Les Jones

A Marine discharged because he was suffering post-traumatic stress syndrome who can't keep his stories straight -- shocking! Next you're going to tell me you've seen a homeless Vietnam vet saying less-than-accurate things to the imaginary Cong who ambushed him under the I-40 flyover downtown, or that you once saw a WWII vet telling his grandkids war stories in first person when they actually happened to his fellow soldiers.

It's no wonder the American military is so reviled worldwide with all the lying they do to make war seem not as glamorous as it really is or more glamorous than it actually was or whatever their dishonest agenda might be. I'll bet that fraud Massey is cashing disability checks because he is too mentally feeble to kill people and not fret over whether it was justified. Get over it, loser!

And shame on the New York Times for not firing the editor who left in the parts about Cpl. Starr and his father both believing the invasion was a just cause. If there is anything worse than an anti-war bias, it's a wishy-washy anti-war bias.

I don't understand your argument - you're saying that if he has PTSD he gets a free pass on anything he wants to say even if it's untrue - even when he says it in public speeches, in newspapers, and in his book? That's an incredibly weak defense of a liar.

I'm not trying to defend the guy's statements, just the fact that he is a veteran who fought for our country and killed people and saw and heard about very difficult things he is trying to wrestle with. Impugning his struggles and his character by fact-checking and nitpicking him like he is a reporter sworn to accuracy instead of a soldier trying to come to grips with the reality of war is low and despicable. You are taking advantage of a soldier's psychic scars so you can dismiss his message.

Whether it is Massey in particular or just Massey in solidarity with his fellow soldiers, there are soldiers wrestling with the fact that they killed 6-year-olds and innocent civilians or just with the fact that they were nearby when it happened. Calling a soldier a "fraud" and a "liar" is unpatriotic. Maybe he will come to an anti-war rally in Knoxville, and you can spit on him!

In his role as public speaker and book author he is a reporter. And, yes, I do question the character of a serial liar, whether he fought in a war or not. Being a veteran is not carte blanche for bad behavior. You seem to sympathize with him as a veteran - OK, then where's your sympathy for his fellow veterans he's libelling?

"I'm not trying to defend the guy's statements, just the fact that he is a veteran who fought for our country..."

I thought he fought for Halliburton?

"You are taking advantage of a soldier's psychic scars so you can dismiss his message."

No, he is taking advantage of his veteran status as a meal ticket and an entre to ideologically-addled college girls. His own buddies are calling him out on the phoniness of his claims.

"PTSD" my ass. I guess the stress is easier to cope with when you have a per diem and a speaker's fee.

Twenty years from now, this clown will claim to have been a hero and run for President, just you watch.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed by our soldiers, including plenty of 6-year-olds. It's asinine to pretend that we can only talk about it in some sort of peer-reviewed, hand-on-the-Bible manner. What you are doing is grasping for ways to avoid discussing subjects you're afraid of. Nobody pretends personal journals or speeches given at a rally are objective reporting. That's a laughable standard you are invoking simply because it's a quick and dirty way to achieve your objective, which is to avoid confronting criticisms of the war by trashing the critics. It's cowardly.

Claiming he is speaking out to get chicks is beyond the pale. Spitting in his face would be less insulting.

I don't find the denials issued by his unit any more compelling than Massey's first-hand accounts. The truth is likely somewhere in the middle, and the bottom line is that the things Massey describes have happened and continue to happen.

Most of the soldiers in his unit have killed people, and they have different ways of dealing with it, whether it's speaking out about what is going on or maintaining a palatable narrative that omits the uncomfortable experiences. Killing people is extremely stressful, even when it can be intellectually justified. Soldiers remain haunted by their victims for the rest of their lives. My sympathy is with the men and women who are trying to handle those emotions, and I'm sure not going to fault them for using common psychological copings mechanisms like denial, projection, heroism or martyrdom.

Your sympathy is not with Massey's fellow soldiers, it is with the policy makers who put all those men and women in a horrible situation. You are willing to abuse a U.S. veteran to protect that policy. Shame on you.

"Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed by our soldiers"

Citation, please. Provide a reference for that number. The Iraqi death count is currently around 27,000, and many - a majority, even - were killed by terrorists, not by our soldiers. Hint: when you view the Iraq Body Count database and see cause of death as "roadside bomb," "car bomb," "suicide bomb," "decapitated," and "beheaded," those people died at the hands of terrorists. Also, some of those people in the database are terrorists, not civilians.

"including plenty of 6-year-olds"

He's not claiming some six year old somewhere was killed. He (initially) claimed he had personally killed a six year old by putting a bullet in her head. Now he claims it was someone in his unit.

You're using the John Kerry Cambodia defense: well, maybe he personally didn't go Cambodia like he claimed numerous times to score political points, but lots of other people went to Cambodia. That's a pitiful excuse for a lie.

"You are willing to abuse a U.S. veteran to protect that policy."

Calling a liar a liar isn't abuse. It's righting a wrong.

"I don't find the denials issued by his unit any more compelling than Massey's first-hand accounts. The truth is likely somewhere in the middle,"

Somewhere in the middle?

How's that again? Massey kinda-sorta shot a six year-old boy/girl in the head, but only a little bit, except he didn't?

Is this some unique new deconstructionist postmodern view of shooting someone in the noggin? "Somewhere there's a child dead, but only if you feel there is. If you don't, then there isn't, and that's okay too,; the truth is somewhere in the middle."

Sell your "concern for the troops" twaddle to someone who's buying; I work with those men and women every day, and this attention whore is a disgrace to the uniform they wear.

You already have a reference that validates "tens of thousands" as an estimate. Your efforts to be a hard-line arbiter of accuracy are quite sad. Your defense mechanism is to take an incredibly narrow focus so as to completely miss the big picture.

It's understandable. The Iraq invasion has been humiliatingly bungled. It is easier to throw up obstacles and denials than to try to appreciate the burdens on American soldiers and the consequences of a badly managed, ill-advised invasion. It's easier for you to play with numbers and faux precision than to confront difficult and messy truths, but at least you didn't claim the guy is bragging about killing six-year-olds to get laid.

If you had spent this kind of effort fact-checking the things Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice were saying during the marketing phase of the invasion, you wouldn't be in the uncomfortable position of ridiculing a U.S. veteran who just returned from endless months in a tense, confusing, and lethal job.

"You already have a reference that validates "tens of thousands" as an estimate."

It validates tens of thousands of Iraqis being killed. It doesn't prove your claim, which was "Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed by our soldiers." Apparently you want to blame the U.S. for every death no matter who set off the bombs. Pardom me if I assume you care more about scoring political points on Bush than you care about the dead.

"you wouldn't be in the uncomfortable position of ridiculing a U.S. veteran who just returned from endless months in a tense, confusing, and lethal job."

I'm not uncomfortable in the slightest.

Hey, here's an authentic piece of military jargon to share with your friends, so you can show how much you support the troopies:

The term we use for someone who would falsely claim to have smoked a child in order to gain attention, advance a cause, or gain sympathy consists of two words: The first is "sick" and the secone, well, rhymes with "duck".

Massey: I shot a six-year-old. OK, my unit did.

Unit: We didn't shoot a six-year-old.

The middle: Six-year-olds have been shot at checkpoints and along convoy routes, most likely by accident. Whether Massey's unit has been involved in the death of a six-year-old is unclear. They could be denying Massey's story to serve their own agenda, just as his telling of the tale in first person serves his agenda.

They are all U.S. servicemen struggling with the cold realities of war, and your willingness to attack a soldier because you don't like his message is the real disgrace.

It doesn't prove your claim, which was "Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed by our soldiers." Apparently you want to blame the U.S. for every death no matter who set off the bombs.

