I was hoping against hope that Spielberg would depict the Palestinian terrorists, as well as the Mossad agents for what they really were. However, I just knew he was gonna give the Palestinian murderers an affable quality while to a certain extent villianizing the innocents.

Ace--kudos on the "good war"comment.

Those little loveable murderers of women and children.

Spielberg is slipping. His War of the Worlds sucked!

I didn't see The Terminal, but I will bet that it sucked, too.

There was a documentary made about this and someone told me it was excellent but I forgot it's name.

Sometimes I wish that mad man had raped Spielberg. Does that make me a bad person?

Spielberg is making another Indiana Jones?

This is a tough choice: should I see Rocky VI, or Raiders of the Lost Ark 4?

The Terminal actually had its moments - but most of them were due to Tom Hanks' acting ability. Catch Me if You Can was quite good.

Ace:

I'd have to disagree with you about Tears of the Sun--there was nothing "anti-war" about the film--either explicitly or implicitly. The most gripping scenes were where the SEALs (particularly the dude from OZ) dealt out some sweet justice to the bignastybadmen.

There weren't any "why are we here" speeches or scenes with the impressionable rookie killing someone and staring has his blood-stained hands in horror muttering "What. Have. I. Done?!"

None of that. Just some good old fashioned American ass-kicking.

Plus, it had Monica Berlucci's cleave...

But what happens when an enemy is so malicious and monstrous that that this ambivalence towards the use of force becomes, well, idiotic?

That never happens. Ever. Even if they're monsters, they gots their reasons. Probably our fault.

There's no reasoning with that line of thought. Bush, and Reagan before him, had no moral authority to face down evil because they were evil. Everyone's evil. It's just a great big pot of evil and we should just all try to get along while monsters kill innocents. Oh wait, they aren't innocent.

f'n' imbeciles.

Army Lawyer is right, everything good about The American fighting man is displayed in it. Self-sacrifice, bravely,honor ... all that.

I thought that the message in Saving Ryan's Privates was to always cap the kraut so he can't kill your buddy later. Oh well, to each his own.

"There are no 'Good Wars,' with the following three exceptions: The American Revolution, World War II, and The Star Wars trilogy."

Great point Ace.

The left's inability to make moral distinctions and mindless toeing of the politically correct line has left them terribly succeptable to propaganda and disinformation (first by the Soviet Union and now by Islam). Anyone who believes that if the palestinions stopped attacking Israel, Israel would not follow suit is seriously uninformed or deluded. Same with the west and terrorists.

I thought that the message in Saving Ryan's Privates was to always cap the kraut so he can't kill your buddy later.

I think the message of Saving Ryan's Privates was a tad different...

I simply can't understand why Hollywood feels compelled to fellate Islamic extremism like it's doing now. I always figured Spielberg for a bright guy, especially for a limo-lib, and this is depressing. Are those in "the arts" so morally obtuse as to think that we're really on the wrong side here? That men who slaughter innocent people as a tactic, that hold so little regard for human life as to fetishize murder; that we should sympathize with these monsters? Or are the gutless shits who run Hollywood so partisan that they side with anyone red-staters oppose, any if it's enemies of humanity? What does it take to get these fuckwits on the right side of history?

Reminds me of every movie with a President and a General (usually involving aliens), in which the General is a bloodthirsty nutjob who always wants to attack and bomb, and it takes courageous "heros" to convince the President to follow a prudent, diplomatic course. The only exception I can think of was the Mars Attack! movie.

Actually Clark, that was exactly the case in Mars Attacks - the difference being that the General was right.

Clark:

Buckaroo Banzai for another example, except taken to the extreme.

Saving Private Ryan is the best war movie ever made . . . for the first twenty minutes. Then it descends into a cheesy morality play featuring the heroic, conflicted (read, "chickenshit") medic who saves a victrola and lets his buddies die. Unfortunately, that takes up 120 minutes of film.

Munich sounds like it was made by that Spielberg.

If he made Jaws today, the goddamn shark would be the hero, and Richard Dreyfus would negotiate a surrender of the beach.

Colossus makes a good point. If Spielberg made Jaws today, the Dreyfus character would be defending the sharks right to existence and it should be studied not destroyed.

I think the quality of Spielberg's work began to slip when he made message more important than story - it happened about the time he digitally erased the guns from E.T., actually.

Let's not forget that the entire premise (I hesitate to say mission) is SPR was just stoopid. Sure, take a highly trained Ranger Officer and send him to wander the French countryside in the midde of the fight for Normandy - 'cause god only knows there was nothing more useful he could have been doing.

Best war movie: Glory. Or rather, the last 30 minutes of Glory.

Best part (by which I mean, the only good part) of Pearl Harbor: Cuba Gooding Jr.

I suggest that Hollywood can make a perfectly decent pro-war film so long as one simple condition is met: the heroes are black.

If the movie features white heroes, there will be a lot of angst about the terrible waste of war, how violence never solves anything, etc. If the heroes are black, fighting and dying are portrayed as glorious. What that says about Hollywood, I dunno. I almost feel guilty for having noticed it.

Leave it to hollywood totwist history to suit their leftists views just like the way the movie GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK twists history

Army Lawyer,

Perhaps I'm misremembering, but wasn't Willis initially very cynical and futhermore presented as inhumanly caring? And this due to his long experience in the military? And his change-of-heart only comes later due to the "save the innocents" nature of the mission, which, presumably, is something he hadn't done much of in his previous, cynicism-inducing career?

Reminds me of every movie with a President and a General (usually involving aliens), in which the General is a bloodthirsty nutjob who always wants to attack and bomb, and it takes courageous "heros" to convince the President to follow a prudent, diplomatic course. The only exception I can think of was the Mars Attack! movie.

Independence Day had a similar dynamic, though it was the CIA/NSA dude who wanted to attack (with nukes, too!) and he was a total villain, despite being, you know, 100% right.

Somewhat OT, but how about the worst war movie?

The Thin Red Line gets my vote.

Actually, I guess the moral message of ID4 is that you have to let your enemies attack first, and wipe out 3/4 of the human population, before unleashing the nukes.

Tricky thing for a movie like that handle-- on the one hand, the softheaded give-peace-a-chance ethos of Hollywood requires all heroic characters to abstain from military action, and only villlains to suggest that route, but... in that kind of movie, the villains are right and the heroes are wrong.

So they fudge it up... apparently is was okay to use nukes on the aliens only after the President was psychically attacked by them and had 100% perfect information that they intended to wipe out humanity and there could be no negotiations.

You'd think after they'd killed 3/4 of the world population he'd realize there couldn't be any negotiations, but NOOOOO... he still held out hope.

Because that's what heroes do. They let thousands of people die before clutching a fist in violence.

The Thin Red Line gets my vote.

Gads, that was a terrible movie.

As usual when the topic of war films comes up, I'm going to plug Band of Brothers, which I never get tired of watching. Also, the WWII-era movie Bataan is worth a look: it's not hyperrealistic in its style a la Private Ryan/Band of Brothers but still a powerful piece of pro-war (yes--pro-war) propoganda.

Band of Brothers is Saving Private Ryan without the nihilism. Outstanding mini-series.

Ace:

Perhaps I'm misremembering, but wasn't Willis initially very cynical and futhermore presented as inhumanly caring?

He wasn't cynical so much as jusr committed to the mission at hand--which was rescuring Berlucci, the priest, and his wife.

IIRC, there's a part in the film where he explains his initial reluctance to take along the natives as their being mostly sick and injured and in doing so, risking the lives of everyone else. Basically, save 3 or risk killing 30.

It's not presented as an easy choice to make and Willis' character eventually asks his team their opinions on the matter. And in a very non-anti-war way, they disagree with each other, but do so respectfully. Some say that it isn't their problem; some say what good are they if they don't help the people; etc etc; but unlike an anti-war movie might do, this isn't foreshadowing. Those that object to going back don't later turn on the mission or flee or act cowardly.

And his change-of-heart only comes later due to the "save the innocents" nature of the mission, which, presumably, is something he hadn't done much of in his previous, cynicism-inducing career?

We aren't told of his career previously, so we don't know how many times he had the option of saving the innocents and chose not to do so--I guess what you're remembering as cynycism I read as just hard-assed pragmatism.

I think the best war movie of all time is still The Longest Day. Cast of thousands. And Mitchum gets 'em off the beach every time.

Patton is pretty good, too. Eminently quotable, too.

There are more bad war movies than I can count. When I was at Infantry Officer Basic at Ft. Benning, we used to goof on Platoon pretty hard. Like pretending we were writing long complaining letters to our grandma over the routine inconveniences. We'd be going somewhere in the rain and someone would say, "It rained again, today, Grandma. It rains a lot here." Never failed to crack us up.

It could be applied to almost any situation.

We Were Sodiers was an excellent war movie that got zero attention. I liked it more than SPR.

If he made Jaws today, the goddamn shark would be the hero, and Richard Dreyfus would negotiate a surrender of the beach.

This is actually pretty spot on to the whole problem. Not only was the shark bad, he was over the top bad in a way that sharks just aren't. Spielberg was able to convince a generation of people that sharks actually hunted people and many folks actually stayed out of the water for years. The Vineyard was a pretty weird spot for bathers for years after. But in the end, people knew it was a movie and you could recognize that the director had taken some dramatic license to make a point.

Now, Iinstead of seeing something that is evil and amplifying it for dramatic affect, directors tend to see something that is evil and find ways to excuse it or minimize it. Make us feel its pain. A lot of people walk away thinking, well terrorism is evil, but who knew he had such a cute daughter at home. He can't be all bad.

Used to be two rump riding, pudding eating cowboys were considered hard core porn. Now its Academy Award material. Progress.

Spielberg should have named Munich...

Joos.

I'm with Bart, what about We Were Soldiers?

I second Bart, I really liked WWS. Much better than SPR.

Worst performance by an actor in a war movie? Nick Nolte in Thin Red Line. Followed closely by Nicholas Cage in Windtalkers (another good candidate for worst war movie).

Another rather brave stance in "Tears of the Sun" was that it was Muslim rebel troops slaughtering Christian Africans. There wasn't any examination of the rebel's motives; they were kill crazy thugs who murdered those weaker than them.

I blocked Windtalkers out of my mind...until Big E brought it up. Thanks.

That movie was the biggest, phoniest Indian rump-swabbing piece of crap.
Surpirisingly, it didn't get a nod from the Academy.

Catch Me if You Can was quite good.

Slu,

How in the world can any movie with Leonardo DiCaprio be "quite good"?

