Of course, members of the news media who disseminated Jesse Adam Macbeth's false story of having been a mass murdering American soldier in Iraq could have exposed him as a liar when he first opened his mouth, except for the fact that his claims of American military war crimes fit so well with what too many in our dominant and leftist oriented news media wanted to hear. If Shakespeare's Macbeth is a grandly written tragedy about the downside of the lust for power and betrayal of friends, this Macbeth's tale qualifies as a mini one about the lust for publicity and the betrayal of one's country.
-Dan Gifford http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18748026/?GT1=9951 'Abusive' ex-GI charged with falsifying record The Associated Press, MSNBC.com, 19 May 2007 Man who never served in Iraq told anti-war groups he committed atrocities SEATTLE - A man who tried to position himself as a leader of the anti-war movement by claiming to have participated in war crimes while serving in Iraq is facing federal charges of falsifying his record. Jesse Adam Macbeth, 23, formerly of Phoenix, garnered attention on blogs and in some alternative media after he began claiming in 2005 to have been awarded a Purple Heart for his service, which he said included slaughtering innocents in a Fallujah mosque. His story was contradicted by his discharge form, showing that he was kicked out of the Army after six weeks at Fort Benning, Ga., in 2003 because of his "entry level performance and conduct." A complaint unsealed Friday in U.S. District Court in Seattle charged him with one count of using or possessing a forged or altered military discharge certificate, and one count of making false statements in seeking benefits from the Veterans Administration. Macbeth's public defender, Jay Stansell, declined to comment. Anti-war groups used his claims Organizations that opposed the war, including Iraq Veterans Against the War, posted videos or statements containing Macbeth's claims on their Web sites. In one videotaped interview, a skinny, stuttering Macbeth, dressed in a camouflage jacket, described slaughtering hundreds of people in a mosque: "We would burn their bodies ... hang their bodies from the rafters in the mosque," he said. Iraq Veterans Against the War and other organizations removed the claims after learning they were false. [but they found nothing fishy about them until now] "He approached us in early 2006, posing as a war veteran. He seemed very emotionally distressed about his experiences," said Amadee Braxton, a spokeswoman for Iraq Veterans Against the War, based in Philadelphia. Macbeth claimed in an application for benefits to have served from May 2001 to June 2004, to have been shot in Iraq and to have suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, LaMont E. Stokes, an agent with the VA's Office of the Inspector General, wrote in the charging papers. He also collected more than $10,400 in benefits to which he was not entitled, Stokes wrote. Stokes said he interviewed Macbeth in a Tacoma jail, where he has been serving a sentence for fourth-degree assault, and that Macbeth admitted falsifying the documents because he was homeless and wanted to "sucker" anything he could out of the government. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/