

Most of these are foreign headlines.

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: LadyJean
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 12:09 AM

I just had to convince a nice lady from the "Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette" that the letter I sent them about the Dean campaign was original. I forwarded the BBC report to them.

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 12:43 AM

The officer who wrote these is another fall guy for the shrub, imo. I hope this comes home to roost and bites the shrub in the ass...(how's that for mixing things up!?)

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: Amos
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 12:54 AM

That's one buzzard of a metaphor!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: Wolfgang
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 06:07 AM

I'll remember Greg's stance here next time when Greenpeace asks me to send a letter of protest which is preformulated to any person.
Or Amnesty International too, they ask me often to send preformulated letters influencing some person to a certain decision.

It's all propaganda, of course, and I do not see why I should look at it in so different ways.

The only tiny difference I see is McGrath's point, namely that the pressure in a military situation is stronger than any pressure Greenpeace could put on me. But aside from that, both is propaganda menat to influence people in a certain direction. If I agree with it I may go with it.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: Peg
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 10:31 AM

I don't think there is any comparison between "prefab" letters   written by Greenpeace and the situation described here. In the case of the former, an effort is made to generate awareness and support, and the letters are OBVIOUSLY pre-printed and the elected officials   who receive them are well aware of their point of origin. I used to work for Greenpeace, and these sorts of letters are standardized among many activist organizations.

In the latter case, these letters were sent with the full intention of conveying the sentiments of those whose names were signed to them, even though they themselves did not write them. In other words, deception of the highest order. Deception may not have been the intent. But what did they think would happen when this   came to light? Perhaps the commander thought no news editors would put two and two together. The letter should have been clearly worded to state that this was a newsletter reproduced en masse, and not signed by individuals.

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: GUEST,Arne Langsetmo
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 07:20 PM

The fact that these are "letters to the editor" is one thing
that differentiates them from the standard "please use
our website, send an e-mail, and make your voice heard"
type thing. Letters to the editor conditions for acceptance
usually stipulate that you must be the author and that you
haven't sent them to any other newspapers (this in part for
copyright and other legal purposes). They want to hear
what _your_ thoughts are, in your own words. Newspapers
generally will require you provide contact info so they
can call you back and verify you are the author (and
that you haven't sent it to anyone else). I've been
contacted for my few letters to national newspapers
that were considered for printing (one actually made it,
although they cut it a bit; Imagine that? Me too wordy?).

This is not the first "astroturf" (i.e. fake "grassroots"
opinion) campaign to be uncovered supporting Dubya or
his policies. There was one a while back that was
a form-letter taking about how great a president Dubya
was and how he was showing "genuine leadership". IIRC, that
one was engineered through a Republican-sponsored web-site
that encouraged sycophants to use the web-site to
e-mail in letters to the editor using their prepared
text scripts (and promised "Republican team leader"
points good for baseball caps or such for sending enough
of these, and more if they got published.

Google "astroturf letters to the editor" for more one
this deceptive and dishonest practice.

Newspapers, when they uncover such, are usually embarrassed,
and they should have been on their guard for this. But
maybe they let their guard down a bit to give these
servicemen a chance to be heard. Bad move; I suspect
the maladministration may be behind this latest "astroturf"
as well; I'm not convinced the local commander came up with
this idea on his own. . . .

Cheers,

                               -- Arne Langsetmo

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: Gareth
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 07:36 PM

Mmm ! - Wolfgang, as usual has hit on the nail.

Mark you, the basic point seems to have been missed,

"Six soldiers reached by GNS [Gannett News Service] directly or through their families said they agreed with the letter's thrust. But none of the soldiers said he wrote it and one said he didn't even sign it. "

My underlining.

Gareth

BTW - This morning I pulled the "Western Mail", self styled 'News Paper of Wales' up for publishing a number of letters in the last two weeks, with identical phrasing, on another subject. They may not publish my letter, but at least they know it's been spotted.

GW

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 07:54 PM

Very likely they meant what they said. But in the circumstances, whatever they felt, would you really expect them to say anything else, Gareth?

Like other people I'm inclined to doubt that this is just a one-off-case of an over-zealous low level officer.

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: Gareth
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 07:55 PM

Well Kevin - I thought you didn'yt believe in conspiracy theories.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 08:51 PM

There are many conspiracy theories I don't believe in. But anyone who thinks that people don't constantly get together and fix things in their own interests - which is what conspiracy involves - would have to be extraordinarily naive.

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: LadyJean
Date: 17 Oct 03 - 12:29 AM

A soldier who contradicts his CO is likely to find himself cleaning latrines, if he's lucky. Of course they're going to say they agree with the letters they didn't write.
Through this very web site, I found a form letter to send to John Ashcroft protesting the patriot act. There was a space where I could add my own comments, and I did. (What's more, all of them were printable.) I wasn't asked to send that letter to friends or family, or the New York Times as my own words, nor would I. (Writer, a six letter word pronounced egotist.)

Subject: RE: BS: Goebbels would be proud...
From: Hrothgar
Date: 17 Oct 03 - 01:02 AM

"simply overzealousness by one more gung-ho military man".

Yes, it could be.

Will no-one rid me of this turbulent priest?