Best war film ever made: Breaker Morant. An Aussie film, Bruce Beresford's first feature, from the 1970s, is the story of three Australian officers who are court-martialled for abusing prisoners during the Boer War. Well directed, very well acted, terrific script. Well worth seeing.

Best War Movie:

Bridge Over the River Kwai

(I tried to link imdb but the *#&^$!@ comment filter doesn't like it!)

John,
How about Gangs of New York? But if was good because of Daniel Day Lewis and not DiCaprio.

I liked When Trumpets Fail. It had cheezy production values but you can blame that on Spielberg.l

I'm pleased that no one has nominated Midway as a good war movie, because it wasn't/

Some worth mentioning are:
Stalag 17
Guns of Navarone
The Deer Hunter

It's been forever since I saw it, but I think in Failsafe the "good" President nukes NYC to prove to the Soviet leader that the attack was a mistake. I guess this theme goes back at least to the early 60s.

Best War Movie -

"Zulu" - Stanley Baker and Michael Caine.
The crazy lib preacher type was, well, right - but the guys in the red coats get the respect of the Zulus.

Best War Movie - American

-- Longest Day - Terrific cast, great scope, scale and allt hat but The Longest Day is great mostly because 'Gummy Poopen' is a terrific term.

-- Patton is a close second

--- Full Metal Jacket - Up until R. Lee gets shot.

Best War Movie Not Involving Land Forces:

--- Run Silent, Run Deep

--- Bedford Incident - Coldwar Division

Best War Movie Involving a Soviet Tank in Afghanistan

--- The Beast

Best War Movie Involving George Clooney

--- Three Kings

Best War Movie - Air Force

-- The Blue Max

Best War-Related Mini-Series:

-- Victory at Sea

Most Neglected Big-Ass War Related Series that The History Channel Should Run but, Hell, I don't know who has the broadcast rights:

--- 'World at War"

The War Film that's Aged The Poorest:
-- Heartbreak Ridge

I saw Heartbreak Ridge and, while I like Clint, like the movie, find it quotable and the scene where Mario Van Peebles gets his ear ring ripped off never fails to amuse - the combat sequences were filmed with a "Dr. Who'-like special effects budget.

Marine Recon types without body armor, ammunition, radios, discernable combat tactics, et cetera, et cetera. The lack of detial sort of kills the last twenty minutes of an otherwise enteraining movie.

.

So Proudly We Hail with Veronica Lake. Nurses one step ahead of the Japanese. Ronnie stuffing a couple of grenades in her bra. “You want so nooky nooky? I'll give you some nooky nooky.” Ba- Boom! Showed how much we hated the Japanese with no p.c. bullshit.

Windtalkers sprang immediately to mind... Awful, simply awful. And incidentally, it is "Bridge ON the River Kwai" not "over".....

The worst fictional-war movie? I nominate Starship Troopers II... The first one actually worked quite well as a satire (and it had Denise Richards!). The second one simply sucked!

Regarding the idea that Hollywood takes evil and minimizes it, I think that might be a defense mechanism. Real evil is not controllable- so you have to make it 'misunderstood'.

Just like the Bush Derangement Syndrome sufferers want to make W the problem. It puts the locus of control here, where things are safe and well understood, and not in the hands of evil doers.

So I guess what I'm saying is that they are pussies that can't deal with reality.

Does Starship Troopers count as a war movie. Cause I thought it rocked.

Failsafe might be the best example of apologia in a film. The tension is good. Acting decent. Plot line? bah.

We Were Soldiers may be the best recent war film out there. Black Hawk Down also good. Band of Brothers also decent.

Loved Patton and I always will. Even with it's 30 year old battle sequences and effects, the message was about the heart of a warrior, taking it to the enemy. Golden.

The Longest Day, in my humble opinion, but I also could see We Were Soldiers and/or Patton as being the best.

Loved Patton and I always will

One of my favorites, too. And one of my favorite scenes [I'm doing this from memory, ChicagoStyleHotDog, so back off :) ]

Priest:" I saw a bible on your bedstand. Do you read it?"

Patton: "Every Goddamned day"

Best war movie ever?

"Terminate - with exreme prejudice"

"Charlie don't surf!"

"Don't get outta the boat"

"I love the smell of napalm in the morning ..."

"The horror ... the horror ...."

effin A, there it is ...

PS - your comments suck. You need to get your ass into the 90's

Well. We've gotten a little off thread, so I'll make a submission for best war movie, too. Because I can.
There have been a number of good ones suggested, and I liked most of them.

Here are mine:
The Last Bullet
The Light Horsemen
Gallipoli

The Last Bullet is my favorite because its....esoteric. Escharotic. Whatever, its a good movie. And all of these are Austrailian movies, to boot.
Good on ya, mates!

Durand

The Longest Day gets my vote, too.

I think A Bridge too Far deserves some consideration, as well.

PS - your comments suck. You need to get your ass into the 90's

I seem to recall Dick Winters complaining about the episode where he comes upon a young german soldier in a field and has to pop a cap in his ass. The writier turned the soldier into a babyfaced teen, who first smiles at Winters a smile that rapidly fades realized he is about to get shot in the next instant.

Then Winters is so tortured by this he can't enjoy his leave in paris, and spends his time off mostly riding the bus, where he sees a boy that tortures his conscience, as the boy reminds him of the babe-nazi he just murdered.

The story annoyned Winters no end, because he never felt a pang of guilt at shooting the soldier in the field, who wasn't a baby-soldier, but a man, and he didn't ever agonize about it on the bus or anywhere else.

woohooo, if U can read that post above, you've had as much or more eggnog than me. I . uhh, I'm going to go lie down.

"There was a documentary made about this and someone told me it was excellent but I forgot it's name."

One Day in September. Very excellent.

Come on guys, wait until you've seen Munich before you trash it. I watched it at an advance screening the other night, and it's very different from what this review depicts.

There is absolutely nothing sympathetic in the depiction of the Palestinian terrorists in Munich. They do show the families of the athletes agonizing as they watch events unfold on TV.

The main story line follows the team of Israeli assassins tracking the people responsible. It does not show them as ruthless killers, but fairly ordinary men thrown into this. They have their doubts about what they are doing, they argue about whether it is right, or even smart, to be doing it. Are they stooping to the level of their oppressors? Are they just escalating the war?

The expression of these doubts makes them far more sympathetic to me than if they were ruthless, emotionless killers. The plot purpose of the cute little daughter was to show what lengths they would go to to keep from killing her along with her father -- again, nothing like this was shown for Palestinians.

No, it's not a perfect movie, and it's definitely not a preachy movie, but it is one of the better and most thought provoking movies I've seen recently.

Yehudit---Thank you very much, that is it! I'll find it tomorrow mate, thanks again.

Re best war films:

"Blackhawk Down," hands down.

"Hamburger Hill"? The antidote to Platoon.

"Bataan" is great, spooky, stylish--and inspiring.

"Stalingrad," the German film, except for the part where the German officer says he isn't a Nazi (as if that made a difference to anyone on the Eastern Front).

"The Horse Soldiers" - Best Civil War movie, the team of John Wayne and John Ford in their prime.

"Zulu." No need to say more.

"The Blue Max." Actually, a very intelligent movie--more about class warfare and that warfare per se.

"Saving Private Ryan"--but only for the battle scenes. Everything in between was pure horseshit. By the way, the coward was the translator, not the medic.

"The Alamo" -- Overlooked, underrated, NOT politically correct, and inspiring.

Best War Movie Disguised as a Western: "The Wild Bunch." Yowza!

Best Colonial Era War Movies: "Drums Along the Mohawk," "Last of the Mohicans."

Best Korean War movies: "Fixed Bayonets" and "The Steel Helmet" (both by Sam Fuller); and "All the Young Men."

War movies that send chills up my spine: "God is My Copilot," "Wake Island," "Air Force," "So Proudly We Hail," "The Story of Dr. Wassell."

Best humerous war movie: "The Wackiest Ship in the Army."

Best modern naval warfare movie: "In Harm's Way." If only they had CG back then--the models were, admittedly, cheesy.

Best Submarine Movie: "Run Silent, Run Deep." Stay away from Area 7 and the Bungo Straits! (No, "Das Boot" does NOT make it: more special pleading for the krauts, like: "See, we're just like you.")

Best World War I in the trenches movie: Hasn't been made yet. NOT "Paths of Glory": more bogus antiwar shit from Kubrick.

"A For Effort"/Honorable mention: "We Were Soldiers," "The Great Raid."

Discuss ...

Just wanted to share. My Grandfather was in Korea and has never really spoken to me about it. Recently during a game of golf he opened up about it; those men went through hell. Anyways, he was in the famed 'Wolfhounds' 25th Infantry 27th Division which was formed in Korea. He told me the majority of his friends were killed but he remembered one in particular who he used to play the harmonica with. I found the gentleman after an exhaustive internet search and called him. He promptly informed me that he and my Grandfather were the "meanest two sumbitches" in Korea and gave me his number and asked me to have my Grandpa call him. When I told Grandpa I found his old war buddy he almost shit! I gave him the number at around 9 AM; Grandpa called about 2PM to tell me he just got off the phone with his old friend and he told me he loved me. That is one of those moments that if you live to be one hundred and fifty yrs old you will never forget. Anyway...

More best war movies:

"Objective Burma." Errol Flynn is so cool.

"The Beast." Awesome. "Nana-wa-tay!"

"Apocalypse Now." Of course.

Funniest War Movie Ever, Ever Made: "Dr. Strangelove."

Best War Movies about the British Raj: "The Drum," "Wee Willie Winkie" (I'm not kidding!), "Soldiers Three," "Gunga Din."

Guilty Pleasures: "55 Days At Peking," "Khartoum."

Best Foreign Legion Movie: "Beau Geste" (1939 version).

Best British Stiff-Upper-Lip Movie: "The Four Feathers" (1939 version).

Best War Movie for a 12-year-old boy to watch: "Sink the Bismarck."

Heart in the right place: "Glory." Cheesy special effects.

Worst modern war movies that got good reviews from MSM/film school wimps: "Thin Red Line," "Platoon."

Special Mention: "The Deer Hunter." Very moving, but was this a war movie? Five minutes of combat, 20 minutes of torture, and a Ukrainian wedding that seems like torture. I'm from Chicago, I've been to Ukrainian weddings, and the depiction of the wedding in the movie was accurate--too accurate. I'll never go to another one.

Best Korean War Movie: Porkchop Hill

Best War Movie Actor: Richard Widmark

Johnnywaka: Great story, thanks for sharing.