Hey, I've got an idea! Let's focus as narrowly as possible on finding the exact number of Iraqi civilians killed by U.S. soldiers instead of dealing with the obvious and undeniable fact that U.S. soldiers have killed many Iraqi civilians. And instead of offering support and understanding for the soldiers who are having the hardest time dealing with the killing they did in our name, let's slander and demean them! For fun, we could go to retirement homes and listen to WWII vets talk about their war experiences, and when we catch them passing of third person stories in the first person or the royal 'we', we can break their frail, old-man bones.

I know Cheney and Rumsfeld are grateful for your help in keeping amatuers like Massey off their liars' turf.

"Six-year-olds have been shot at checkpoints and along convoy routes, most likely by accident. Whether Massey's unit has been involved in the death of a six-year-old is unclear."

Translation of "clear": there's absolutely no proof beyond the word of a serial liar who can't even keep his lies straight.

"let's slander and demean them!"

Pointing out that Massey is commiting slander isn't slandering him. And again, you've got no problem with his slander and libel of his unitmates.

Persimmon, it's sort of pointless for me to argue with you when your attachment to the truth is flexible.

The only truth that matters is that there are American soldiers struggling with the fact that they have shot children. We have heard this over and over. Denying it would be a gesture of profound ignorance. It is something soldiers talk about because they are all dealing with it directly or indirectly, and the stories become apocryphal. To claim that it is slanderous to discuss U.S. soldiers shoot children is asinine. They have shot six-year-olds.

Massey does not talk about such killings to accuse anyone of wrongdoing. If he is slandering someone, he first slandered himself. He is explaining to audiences why war is so awful, and that message is most easily communicated by personalizing the telling. It's one of the simplest principles of storytelling, which is what a soldier speaking to a crowd is doing.

To claim that he is under some kind of obligation to be absolutely objective and factual when he addressing an anti-war rally is completely unfair. You are applying standards applicable to a news story written by a professional journalists to a stump speech delivered to a throng of peaceniks.

Holding Massey to absurd standards accomplishes your objective. It's a shame you are so desperate to not hear what he is saying.

Bulltish.

"I sparked a six year-old," is a simple statement that is verifiably true or false.

If it is false, anyone with a mere moeity of her marbles intact would question herself as to why the falsehood was uttered in the first place.

Go find a real soldier and ask them what they think of this ghoul.

If you can't scare one up (because you don't voluntarily associate with such monsters, of course) I'll be glad to round up as many troopies as you need. I think you'll find their opinions of this clown to be unanimous.

FWIW, I think this was an ill-chosen war that, if it must have been embarked upon anyway, could have been prosecuted far more effectively, but that doesn't require me to enthuiastically hump the leg of every verifiably lying attention whore to come down the pike.

I already told you why the falsehood was uttered in the first place. Because the guy was making a rally speech to a big crowd of peaceniks. He was trying to explain the horrible realities war forces on those who fight them, and the simplest way to express that is to personalize incidents. You certainly don't stand in front of a crowd and offer footnotes and detailed attributions.

He is not running around trying to build a legal case against the military. He is running around trying to get Americans to understand what the troops are going through in Iraq. Tales of soldiers shooting at children or having decide whether to shoot at children are a ubiquitous feature of interviews with soldiers. That fact is not going to go away just because you've found a soldier discharged for psychological stress whose stories change from one telling to the next.

Speaking of facts, I noticed that you put the remark about sparking a six-year-old in quotes, implying that Massey said that, even though it's your phrasing. If you were a journalist who turned in a story with a manufactured quote in it, you would be facing serious reprimands. You might even lose your job. Is it fair to hold you to those standards?

I'm sure if you focus extremely narrowly on Massey and a verifiably untrue statement he made, you can find "troopies" who will dismiss him. Instead, show some guts. Ask them if they have shot civilians. Ask them how they feel about the people they killed in the line of duty, whether soldiers, civilians, or children. Ask them if they've gotten over the anguish. Ask them if their fellow soldiers are all handling the anguish as well as they have.

If you were really concerned about the planning and prosecution of this war, you wouldn't be participating in the intellectual rape of an American soldier traumatized by fighting in it.