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In his National Review article Inventing Atrocities, James
S. Robbins takes us from 1944, when a New York Times essay by Arthur
Koestler entitled “On Disbelieving Atrocities,” conveyed "his
frustration at trying to communicate what he and others had seen taking
place in Nazi-dominated Europe," to today where some Americans falsely claim to have personally committed war time atrocities.
poorly constructed. F+
Fix it !
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has been a spate of these people in this war. Jesse MacBeth claimed to
be an Army Ranger, admitted to having executed children while
interrogating their parents, shot down rock-throwing protesters, and
slaughtered hundreds of worshippers in a mosque. None of that was true.
Former Marine Jimmy Massey says he either killed children and civilians
personally, witnessed the killings, or heard about them, depending on
which story he is telling at the moment. Korean War Veteran Edward Lee
Daily came forward in the 1990s claiming to be present at the killings
at No Gun Ri, as well as being a lieutenant, a POW, and wounded by
shrapnel, all lies. These men are spiritual descendants of the troops
interviewed in Mark Lane’s 1970 shocker Conversations with Americans,
the book that spurred the “Winter Solider” investigations that brought
John Kerry to prominence. It contained a number of confessions by
Vietnam veterans who had participated in a variety of gruesome
activities, vividly portrayed. The problem was, the confessions were
false, and the book was a sham. But it ushered in this new kind of
invented atrocity story, aimed not at the enemy but at the United
States.
The latest entrant is Scott Thomas Beauchamp, whose war stories have been featured in the New Republic. ...
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Robbins of course can only conjecture about motive, but I am in agreement with one suggestion.
| “ | There appears to be no shame in it. In the “victimization” culture
individuals are not responsible for what they do; write it off to the
“brutalization of war.” The person committing the atrocity is a
casualty of the people who sent him to war in the first place. (This
line worked much better in the days when we had a draft.)
The
reward for this act of bravery is fame, travel, maybe a book contract.
There is an antiwar industry and politicians out there ready to help,
since telling these kinds of stories serves their interests.
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The descriptor "filthy" is a tag made for these people.
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