Best POW movie: Stalag 17

Yes, "Porkchop Hill," great.

And Richard Widmark was indeed superb in "Halls of Montezuma."

"Waterloo" with Rod Steiger as Napoleon was pretty impressive.

Oh, yes, how can I forget: "They Were Expendable," John Wayne & John Ford again. You know how some guys cry when they see "The Yearling" or "Old Yellar"? "They Were Expendable" makes me go all weepy. John Wayne was the best.

Disagree about best POW flick being Stalag 17. It's good, but ... everybody is too old!

The winner has got to be "The Great Escape." Featuring the coolest actor that ever lived, my man Steve McQueen, "Cooler King." And he rides a motorcycle and makes the Germans look stoo-pid. Man, you can't beat that with a stick. I bought a motorcycle because of that movie.

"We were soldiers once" was so good I read the book and came away hating politicians even more.

"They Were Expendable" was great as were most John Wayne war movies...with the sad exception of the Green Berets (my nominee for Worst War Movie of All Time). That was simply a propaganda movie :)

JAK,

Try 'About Face' by David Hackworth. Not a war story per se, but a great autobiography by a great warrior. Plus it'll make you hate the establishment even more :)

JackStraw: Actually, as Steyn likes to point out, wasn't one of the big NYT stories pre-9/11 "Man-eating sharks: why *o they hate us?"

The liberal has in*ee* evolve* to the point of utter self-extinction.

Part 1 of my post: War movies

Part 2 of my post: that are

Part 4 of my post: to be anti-war are my favorite

I give up. What is wrong with this site's objectionable content filter?

That movie with whatshisname playing that guy was very goo*.

Sergeant York, with Gary Cooper, that's the one!

The Enemy Below with Robert Mitchum was goo*, an* it humanize* the German u-boat crew.

Best war TV serial: Twelve O'Clock High, Combat, Rat Patrol, an* Baa Baa Black Sheep.

They *on't make 'em like that, anymore.

Insider's tip regarding David Hawkworth: He's a pathological liar. His book, "About Face," is full of lies from beginning to end. Talk to just about anyone who was a U.S. Army serving officer at the same time that Hackworth served: they'll all tell you that he had a very tenuous relationship with the truth. He's a con man and a sociopath. The reason he lived in Australia after "retiring" from the army? To avoid extradition to the U.S., where he was going to be brought up on charges for his involvment in in criminal activities while serving in Vietnam. Say this for him, though: he tells a good story ... about himself.

BTW, I don't hate the "establishment," whatever that is. I pretty much like our government--although, as a conservative, I would prefer much less of it. I especially like the military establishment. I've been working with the military for the better part of 15 years and I find the men and women in the military to be good people: honest, decent, loyal, honorable.

Johnny, that's an amazing story; your grandpa sounds great. My grandpa was a Marine in WWII but he died when I was little. I bet he had some stories to tell...

Speaking of great war movies, how about Mister Roberts?

The Caine Mutiny with Bogart as Commander Queeg! Strawberries!

Johnnywaka, there's a movie script to be had from your grandfather's stories. Thibnk about it.

P.S. Isn't David Hackworth the Fox military analyst with the blonde goatee?

I have to agree:

Best humerous war movie: "The Wackiest Ship in the Army."

Black Hawk Down, heroism, professionalism and bravery. And good combat scenes. Plus, the "is this for real?" heroism of the 2 CMOH winners. Yeah, hollywood needs to make a Fallujah or Yon script along those lines.

BTW, remember Herman Wouk's War and Rememberance TV series? I remember it fondly, but I will start again, thanks to netflix to see if it is any good to an adult.

Since I have squid leanings, I have to rave about Master and Commander. just because that's how I roll. But I am only on Surgeon's Mate.

Who can forget Sands of Iwo Jima? Co-starring the guy from F-Troop.

By far, the best war movie and the best all-around movie is...

...

...

...

...Braveheart.

How about Tora! Tora! Tora! Even the name was cool. I like just saying it. Tora! Tora! Tora! I also liked the Lost Platoon with Ricky Schroeder. Both movies were historically accurate which shd count for something.

Bart, Hackworth's dead. He passed last spring I think. He occasionally came on Hannity & Colmes, but he wasn't a full time analyst for Fox. He was the gray haired guy who never wore a tie.

Insider's tip regarding David Hawkworth: He's a pathological liar. His book, "About Face," is full of lies from beginning to end.

Some examples, please.

Talk to just about anyone who was a U.S. Army serving officer at the same time that Hackworth served: they'll all tell you that he had a very tenuous relationship with the truth.

Hackworth was a warrior and had a particular distain for the 'ticket-punchers' in the officer corps. He had many enemies because he always spoke his mind.

He's a con man and a sociopath. The reason he lived in Australia after "retiring" from the army? To avoid extradition to the U.S., where he was going to be brought up on charges for his involvment in in criminal activities while serving in Vietnam.

Because the man is dead and can't defend himself, how about some cites/links to backup your claims. It may very well be true, but there is also always two sides to a story.

Say this for him, though: he tells a good story ... about himself.

Hackworth had an oversized ego but he cared for and took care of the men who served under him. Much like other great military leaders.

BTW, I don't hate the "establishment," whatever that is

Nobody said you did. A little paranoid, aren't you?

No, I'm not paranoid--I was responding to a comment you made in a preceding post.

As for Hackworth--information about the man is available but I don't have it readily to hand. You can find out more about him if you care to. In the meantime I would simply caution against taking what Hackworth said about himself at face value. You needn't get angry with me for what I said; I wasn't attacking you personally. I was impressed by Hackworth when I first encountered him, but when I learned more about him I felt like a fool.

Isreal thinks Munich sucks too.

http://www.variety.com/VR1117935131.html

I never understood the appeal of Braveheart. At all. Crappy plot, crappy acting, script that made an episode of Transformers look sophisticated, reduced a really fascinating period of history to a Zorro b-movie.
I'll never understand why Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves didn't win six Academy Awards too, they were essentially the same film.

Same with The Patriot. Mel Gibson should not direct. I really liked him in We Were Soldiers. He can act when he wants to (when he's not playing Mel Gibson) and the script and direction are out of his hands.

I really liked When Trumpets Fade, a made-for-HBO movie with Ron Eldard. It's as good as Saving Private Ryan for my money, especially considering that it's much lower-budget. It's a good one to watch after SPR too, especially with someone who's not into history and thinks we won the war in the summer of 1944.
The allied advance has ground to a halt on the German border, they're prepared to make further progress very costly, and it's starting to snow. Dwight Yoakam has a role as a martinet West Point leutenant colonel, blows Nick Nolte away in The Thin Red Line.

No, I'm not paranoid--I was responding to a comment you made in a preceding post.

Considering the comment wasn't directed to you but at JAK, *AND*, it had one of those smiley thingys next to it indicating 'I was kidding' I was suprised at your comment.

As for Hackworth--information about the man is available but I don't have it readily to hand. You can find out more about him if you care to.

Nope. You were the one assasinating the character of a dead man. You prove it.

In the meantime I would simply caution against taking what Hackworth said about himself at face value. You needn't get angry with me for what I said; I wasn't attacking you personally.

I'm not angry. I'm just taking what you said at face value. For me, Col. Hackworth proved his bravery and honor in combat and deserves the benefit of the doubt. BTW, if I'm not mistaken we have extradition treaties with Australia so I'm not so sure that was a good place for him to go to avoid criminal prosecution if indeed he had ever been charged with any crime.

Thanks, dawg. The news of Hackworth's death completely missed me. I remember him now after seeing his pic. He always had a interesting fashion style, and raspy voice.

Brewfan:

You might want to think about providing proof that Hackworth's version of himself is truthful and accurat; you might want to find facts and statements from others to corroborate his hagiographical paean to himself. Reviewer's blurbs from the back cover of his book don't count. Also, you said that "For me, Col. Hackworth proved his bravery and honor in combat ..." How did he prove that to you? Are you getting your information about him from ... his book, which he wrote about himself? Think about it.

Calm down and be advised: If you repeated to Hackworth's brothers in arms what you have written about here the less polite among them would laugh in your face--they'll think you're a chump for believing him. I'm not saying you're a chump. But you are misinformed, through no fault of your own.

And that's the end of this discussion as far as I'm concerned.

Hackworth was a showman. His outspoken-ness was his shtick.

Did he overstate things for effect?
Probably. Sure.
The fact remains ColonelDavid Hackworth served his country and spoke truth(?) to power. More importantly, he's dead and we should let Hack rest in peace. This is the season for generosity and peace. Let us pardon Col. Hackworth for his transgressions.

P.S. Can we at least agree he wore nice black turtlenecks and had the haircut of an aging gay man living in San Francisco?

You bet!

Agreeing is fun, especially at Christmas time.

You might want to think about providing proof that Hackworth's version of himself is truthful and accurat

I didn't call him a liar. You did. You pop in, slander somebody who can't defend themselves and then get all self-righteous when you're called on it. Then you project your apparently baseless theories to unnamed 'brothers in arms' to lend some air of credibility to your screed. The fact that you can't backup anything you assert makes you just another troll. And not a particularly good one.

BTW, because I respect Bart's feelings, I want to reach out to you and find common ground, so let the record reflect that I agree with you that Hackworth was in the Army.

Have a Merry Christmas.

Are any of the following reported accomplishments false?

1. In Korea he got his first Silver Star and first Purple Heart. He was not yet 21.

2. He started as a private in the Army at age 15, having lied about his age to enlist, and won a battlefield commission in Korea. He was the youngest captain in the Army.

3. He served in Vietnam as the Army's youngest bird colonel.

4. He was put in for the Medal of Honor 3 times, the last application being under review as of last summer.

5. In the course of his career he won 8 Purple Hearts, 10 Silver Stars, 8 Bronze Stars, and 2 Distinguished Service Crosses.

6. He was buried with full honors at Arlington.

I admit the guy sounds larger than life and this is just what I quickly pulled off hackworth.com. What parts are false?

Oh, come on: You don't really want me to have a merry Christmas, do you?

Just Another Troll

For another view of Hackworth, see the following 3-part article:

Newsweek's Major Embarrassment
He's called Col. Hackworth.
By Charles Krohn and David Plotz
Posted Thursday, Nov. 28, 1996, at 12:30 AM ET

Find it at: http://www.slate.com/id/2381/#sb51012

You wanted cites, here's one. Read it--all three parts--and tell me what you think.

