I couldn't help but laugh, as I read the following piece that Jackie Patru sent me to post on the Sweet Liberty site. Not because it was really funny. There's nothing funny about Iraq. There never is anything funny about war.
The piece details a propaganda campaign that has been launched upon the American people to build support for the war in Iraq.
At a time when some — both inside and outside of government — are referring to the war in Iraq as "Bush's Vietnam", it seems there are some who will do anything to prop up their mission in the minds of the American people.
Those of us in the know, are already aware that we've been massively propagandized through the official channels of the media — both print and broadcast.
We have pictorial evidence that the media staged the rally in Baghdad, following the toppling of the Saddam regime, where the Iraqi people were yanking down a statue of Saddam.
Even before that, we've posted pictures from wire services, run in newspapers across the country, where the media used the same actors to pose as both Muslim haters, and Jewish mourners.
Now comes a different type of propaganda attack. One that is meant to bypass the official channels of the media, and to appear to come from the soldiers themselves. It's the letter to the editior.
Media reports indicate that a letter is being circulated to several newspapers, that was not written by the soldiers whose name appear on the signature lines.
Here is the story, as reported by Ledyard King of Gannet News Service:
WASHINGTON -- Letters from hometown soldiers describing their successes rebuilding Iraq have been appearing in newspapers across the country as U.S. public opinion on the mission sours.Meanwhile, in Iraq, it is getting worse. The condition continues to deteriorate, with Iraq falling into complete anarchy and an acceleration of deaths since the weekend. The parallels with the war in Vietnam are remarkable. Reuters is reporting that the line between "militants" and civilians is being blurred. U.S. and so-called "coalition" soldiers don't know who the enemy is, but the people of Iraq know. Their enemies are the occupation forces.
And all the letters are the same.
A Gannett News Service search found identical letters from different soldiers with the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, also known as "The Rock," in 11 newspapers, including Snohomish, Wash.
The Olympian received two identical letters signed by different hometown soldiers: Spc. Joshua Ackler and Spc. Alex Marois, who is now a sergeant. The paper declined to run either because of a policy not to publish form letters.
The five-paragraph letter talks about the soldiers' efforts to re-establish police and fire departments, and build water and sewer plants in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, where the unit is based.
"The quality of life and security for the citizens has been largely restored, and we are a large part of why that has happened," the letter reads.
It describes people waving at passing troops and children running up to shake their hands and say thank you.
It's not clear who wrote the letter or organized sending it to soldiers' hometown papers.
Six soldiers reached by GNS 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.
Marois, 23, told his family he signed the letter, said Moya Marois, his stepmother. But she said he was puzzled why it was sent to the newspaper in Olympia. He attended high school in Olympia but no longer considers the city home, she said. Moya Marois and Alex's father, Les, now live near Kooskia, Idaho.
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.
"When I told him he wrote such a good letter, he said: 'What letter?' " Timothy Deaconson said Friday, recalling the phone conversation he had with his son, Nick. "This is just not his (writing) style."
He spoke to his son, Pfc. Nick Deaconson, at a hospital where he was recovering from a grenade explosion that left shrapnel in both his legs.
Sgt. Christopher Shelton, who signed a letter that ran in the Snohomish Herald, said Friday that his platoon sergeant had distributed the letter and asked soldiers for the names of their hometown newspapers. Soldiers were asked to sign the letter if they agreed with it, said Shelton, whose shoulder was wounded during an ambush earlier this year.
"Everything it said is dead accurate. We've done a really good job," he said by phone from Italy, where he was preparing to return to Iraq.
Sgt. Todd Oliver, a spokesman for the 173rd Airborne Brigade, which counts the 503rd as one of its units, said he was told a soldier wrote the letter, but he didn't know who. He said the brigade's public affairs unit was not involved.
"When he asked other soldiers in his unit to sign it, they did," Oliver explained in an e-mail response to a GNS inquiry. "Someone, somewhere along the way, took it upon themselves to mail it to the various editors of newspapers across the country."
Lt. Col. Bill MacDonald, a spokesman for the 4th infantry Division that is heading operations in north-central Iraq, said he had not heard about the letter-writing campaign.
Neither had Lt. Cmdr. Nick Balice, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla.
A recent poll suggests that Americans are increasingly skeptical of America's prolonged involvement in Iraq. A USA Today-CNN-Gallup Poll released Sept. 23 found 50 percent believe that the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over, down from 73 percent in April.
The letter talks about the soldiers' mission, saying, "one thousand of my fellow soldiers and I parachuted from ten jumbo jets." It describes Kirkuk as "a hot and dusty city of just over a million people." It tells about the progress they have made.
"The fruits of all our soldiers' efforts are clearly visible in the streets of Kirkuk today. There is very little trash in the streets, many more people in the markets and shops, and children have returned to school," the letter reads. "I am proud of the work we are doing here in Iraq and I hope all of your readers are as well."
Sgt. Shawn Grueser of Poca, W.Va., said he spoke to a military public affairs officer whose name he couldn't remember about his accomplishments in Iraq for what he thought was a news release to be sent to his hometown paper in Charleston, W.Va. But the 2nd Battalion soldier said he did not sign any letter.
Although Grueser said he agrees with the letter's sentiments, he was uncomfortable that a letter with his signature did not contain his own words or spell out his own accomplishments.
"It makes it look like you cheated on a test, and everybody got the same grade," Grueser said by phone from a base in Italy where he had just arrived from Iraq.
Moya Marois said she is proud of her stepson Alex, the former Olympia resident. But she worries that the letter tries to give legitimacy to a war she doesn't think was justified.
"We're going to support our son," she said. But "there are a lot of Americans that are not in support of this war that would like to see them returned home, and think it's going to get worse."
Our sources are telling us that the casualty numbers that are being reported in the news are artificially low. In reality, we have been told that they are putting the bodies of the dead soldiers in plastic tubes because they stack better that way.
As the Pentagon further lengthens units' tours of duty in Iraq, Hans Blix, the weapons inspector for the U.N. has admitted what some of us have known all along — the Iraqi people were better off with Saddam.
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