From the aforementioned article:

Part 2: Why Hackworth Left the Army

On May 16, 1996, Adm. Jeremy Michael Boorda, the chief of naval operations, committed suicide. Newsweek had planned to confront Boorda that day with evidence that he had worn two valor medals that he had not earned. Hackworth had tipped Newsweek off to the story; Hackworth had been tipped off by Roger Charles, an old friend who writes for the National Security News Service. On the surface, Hackworth seemed the perfect person to expose Boorda's lie. Hackworth is, after all, "America's most decorated living soldier." Who better to judge Boorda's false claims of valor?

And judge Hackworth did. Before Boorda's body was cold, Hackworth was thundering about military honor and the soldier's code. In Newsweek, he declared that "[t]here is no greater disgrace" than wearing unearned valor medals. In his newspaper column, he announced that Boorda's deception threatened the bedrock integrity of the armed forces:

Midshipmen at Annapolis, cadets at West Point, the Air Force Academy, all the ROTCs and other officer-producing schools of this land are taught the code, "I will not lie, cheat or steal nor tolerate anyone who does."

These sacred rules don't apply only to cadets, NCOs or junior grade officers, but to every leader who wears the uniform, from cadet to general, midshipm[a]n to admiral.

In recent years, there's been an epidemic of violations of these rules, many by senior officers. These offenses range from lying under oath to stealing to misusing government property.

But Hackworth was not always so righteous about the sacred rules. Here is his history.

In 1971, Hackworth commanded Advisory Team 50, a unit that advised Vietnamese forces in the Mekong delta. He had been fighting in Vietnam more or less constantly since 1965, and he was a legend. But the war disgusted him. He blamed American generals for underestimating the North Vietnamese, and for using archaic, suicidal tactics. Hackworth decided to retire early and torch his bridges. He gave a long interview to ABC, in which he savaged the idiotic commanders and declared that America could not win the war.

This--understandably--infuriated the Army, which set investigators on Hackworth. They didn't have to dig hard. In an August 1971 report, an Army deputy inspector general alleged that:

* Hackworth sanctioned the operation of a brothel--the "Steam and Cream"--in the Team 50 compound.
* Hackworth gambled with enlisted men.
* Hackworth smoked marijuana with subordinates.
* Hackworth lived in the compound with a woman who was not his wife.
* Hackworth broke currency regulations by exchanging U.S. dollars for military payment certificates on the black market.

All these activities violated military regulations, not to mention traditional standards of ethical conduct. The report concluded: "Col. Hackworth lacked the character, integrity and moral attributes required of an officer and a gentleman, acted without honor in dealings with his subordinates and superiors alike, and was derelict in the performance of his duties as Senior Advisor of Advisory Team 50." Gen. Creighton Abrams, the Army commander in Vietnam, and Lt. Gen. William J. McCaffrey, his deputy (and father of Clinton drug czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey), wanted to court-martial Hackworth. But Hackworth retained Washington superlawyer Joseph Califano to represent him, and, in September 1971, the secretary of the Army stopped the investigation and allowed Hackworth to retire. "Gen. Abrams and I were astonished and chagrined when [the secretary] let him go," says McCaffrey today.

And how does Hackworth answer the charges? In About Face, he says the Army retaliated against him because he blew the whistle. This is undoubtedly true. Yet, Hackworth concedes most of the Army's allegations, all the while offering self-righteous excuses that don't fit with his haughty denunciation of Boorda. He established the brothel, he says, so that his troops would sleep with disease-free women. He may have smoked marijuana once, but only when he was very drunk. He lived with a woman who was not his wife because his marriage was falling apart (and besides, the troops liked having her around). He gambled and violated currency regulations to build himself a nest egg for his retirement. (Incidentally, he also admitted to stealing jeeps from other Army units, faking drug tests for his soldiers, and fraternizing with enlisted men, all Army no-nos.) Hackworth writes: "It was the regulations that were wrong. ... The real question was, did discipline on Team 50 break down as a result of these command irregularities? No. ... Did morale improve with the implementation of these irregularities? No one could deny it."

The title of the chapter in which he describes the "irregularities" is "A Law Unto Himself." He does not mention the Army's sacred, universal rules. He calls his behavior "Hackworth-honorable."

"Hackworth-honorable" or "sacred rules"--which will it be? You can say (self-righteously), "I'm a Boy Scout who is outraged by any violations of the sacred military code," as Hackworth does about Boorda. Or, you can say (self-righteously), "I'm a macho guy who plays by his own rules and is too big to be hemmed in by petty bureaucrats," as Hackworth does about himself. But you can't have it both ways.

Also from the aforementioned article:

Part 3: Hackworth's Medals: "The Most Decorated Living Soldier"?

Does Hackworth have his own Boorda problem?

No one doubts that David Hackworth earned--earned in battle--his medals. But is he, as he tells readers incessantly, "America's most decorated living soldier"? Not according to the Army.

The Army does not recognize, and has never recognized, the title. According to an Army memo, "It has been a long-standing and unwritten policy of the Army that no single soldier or veteran is ever named officially as the most decorated person in a conflict or in a particular period of time." The Army did not even keep a central medal database until the mid-1970s. It has never searched through its millions of individual records to find top medal winners.

But let us suppose that Hackworth is the soldier who has earned the most medals, which is possible. Would that make him "America's most decorated living soldier"?

Again, no. The Army rejects the concept of "most decorated soldier" for fear that someone would do exactly what Hackworth is doing. Medals are not equal. The Medal of Honor, which Hackworth never won, is by far the most important award. "Statistical comparison, if possible, could allow a recipient of many awards to surpass a soldier with the Medal of Honor," says the Army memo, and this, the Army makes clear, is not acceptable. There are more than 200 living Medal of Honor winners. All of them, in the eyes of most military men, trump Hackworth. Hackworth's claim is puffery.

Part 1 from the aforementioned artcle:

Part 1: Pose

At that moment I was thinking how I would like to be a fly buzzing around in the command tent, eyeballing the maps, checking the intelligence, finding out what the hell was going on in this weird war. Suddenly my daydreaming was interrupted by the tall, rugged-looking paratrooper standing guard over me.

"Hey, Mr. Reporter," he said, "How come I know your face?"

I was writing notes when he started up. I told him I had written a book about my military experience, that maybe he had seen me on TV.

"Goddamn," he said. "You're Colonel Hackworth. You're the hot shit dude who tells it like it is?"

--From Hazardous Duty, by Col. David Hackworth

On a recent episode of Seinfeld, Elaine hires an aging Army veteran to write for her clothing catalog. The vet wears combat fatigues, black boots, and a thousand-yard stare. He recites his copy in a cigarette rasp: "It's a hot night. The mind races. You think about your knife. The only friend who hasn't betrayed you. The only friend who won't be dead by sunup. Sleep tight, mates, in your Chambray Quilted Nightshirts."

It is a part--the self-regarding, self-parodying military macho man--that might have been modeled on former Col. David Hackworth, not unlike the part he's written for himself as America's ballsiest war reporter, "the hot shit dude who tells it like it is." Hackworth is the type known as a legend in his own mind. The colonel's own press materials assert that he is the "reputed model" for Col. Kurtz, the Marlon Brando character in the movie Apocalypse Now. (In fact, the model for Col. Kurtz is Mr. Kurtz--the character in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, on which the movie is explicitly based.)

Since 1990, Hackworth has been swaggering his way around the world as a military correspondent for Newsweek. He's ubiquitous. Hackworth covered the Gulf War, the Somalia mission, the invasion of Haiti, and the Bosnia deployment. He played a crucial role in the affair of Adm. Jeremy Michael Boorda's suicide. Hackworth writes a weekly syndicated newspaper column, "Defending America." He regularly takes his stone jaw and ramrod back on television shows like Today and Larry King Live. And he just published his fourth book, Hazardous Duty, an account of his six years as a journalist: war stories about war stories. Thanks to six years of globe-trotting and vigorous self-promotion, Hackworth is probably America's most prominent military reporter. He is undoubtedly its most ridiculous. He is an embarrassment to Newsweek, and to American journalism.

Let there be no doubt: David Hackworth is a war hero. In 1944, when he was a 14-year-old orphan, Hackworth faked his way into the U.S. Merchant Marine. At 16, he was a U.S. Army private, fighting Yugoslav partisans on the Italian border. At 20, he won a battlefield commission in Korea, then commanded a savage and brilliant Army Raiders unit that wreaked havoc on the North Koreans and Chinese. When he left the Army in 1971, he was the youngest full colonel in Vietnam, winner of eight Purple Hearts, nine Silver Stars, eight Bronze Stars, four Army Commendation Medals, four Legions of Merit, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, and a chestful of other medals. Today Hackworth calls himself--often--"America's most decorated living soldier."

(The Army challenges Hackworth's right to claim this title. For that part of the story, click here. Or, finish the main article first. You'll get another chance to click to this sidebar at the end.)

When he retired, Hackworth renounced the Vietnam War, immigrated to Australia, and became an anti-nuclear activist. He vanished from the American scene until 1989, when he published About Face, his 875-page autobiography. Bloody, profane, and ferocious, About Face glorifies the courage and suffering of "warriors" (notably Hackworth himself) and spits on the generals who command them. It was a best seller, and, in 1990, Newsweek editor Maynard Parker invited Hackworth to return to the battlefield as a special Gulf War correspondent.

Parker didn't need to ask twice. Soon, Hackworth was roaring through the Saudi Arabian desert in a four-wheel drive, dolled up in Army camouflage and Kevlar helmet, carrying fake papers and bluffing his way through checkpoints. The 60-year-old expatriate peace activist had been reborn. He was Col. David Hackworth again--a k a "Hack"--part Audie Murphy, part Ernest Hemingway, all man. He had become, he writes without irony, a "truth-teller," and he was armed with "the ultimate bayonet": his pen. When the Gulf War ended, Hackworth kept writing. For the last six years, he has been stabbing the ultimate bayonet into battlefields around the world, inflicting a variety of ugly wounds, most of them on the English language and Newsweek subscribers.

If history's first pass gave Hackworth the tragedies of Korea and Vietnam, of Purple Hearts and dead comrades, the second round has been farce. Hackworth's oeuvre can be roughly divided into two categories: war stories and populist rants. In his telling, he is always the hero of both. Hazardous Duty, which Hackworth co-wrote with Tom Mathews, offers many priceless examples. It is a measure of Hackworth's journalistic talents that he requires a collaborator to write an autobiographical book. It is a measure of Hackworth's jaw-dropping arrogance that he would subtitle the book "America's Most Decorated Living Soldier Reports from the Front and Tells It the Way It Is."

The
Illustration by Steve Brodner
stories in Hazardous Duty follow a formula, which is this: Hack smells the battle approaching in _______ (insert your favorite trouble spot here: Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, the Gulf). He heads for ground zero. The U.S. troops are in chaos: The "warrior studs" have been given the wrong tanks, the wrong body armor, the wrong helicopters. Hell, they're even eating the wrong food. Meanwhile the "Perfumed Princes" (generals and their lickspittle staffs) and the other REMFs (Rear Echelon Mother Fuckers) are maxing and relaxing in their lavish air-conditioned quarters. The three-star generals are eating five-star food. Hack tracks down a "Deep Throat" who fills him in on the real story--the deadly mistakes by generals, the idiotic strategy of the generals, the lying by the generals, the poor personal hygiene of the generals, etc.

The military's PR weasels try to stymie Hack, but Hack, camouflaged like the wily vet he is, eludes them. Then Hack finds the studliest warriors on the mission. (How do we know they're studly? They listen to Hack's advice.) They are commanded by a "romping, stomping" old veteran, preferably someone who served with Hack in Vietnam. There's a whiff of cordite! The zing of a bullet! A mine blasts an armored vehicle into a twisted wreck. A bomb sprays hot shrapnel at Hack's feet. Haitian police nearly slaughter an angry mob. Blood and italics and clichés spatter across the page:

*
"Holy shit, what next? I know what this means. What this means is trouble. Big trouble."
*
"My gut was saying, Fuck this. Look at those houses. Dangerous people could be coming out of them in about one minute and then Bang Bang You're Dead."
*
"Incoming dropped on all sides of us. CRUMP, CRUMP, CRUMP. Hot steel whizzed past our ears. We piled into a bunker. I hit the floor wondering what the hell I was doing here: Welcome to the Balkans, motherfucker."
*
"My sixth sense began screaming again. Something sinister was in the air. If we stay too long, and keep dicking around, somebody's going to get killed."

But there's really nothing to worry about, because Hack's here. He's the cock of this walk--an oracle, a Clausewitz, a warrior. Hack saves an innocent boy from brutal Haitians. Hack accurately predicts the U.S. battle strategy in Iraq ("I wrote a story for Newsweek and hit dead center. Stormin' Norman thought I had given away his Hail Mary battle plan."). Hack forecasts the collapse of the Haitian army. Hack anticipates the firefight that kills 18 American Rangers in Somalia. Hack has a premonition that Boorda will kill himself. Hack helps take Iraqi prisoners ("These sorry-ass sons of bitches didn't touch their weapons. They were no more going to fight than guests at a Quaker wedding."). Hack--no joke--is worshipped by Haitians as a "Great White God."

The colonel's Newsweek and newspaper columns, on the other hand, tend toward populist screed, often directed at the military. Hackworth despises his old employer. His hatred of the Army may stem from the way he left it. Hackworth retired under a cloud in 1971, narrowly avoiding court-martial. For the full story, and how it relates to Boorda's suicide, click here, or at the end of this article.

Occasionally, Hack does bury the ultimate bayonet in a worthy victim. He consistently inveighs against military pork, nailing generals--always by name--for taking perks and botching assignments. He argues persuasively against big peacetime defense budgets. He has even gored that most sacred of cows, the four-service military, by advocating the unification of the armd services. But Hackworth also unleashes tirades that are astounding in their fury. His political philosophy--if it can be called such--is Buchananism plus steroid rage. It is stagily anti-elitist, anti-Washington, anti-corporate, conspiratorial, and egotistical. Hazardous Duty closes with this memorable passage:

Be warned, all you Perfumed Princes and Propaganda Poets, all you slick political porkers and weapons makers with your hands in the till. I intend to keep sniffing around like an old coyote, chewing on the Military Industrial Congressional Complex and calling 'em as I see 'em.

I intend to continue to tell it like it is to my fellow citizens with the hope that one day they will become so damn mad they'll stomp out the bad guys and retake charge of this great but sinking republic.

Hackworth's bombast is mostly just empty and silly, but sometimes it is worse. Which fellow citizens should take charge of this great but sinking republic? In the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, Hack wrote a newspaper column likening militia members to American revolutionaries. A few weeks later, Hackworth caught the attention of accused bomber Timothy McVeigh, who gave his first interview to the colonel. It was a wise move by McVeigh. Hackworth can't resist a man in uniform, even if it's an orange jumpsuit. He wrote an astonishingly sympathetic profile of the ex-Army sergeant in Newsweek. "I could immediately see why he was a crackerjack soldier," gushed Hack. McVeigh has "fire in the belly." Hackworth bestowed on McVeigh his highest compliment: He called McVeigh a "warrior." Hackworth even proffered an explanation--if not quite an excuse--for why McVeigh could have committed the bombing: "Postwar hangover. I have seen countless veterans, including myself, stumble home after the high-noon excitement of the killing fields, missing their battle buddies and the unique dangers and sense of purpose. Many lose themselves forever."

Hackworth is particularly hysterical on the subject of gays in the military. On CNN's Crossfire, he generalized about gay soldiers: "They live by deception. They are not trustworthy." Then he called the other guest, a gay serviceman, "a deviant ... a third sex." Then he said he would ban all gays from the military and from civilian jobs at the Department of Defense. When challenged, Hackworth declared: "I've been there, you haven't. So you don't know what the hell you're talking about." This is Hackworth's favorite pose: Army Everyman. He's a vet, ergo, he's speaks for all grunts. Anyone who hasn't "been there" has no right to an opinion on anything relating to the armd services. It is the military version of identity politics.

Hackworth also sells himself as an expert in military strategy, but his strategic insights are no sharper than his prose. Like the generals he despises, Hackworth re-fights his old battles. An example: Bosnia. Bombing never broke the spirit of the North Vietnamese, so Hackworth insisted that NATO bombing alone could not bring the Serbs to the negotiating table. It did. Then, when the United States was considering sending troops to Bosnia, Hackworth warned of another Vietnam: Troops would be picked off by snipers, and U.S. involvement would escalate into an all-out war. It hasn't happened. Hackworth also predicted the Bosnia deployment would "KO" Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign. It didn't.

Or, take the Gulf War. At its outset, Hackworth declared in Newsweek that "[t]his time, we want to limit this war to the objective George Bush announced: to free Kuwait. Period." Today, with unacknowledged hindsight but the usual grunt's-eye-view self-righteousness, Hackworth proclaims the opposite conclusion:

I don't know a lot about high political strategy, but I do know a lot about war. When you fight a war you should fight it all the way. ... We left the job undone even though we had been on the verge of total victory. We had the muscle and the stature to hold the allied coalition together long enough to finish Saddam Hussein. We erred in not doing so. ...

President Bush, General Powell, and General Schwarzkopf should have delivered a KO punch as we did with Hitler and Tojo. Back then, George Catlett Marshall didn't stop simply because he had succeeded in kicking the Germans out of France. He went in and destroyed Adolf Hitler. We haven't really won a war since World War II.

Neither Newsweek nor other media show signs of weariness with Hackworth's absurd routine. Hazardous Duty was moderately well reviewed. Hack is the subject of frequent fawning profiles. He is still filing copy from far-flung battlefields, still wildly thrusting the ultimate bayonet. When will his employers--who know better, or ought to--stop pretending that his macho posturing and potted strategic sermonettes constitute journalism?

Part 2: Why Hackworth Left the Army. Click here.

Part 3: Hackworth's Medals: "The Most Decorated Living Soldier"? Click here.

Related on the WebHackworth maintains his own self-congratulatory Web page ("David H. Hackworth: Soldier, Author, Columnist"). Don't miss the photo of him in safari shirt and deep tan. The page links to a complete list of Hackworth's awards, from Distinguished Service Crosses to the D.A. General Staff Identification Badge. Hackworth's site also archives recent "Defending America" columns, including this one about Boorda. And, you can listen to the Netizen's recent interview with Hackworth here.

Charles Krohn is a retired Army lieutenant colonel and a military writer.David Plotz is an assistant editor of SLATE.

You want more cites, Brewfan? I can bring them on if you want.

Talk about character assassinatino: Look at what Hackworth did to the army.

Re Hackworth, from Donald Sensing at the One Hand Clapping Blog:

I once was on a local radio show with David Hackworth not long after the campaign in Afghanistan began. We were both being interviewed by phone, so I did not meet him. It went well and we agreed about the main points of the discussion, that we should not use atomic weapons in Afghanistan.

But, as Phil points out, Hack has an agenda. I heard him on another radio interview within the past month, actually saying the Army should throw away its M16-series rifles and reissue M1 Garands to the troops! It gets better: he also said the M1 Abrams tank is too complex, heavy, electronic, etc., and the Army should retire it and bring back the World War II Sherman tank.

Yes, he actually said it. I heard it. And he didn't sound like he was kidding to me.

Another bone I have to pick with his PR machine is the way he was described for several years as "the most highly decorated living soldier." It was never true. First of all, he does not hold the Medal of Honor, and almost any soldier will tell you that a whole chestful of other medals does not equal the MOH alone.

Consider another officer whom I worked for at the Pentagon, still on active duty while Hack was telling everyone he was the highest decorated soldier. The officer's name was Maj. Gen. Patrick Brady. As a major in Vietnam, Brady earned the Medal of Honor for piloting a day-long series of medevac flights (read his citation). Several other senior officers, combat-decorated themselves in the war, told me that they were in awe of Brady's feats because his deeds continued for a whole day; he didn't earn the MOH for a single spasm of heroism.

That's not all. Brady was also awarded the Distinguished Service Cross; two Distinguished Service Medals; the Defense Superior Service Medal; the Legion of Merit; six Distinguished Flying Crosses; two Bronze Stars, one for valor; the Purple Heart; and fifty-three Air Medals, one for valor.

David Hackworth's own web site lists his awards and decorations. They are certainly nothing to sneeze at, including multiple awards of the Silver Star and a DFC.

Disclaimer: I was awarded none of the above. Both men are leagues above me in combat experience and just recognition thereof. But it grated a lot of officers a lot to hear the Hackworth PR machine ceaselessly inform everyone that he was the highest-decorated living soldier when simply counting ribbons is not the real measure. On radio and TV, he is entertaining, but that's pretty much it.

Rathergate: Hackworth’s Credibility Blown, Thornburgh’s Weak Conclusions Explained

Michelle Malkin notices that that the Thornburgh Report on Rathergate has details of how Mary Mapes used David Hackworth, noted retired colonel and web person, as a consultant on the Rathergate story. This is a big blow to Hackworth’s credibility. He assured Mapes that the documents were genuine (not “any doubt in his mind”), and made other confident, extremely strong statements about military procedures (”then-Lieutenant Bush was ‘AWOL’ and that a person would have to reach that conclusion when reviewing the documents ‘unless you’re the village idiot.’ “) Parts of this interview were in the first draft of the 60 Minutes Story, but were cut before the final version.

The blogosphere has commented at length on how the Thornburgh Report, while clearly and elaborately laying out the dishonesty and managerial incompetence of various executives at CBS comes to two surprising conclusions that are contrary to all its evidence: (1) there is not convincing evidence that the documents are genuine, and (2) there is not convincing evidence that CBS was biased– haste to get a story out quickly is enough to explain the story.

As everybody knows, this is silly. (1) Does anybody really believe the documents might be genuine? No. Certainly you could not find a single expert witness to say so. (2) Does anybody really believe that CBS is not biased against Bush? Maybe some liberals do not believe that, but the evidence is overwhelming. In fact, in both cases, I think the evidence is “beyond a reasonable doubt,” the jury standard.

There, however, may lie the key to the Thornburgh Report. Could a libel case be brought against CBS? First, there must be a false and hurtful statement. Clearly there was. But that is not enough. If it is a public figure that is libelled, the case must also be proved (by a preponderance of evidence, I would guess) that the liar is heavily to blame for saying something false and hurtful– that it is more than just negligence. I forget the exact standard. It may be that the plaintiff needs to prove that the lie was deliberate and intentional, or it may be he just needs to show that it was the result of reckless disregard for the facts.

Now look back at conclusions (1) and (2) of the Thornburgh Report. If it had come to the opposite conclusions, and said that the documents were indeed false and that CBS aired them because of political bias, that would be potent evidence in court in a libel suit, because Thornburgh is acting as CBS’s lawyer here. So, as a good lawyer, Thornburgh is being discreet.

Want more, Brewfan? I can keep 'em coming.

"Rathergate" Scandal Takes New Turns
Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2005

New CBS disclosures reveal Dan Rather's deep anti-Bush
bias and his agenda to undermine U.S. war efforts;
Accuracy in Media discovers that USA Today engaged
in its own cover-up of bogus documents

IN A BOMBSHELL in the CBS "Rathergate" panel report, it is revealed that Dan Rather personally assured CBS News President Andrew Heyward that the discredited Bush National Guard story was not only true but "very big." At the same time, Rather said it wasn't "as big as Abu Ghraib," the Iraqi prisoner abuse story used by CBS and other media to blacken the reputation and image of the United States around the world. What's more, it turns out that David Hackworth, a controversial retired colonel who has emerged as a strident opponent of how the Iraq war is being conducted, was a key source for canned CBS producer Mary Mapes in both stories.

Cliff Kincaid, editor of Accuracy in Media (LINK), commented that, "Rather's reference to Abu Ghraib, in the context of preparing the bogus attack on Bush, demonstrates that the agenda of Rather and CBS was not only to sabotage Bush's re-election campaign but to undermine the war in Iraq. They were looking for 'big' stories to hurt the U.S. at home and abroad. The Abu Ghraib story on CBS inflamed the Arab/Muslim world against the U.S., inevitably costing the lives of more American soldiers in Iraq at the hands of fanatical Muslim terrorists."

AIM consulted Herbert Romerstein, a retired government expert on anti-American and communist propaganda activities, for his comments about what the revelations say about the agenda of Rather, Mapes and their collaborators. "They had a political agenda," he said. "They demonstrated it with the Abu Ghraib story and the Bush National Guard story. They wanted to damage the Administration and the war effort."

Romerstein headed the Office to Counter Soviet Disinformation at the United States Information Agency and understands how misleading, deceptive and false news reports in the U.S. and foreign media can undermine the U.S. position in the world.

AIM and Romerstein drew attention to another bombshell in the report--that CBS used David Hackworth to vouch for the authenticity of the fake documents. The report says that Hackworth, who writes a regular column running under the title "Defending America," accepted the fake memos used by CBS as legitimate and taped an interview for broadcast saying so.

In what can only be seen as a major blow to his credibility as a spokesman on military affairs, the CBS report (page 96) says that Hackworth was interviewed by Rather for the Guard story "as an expert to evaluate the documents that Mapes obtained from Lieutenant Colonel Burkett." Bill Burkett is the discredited "source" who now says he got the documents from yet another "source" who cannot be located. Burkett admits lying about his "source."

Hackworth, the report says, concluded the phony documents were "genuine," and Rather thought Hackworth was a "strong and valuable expert witness." Mapes also thought Hackworth "was important for the segment" that aired on September 8, the report says, but the Hackworth excerpts were "ultimately cut from the final script" for reasons that aren't explained.

In the Abu Ghraib story, Hackworth also played a controversial role, arranging for a soldier subsequently found guilty of abusing Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib scandal to funnel information through a relative to Rather, Mapes and CBS. The 60 Minutes Abu Ghraib story aired in April 2004. The soldier, Staff. Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick, wanted to blame his own criminal conduct on higher-ups. Taking a similar approach, Hackworth accused "the very top of the Pentagon" of "covering up obscene behavior" at Abu Ghraib "while placing the sole blame on Joe and Jill Grunt."

In fact, a commission run by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger investigated the controversy and found that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other military leaders did not set policies that approved or condoned torture and other abuse.

Kincaid commented, "So Hackworth got both stories wrong. He swallowed the fake documents in 'Rathergate' and accepted a self-serving version of the Abu Ghraib prison story. He should change the name of his column from 'Defending America' to 'Defending CBS.'"

In regard to the Abu Ghraib matter, Romerstein told AIM, "Hackworth and Mapes collaborated on damaging the image of the United States based on information provided by one of the culprits who is now doing an eight-year prison sentence for his role in the activity. The CBS spin was that this was the fault of the United States Government. It was picked up by our enemies around the world as a weapon against us. They tried to protect the criminal at the expense of the United States."

Romerstein also commented on the curious failure by Dan Rather to conclude that the fake documents were forgeries. "Documents cannot stand on their own two feet," said Romerstein, who specialized in uncovering and exposing Soviet forgeries used against the U.S. in the Cold War. "There has to be a provenance for them--tracing them to their origin or the personal possession of someone. The fact that the CBS documents had no provenance makes them suspicious in the first place. In this case, somebody gave the documents to CBS and lied about where he got them. That should have been enough evidence that they were phony."

Romerstein said that document examiners "also have to look at the content of the documents. In the case of the CBS documents, they had the wrong type face. The type-face didn't exist when the documents were supposedly typed. When you're dealing with an inaccurate or suspect document, then you can only conclude that it was a forgery."

"Rathergate" Becomes "USA Todaygate"

AIM pointed out on Jan.12 that the national newspaper USA Today is engaged in an active cover-up concerning its own publication of a phony Bush National Guard story using the same bogus documents that got CBS into trouble. AIM editor Cliff Kincaid called on USA Today editor Ken Paulson to follow the lead of CBS by launching an investigation and firing the culprits who have discredited the paper.

The fallout from the scandal took a new turn on January 12 when the Washington Post quoted CBS News Vice President Linda Mason, named to a new post overseeing broadcast standards, as saying that there "was a rush" on the part of CBS News to get the phony Bush National Guard story on the air because producer Mary Mapes "felt it was a great story and she was going to get scooped on it by USA Today."

Well, CBS didn't get scooped, but USA Today ran virtually the same story one day later, September 9.

Which raises the question: why hasn't USA Today been held accountable for going with the same bogus story based on the same phony documents? The answer: the paper has been stonewalling and covering up.

Accuracy in Media has been demanding action for months, asking for USA Today editor Ken Paulson to apologize for running the same bogus story and in fact using the CBS broadcast as confirmation that the documents were legitimate. "It is a scandal on top of another journalistic scandal," said AIM Editor Kincaid. "And it involves USA Today, which was already reeling from the revelations that its prominent reporter, Jack Kelley, had been caught fabricating and faking stories."

In December AIM members began sending postcards to Paulson, after Dan Rather announced his decision to step down from the CBS Evening News in March. The AIM postcards said:

USA Today devoted over 2,000 words to Dan Rather's resignation from the CBS Evening News. It noted in a timeline that Rather had apologized "for a CBS story that questioned President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard. The story was based on documents that apparently were forged." But your paper has not apologized for running the same phony story, using the same bogus documents and based on the same dubious source [Bill Burkett]. In contrast to CBS, no one has apologized or been held accountable for this scandal at USA Today. Will you step forward and take the blame? Or will you continue to stonewall?

The CBS report (page 94) highlights the competition to be first, noting that "reporters from other news organizations were also trying to get information from Lieutenant Colonel Burkett at the same time as 60 Minutes Wednesday. In fact, on Thursday, September 9, USA Today would publish a story using some of the same documents that Lieutenant Colonel Burkett had given to Smith and Mapes, which its reporters had independently obtained directly from Lieutenant Burkett."

Last year, in one of several articles or commentaries on the matter, AIM editor Kincaid noted:

On September 9, one day after the 60 Minutes story aired, USA Today was out with its own story under the headline, "Guard commander's memos criticize Bush," by Dave Moniz and Jim Drinkard. The story was based on "newly disclosed documents," the paper claimed. It said "the memos" were "obtained by USA Today and also reported Wednesday on the CBS program 60 Minutes…"

We pointed out that not only did USA Today make the same mistake as CBS News, but the newspaper's editors used the CBS News broadcast of the story as further proof that they were somehow valid…Its "fact-checking" was even worse than CBS News, which at least went through the motions of appearing to consult some "experts" about the documents' validity.

A former USA Today staffer contacted us to say that he couldn't believe they had the same kind of problem again so soon, and appeared to be ducking it. The "same kind of problem" is a reference to the Jack Kelley scandal, where a USA Today reporter was exposed as a massive fabricator. That scandal forced a shake-up in the paper, resulting in Ken Paulson coming aboard as editor. At first, Paulson seemed like a fellow who wanted to enforce honesty and integrity at the paper. But he covers up the scandal at the paper over the use of the forged documents.

In covering the release of the CBS report on the Bush National Guard story on January 11, USA Today ran three items―a front-page story by Peter Johnson, "CBS Fires 4 over Bush Guard Story," a story by Peter Johnson and Mark Memmott, "CBS firings should go higher up, critics say," and an editorial, "CBS' rush to air a story produces fiction, firestorm." None of the stories or editorials mentioned that USA Today fell for the same documents!

In commenting on CBS News practices, the USA Today editorial claimed:

"Its first error was in not authenticating the documents. The producer who developed the report and who had worked on the story since 1999 failed to find any expert to fully vouch for them. She also relied on a source of questionable credibility. That's bad enough. But Rather and network executives compounded the error with a "rigid and blind" defense long after legitimate concerns were raised by the bloggers, outside document experts and others."

Curiously, all of this criticism could also apply to USA Today. But the paper wants all of us to believe that CBS was the lone culprit.

The editorial said the report on the scandal was "a reminder of how vulnerable all news organizations are if they let their standards slip, and how carefully they need to listen when the accuracy of their work is questioned."

AIM Editor Cliff Kincaid commented, "How true. So why doesn't USA Today come clean on how and why it gobbled up the Burkett documents?"

-AIM

From the American Thinker:

The real chain of connection
September 29th, 2004

Dan Rather and CBS News have had a rough couple of weeks coping with the forged Texas Air National Guard document scandal and their subsequent clumsy cover-up. Richard Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi have been appointed to investigate this mess, but don’t expect them to connect the dots any time soon.

In fact, the left is still relying on their standard tactic of allowing that the proof underlying their assertions is “inaccurate,” but insisting that the fundamental charges are true. Just last Thursday morning, September 23, on Fox and Friends, Michael Wolff of Vanity Fair was urging the American people to overlook the forged documents and Bill Burkett’s increasingly loony behavior. What was most important he said, was the “chain of connection” that enabled the young George Bush to “jump to the head of the line” to join the Texas Air National Guard. The implication was that his peers were forced to sweat out the wait, and if time ran out, they would perhaps be drafted and sent to Vietnam.

Mr. Wolff has identified a useful concept in his phrase, chain of connection. But no real chain of connection is found in the circumstances leading young GW into a woefully under-strength Guard billet, other than the steps of sheer logic. The future President volunteered; TANG was short of qualified recruits for the very demanding fighter pilot program; and young George W. Bush met the stringent educational, physical, intellectual, psychological, and other requirements.

Chain of connection is, however, quite relevant to the CBS scandal. Who forged the documents, and what was the chain of connection conveying the fake papers to CBS?

Further complicating matters for CBS and Dan Rather, the legacy media has unwittingly opened up another angle on probable malfeasance, when they proudly announced that Rather producer Mary Mapes had been the recipient of sensitive Abu Ghraib investigative documents and photos. Just as we are unsure of the actual source of the Guard memo forgeries, the same can be said for the source of the Abu Ghraib materials.

However, a partial chain of connection is revealed upon further examination of contemporary media accounts and the Taguba Report (the high level official inquiry) itself .

The publication of sensitive documents relating to the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib had all the marks of a well thought-out information warfare campaign. The legacy media’s focus was almost entirely on Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, rather than on the perpetrators themselves or their immediate commanders. Apparently, the instigators of the campaign and their liberal media cohorts thought that the American people would buy off on this disinformation, and would immediately call for Rumsfeld’s resignation, thereby damaging the credibility of the Bush Administration. As it turned out, the vast majority of Americans wanted Rummy to remain as SecDef, and the only people calling for his resignation were a few Democrat congressmen and left-leaning media pundits.

By her own apparent admission to the press, Mary Mapes was the recipient of these materials, but how did she get them? Ironically, a member of the new media suggests what some of the answers might be, and does this while promoting the imagined investigative prowess of one if its columnists. Barely a week prior to my original piece on the Abu Ghraib scandal, WorldNetDaily (WND) published an article about how retired Colonel David Hackworth, helped “expose the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal.” This sounds similar to Mary Mapes mysteriously “uncovering” photos and documents of the abuse. The WND piece reveals that Hackworth was apparently coordinating the transfer of these sensitive documents, in much the same way that many suspect Bill Burkett may have been the middleman for, if not the creator of, the phony Air National Guard memos.

One passage in the WND piece that requires explanation is how Hackworth came to be involved:

The story began to unravel earlier this year with the actions of Ivan Frederick, father of an Army reservist turned prison guard in Iraq, Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick, who became the target of an investigation for mistreating prisoners.

Staff Sgt. Frederick’s concerns during the first part of 2004 make perfect sense, since the Army’s CID investigation had already been conducted from October to December of 2003. The CID investigators had also secured “numerous” graphic photos and videos concerning the prisoner abuse, likely with the sergeant’s face in them. Translation: Frederick was in deep trouble, and called his Dad for help.

Frederick’s father, we are told, called his brother-in-law, William Lawson, who is a retired Master Sergeant, for help; Lawson then immediately emailed Hackworth in March of 2004. Time was running short for Frederick, because on March 20 charges were officially preferred (warning: graphic language) under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). [At about the same time, Maj. Gen. Taguba was turning over the classified report of his detailed follow-on investigation to Lt. Gen. McKiernan, the Commander of Coalition ground forces in the Central Region.] One of Hackworth’s associates immediately called Lawson, we are told, and put him in touch with someone in the CBS News 60 Minutes II program. According to Joe Flint of the Wall Street Journal, this was Rather producer Mary Mapes.

The WND article further states that photos of the abuse “were beginning to circulate among soldiers and military investigators.” This factoid seems to be designed to lessen the importance of the evidence in the proceedings which would eventually result in the convictions of several soldiers who committed the abuse. Naturally, the photos would circulate among the investigators, since the pictures provided the identities of the suspects. That the digitized photos would have circulated among the solders is a given; they took them after all. But the important question is did they turn them over to the CID when the investigation was launched, or was key evidence withheld?

The important consequence is that the chain of custody of the photographic evidence had been compromised, since these materials ended up in the hands of a CBS producer.

Chain of custody is a critical legal and investigative accountability procedure, which stipulates the judicious handling of evidence in a criminal case. Since the materials will be used in court to try the soldiers in question, a “custodian” must therefore always have physical possession or positive control of a piece of evidence. In the military, an MP or duly authorized investigator, or a supervisory non-commissioned officer or officer will assume control of the evidence, document its collection and formally transfer it other law enforcement or military legal personnel.

However, adhering to chain of custody regulations when it comes to digitial media requires a high degree of computer forensic expertise. Admittedly, this sort of technical and legal discipline cannot be realistically expected in a theater of war, unless an MP unit or the Staff Judge Advocate happens to have the correct people with this skill set available to handle the case. It is possible, therefore, that the ultimate source of the evidence was the defendants themselves. But none of them were charged with obstruction of justice on the published charge sheets. This may be a result of the conservative nature of military prosecutors, who generally go for the “slam dunk” charges, rather than risk having a charge tossed-out based upon insufficient evidence. However, we do know that at least one of the defendants was charged with making a false statement with intent to deceive, but this was unrelated to withholding of evidence.

The Taguba report is clear on the chain of custody of the evidence that the CID had obtained. Ultimately, it was secured by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command and by the Coalition Joint Task Force (CJTF) 7 Staff Judge Advocate prosecution team. Unauthorized persons, including nosy journalists or relatives of the accused, should not have had access to this material. So instead of publicizing that one of their columnists was instrumental in “helping” one of the possible perpetrators of the abuse, WND should have been more forthcoming and explain how its military expert coordinated the transmission to CBS News of evidence concerning a criminal investigation, according to their own article.

Further, in an apparent attempt to prove that he was only concerned for the welfare of the troops, and didn’t want to let the upper levels of command off the hook, Hackworth wrote a piece slamming the commander of the 800th MP Brigade, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, and criticizing the higher ups for giving her a “mild slap on the wrist.” While his evaluation of BG Karpinski’s poor command abilities was correct, by exposing the scandal to CBS he may not have helped the lower ranking soldiers at all. In fact, just the opposite.

Initial contact between the links in the chain leading to CBS had been made in late March, and once CBS had analyzed the photos and other documents, Dan Rather was ready blow the story open in mid-April. This was also the time that the battle for Fallujah was raging between US Marines and the terrorists of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Baathist die-hards. In addition, the first battle for Najaf was ongoing.

By broadcasting these photos, CBS gave an already suspicious Iraqi population in these two towns further cause to oppose the Coalition Authority, supplying visceral visual material to the world media, an extra-important factor in a populace with illiteracy among some segments, and a medieval honor system among men.

While acknowledging the seriousness of the abuse charges, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff pleaded with CBS to delay the broadcast:

Myers said he called CBS news anchor Dan Rather, asking that the network hold the story that was due to run on its program “60 Minutes.” Myers said he did so after talking with Army Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command. “I did so out of concern for the lives of our troops,” the chairman said. “The story about the abuse was already public, but we were concerned that broadcasting the actual pictures would further inflame the tense situation that existed then in Iraq and further endanger the lives of coalition soldiers and hostages.” [emphasis added] CBS did hold off, but then aired the pictures on the “60 Minutes II” program April 29.

Despite the spin from CBS News and the hype from WND last spring, it appears, based on open sources, that a family member of one of the accused, Col. Hackworth, and CBS News worked together to disclose sensitive documents, which were then used to target Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld for extensive legacy media attention, and possibly in the process to get one of the perpetrators off the hook. Somebody from CBS had to accept these documents, and that somebody seems to have been fingered by the legacy media as Mary Mapes. And, while claiming for years that he is solidly behind the Soldier in the field, Hackworth may have inadvertently given additional motivation to our adversaries while battles were being fought in key cities in Iraq.

For its part, WorldNetDaily appeared to either forget that one of its writers was seemingly a link in this chain of connection, or it chose to avoid the subject. On September 21, the very day that Dan Rather made his on-air non-apology, Editor Joseph Farah’s column rightfully criticized Dan Rather and CBS News, while reminding us that this is not the first time that Rather has made up “news” stories out of whole cloth. Farah relates how in 1988, Dan Rather had used fraudulent documents to contend that there was widespread atrocities committed by American troops in Vietnam. In view of these two scandals, Farah says,

They [the scandals] begin to make the case that Rather not only practices bad journalism, but he does it with a purpose, with an agenda, with a mission, at key moments that can impact American politics.

I agree wholeheartedly with that statement, but perhaps it is time for Mr. Farah to re-examine the entire sequence of events in the Abu Ghraib fiasco, and WND’s relationship with the agenda-driven old media.

The chain of connection in the Abu Ghraib document disclosures involves a set of people passing along information, which, immediately upon release, was seized-upon by the usual suspects in order to place the blame on Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush . And, as with the circumstances surrounding Bill Burkett and the forged National Guard memos, the only remaining piece of the puzzle remains the ultimate source of the leak. A few possibilities come to mind: persons in the CID and/or the CJTF-7 prosecution team may be the source; or the suspects themselves may have withheld evidence from the investigators and given these to unauthorized parties; or, persons in the intelligence services, who were under increasing scrutiny for their actions at Abu Ghraib, may have transferred the materials or aided in the effort.

Unfortunately, the selfish and morally questionable actions of the media and their “sources” have succeeded in unduly influencing a criminal investigation of US Soldiers, allowing them to be tried in the court of public opinion before they would ever set foot in a military courtroom. And, they may have provided an additional incentive to the enemy to intensify their barbarous acts of cruelty against our Soldiers and civilians in a theater of war.

Douglas Hanson is our military affairs correspondent

Douglas Hanson

from Accurance in the Media website:

"Rathergate" Scandal Takes New Turn
January 13, 2005

In a bombshell in the CBS "Rathergate" panel report, it is revealed that Dan Rather personally assured CBS News President Andrew Heyward that the discredited Bush National Guard story was not only true but "very big." At the same time, Rather said it wasn't "as big as Abu Ghraib," the Iraqi prisoner abuse story used by CBS and other media to blacken the reputation and image of the United States around the world. What's more, it turns out that David Hackworth, a controversial retired colonel who has emerged as a strident opponent of how the Iraq war is being conducted, was a key source for canned CBS producer Mary Mapes in both stories.

Cliff Kincaid, editor of Accuracy in Media (AIM), commented that, "Rather's reference to Abu Ghraib, in the context of preparing the bogus attack on Bush, demonstrates that the agenda of Rather and CBS was not only to sabotage Bush's re-election campaign but to undermine the war in Iraq. They were looking for 'big' stories to hurt the U.S. at home and abroad. The Abu Ghraib story on CBS inflamed the Arab/Muslim world against the U.S., inevitably costing the lives of more American soldiers in Iraq at the hands of fanatical Muslim terrorists."

AIM consulted Herbert Romerstein, a retired government expert on anti-American and communist propaganda activities, for his comments about what the revelations say about the agenda of Rather, Mapes and their collaborators. "They had a political agenda," he said. "They demonstrated it with the Abu Ghraib story and the Bush National Guard story. They wanted to damage the Administration and the war effort."

Romerstein headed the Office to Counter Soviet Disinformation at the United States Information Agency and understands how misleading, deceptive and false news reports in the U.S. and foreign media can undermine the U.S. position in the world.

AIM and Romerstein drew attention to another bombshell in the report--that CBS used David Hackworth to vouch for the authenticity of the fake documents. The report says that Hackworth, who writes a regular column running under the title "Defending America," accepted the fake memos used by CBS as legitimate and taped an interview for broadcast saying so.

In what can only be seen as a major blow to his credibility as a spokesman on military affairs, the CBS report (page 96) says that Hackworth was interviewed by Rather for the Guard story "as an expert to evaluate the documents that Mapes obtained from Lieutenant Colonel Burkett." Bill Burkett is the discredited "source" who now says he got the documents from yet another "source" who cannot be located. Burkett admits lying about his "source."

Hackworth, the report says, concluded the phony documents were "genuine," and Rather thought Hackworth was a "strong and valuable expert witness." Mapes also thought Hackworth "was important for the segment" that aired on September 8, the report says, but the Hackworth excerpts were "ultimately cut from the final script" for reasons that aren't explained.

In the Abu Ghraib story, Hackworth also played a controversial role, arranging for a soldier subsequently found guilty of abusing Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib scandal to funnel information through a relative to Rather, Mapes and CBS. The 60 Minutes Abu Ghraib story aired in April 2004. The soldier, Staff. Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick, wanted to blame his own criminal conduct on higher-ups. Taking a similar approach, Hackworth accused "the very top of the Pentagon" of "covering up obscene behavior" at Abu Ghraib "while placing the sole blame on Joe and Jill Grunt."

In fact, a commission run by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger investigated the controversy and found that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other military leaders did not set policies that approved or condoned torture and other abuse.

Kincaid commented, "So Hackworth got both stories wrong. He swallowed the fake documents in 'Rathergate' and accepted a self-serving version of the Abu Ghraib prison story. He should change the name of his column from 'Defending America' to 'Defending CBS.'"

In regard to the Abu Ghraib matter, Romerstein told AIM, "Hackworth and Mapes collaborated on damaging the image of the United States based on information provided by one of the culprits who is now doing an eight-year prison sentence for his role in the activity. The CBS spin was that this was the fault of the United States Government. It was picked up by our enemies around the world as a weapon against us. They tried to protect the criminal at the expense of the United States."

Romerstein also commented on the curious failure by Dan Rather to conclude that the fake documents were forgeries. "Documents cannot stand on their own two feet," said Romerstein, who specialized in uncovering and exposing Soviet forgeries used against the U.S. in the Cold War. "There has to be a provenance for them--tracing them to their origin or the personal possession of someone. The fact that the CBS documents had no provenance makes them suspicious in the first place. In this case, somebody gave the documents to CBS and lied about where he got them. That should have been enough evidence that they were phony."

Romerstein said that document examiners "also have to look at the content of the documents. In the case of the CBS documents, they had the wrong type face. The type-face didn't exist when the documents were supposedly typed. When you're dealing with an inaccurate or suspect document, then you can only conclude that it was a forgery."

Check the DailyKos webite to see how well the vile Markos gets along with his good pal, "Hack."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/8/20440/1036

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- David Hackworth, the retired army colonel turned journalist who questioned medals worn by the Navy's top admiral -- who later killed himself -- acknowledges he wrongly claimed credit for two of his own military honors.

The awards, which had been listed on Hackworth's personal Internet page, have now been removed.

Hackworth, once a columnist for Newsweek magazine, has described himself as America's most decorated living veteran. He was scheduled to interview Adm. Jeremy Boorda, chief of naval operations, on the day Boorda committed suicide one year ago.

Boorda, 56, committed suicide less than two hours after he learned that reporters would be questioning him about two pins on ribbon decorations that he had worn.

He left notes lamenting the coming disclosure that he had improperly worn the two bronze "V" pins, which normally are awarded for valor in combat.

Ranger? Not
decorations

From his home in Montana, Hackworth told CNN by telephone Thursday that he recently found out that he was not entitled to a Ranger tab, an insignia worn on the shoulder of a uniform.

Normally, it indicates that the wearer has completed one of the Army's toughest training courses, a rigorous entry to one of the service's most elite groups. Hackworth said he thought he earned the Ranger insignia during his service in the Korean War.

He also told CNN he found that the Army had given him two Distinguished Flying Cross medals, when he had only earned one.

In both cases, Hackworth says the mistakes were made by the Army, not him. Before he died, Boorda said he thought he had earned the medals in question during service in the Vietnam War.

'(Adm. Boorda) was wearing valor awards he wasn't entitled to wear. ... I was wearing tabs I was entitled to wear according to the Army's regulations at the time.'

-- -- Retired Army Col. David Hackworth

'I zapped it'
ranger

"The minute I found that the qualification didn't pertain to me, I zapped it," Hackworth said, referring to the entry on his Internet page. He contends that there was no comparison of his situation with Boorda's.

In a column written shortly after Boorda's death, Hackworth said: "It is simply unthinkable an experienced officer would wear decorations he is not entitled to, awards that others bled for. There is no greater disgrace," he wrote.

Questions raised

Vietnam veteran Terry Roderick, who raised the questions that led to Hackworth removing the two items from his Internet page, said the unit Hackworth served with in Korea was not a Ranger outfit.

Hackworth said he also served with the 8th Army Ranger company, but Charles Pitts, who was the first sergeant of that unit, told CBS he "never knew him."

An Army official, asked whether the service had done a search of Hackworth's medals, said it had not.

"He's retired. There was no reason to," said the official.

That's all for now, Brewfan. I have more cites at my disposal, including harsh comments from army rangers, among others--not your simple ticket punchers.

uh, ChicagoGuy, have you ejaculated yet?

WTF, ChicagoGuy?

URL links will do nicely, thankyou.

No, Dave in Texas, I haven't, not yet. I can go for hours.

I was polite to Brewfan but he went nuclear on me. Thought I'd return the favor.

Christ, what a clusterfuck Spielberg seems to have made of this subject matter. I was a child during the 1972 Olympics, but I clearly remember the hostages and the murders. Somehow, the passage of 30 years has made people unable to grasp the fact that yes, there were terrorist victims, but no they weren't the fucking Palestinians. G*ddamn fuckers got what they deserved as far as I'm concerned.

Schindler's List was so terrific that I thought Speilberg might be able to actually, you know, tell this story. Instead, he opts for usual Hollywood trope of blaming the Jews, which amazes me since I haven't seen Steven at my Presbyterian church meetings lately, if you catch my drift.

This whole cycle of violence nonsense somehow has to get scrubbed from people's minds. When some attacks your children with a knife and you punch his lights out, you're not keeping the cycle of violence. You're ending it, and from a position of moral authority. Any other opinion in this matter is complete and utter bullshit.

I never understood the appeal of Braveheart.

I was polite to Brewfan but he went nuclear on me

I thought the discussion was over? Its fine if you want to carry on but you're being way too sensitive!

If you remember, I stipulated that many in the Army didn't like Hackworth. BTW, I'm really not interested in your Rathergate strawman, either. What concerned me was this little gem:

Posted by ChicagoGuy at December 22, 2005 11:30 PM

(snip)The reason he lived in Australia after "retiring" from the army? To avoid extradition to the U.S., where he was going to be brought up on charges for his involvment in in criminal activities while serving in Vietnam.(snip)

Do us all a favor, though, and just post a link substantiating this claim or hit Ace's tip jar for all the bandwidth you're using.

And I do hope you have a Merry Christmas. Just because you made a mistake and posted something you shouldn't have doesn't mean you shouldn't get lots of nice presents from Santa!

And that's the end of this discussion as far as I'm concerned.

When you make this statement, you are saying that you WON'T be cutting & pasting umpteen three-foot-long articles on somebody else's bandwidth.

Jeebus, dude.

well, my policy is delete, delete, delete, ban, but it's not my cite.

hehe. "cite."

gotta remind you trolls...8,000 words diatribes DO NOT GET READ. all you do is make it tougher to get to links to funny penguin stories

I read it. It was interesting. .

Well, Josie, that's because of your OCD. There's medication for that you know.

I didn't see where the Slate article significantly contradicted what I knew about the guy. War hero? Yup. But that's just briefly glossed in a long complaint that the guy brags, was accused of allowing hookers for his men on the front lines a la The Dirty Dozen, maybe smoked dope in Vietnam, doesn't like the idea of gays in the military, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Yes, fine. He was probably out of proper uniform a lot of the time too. And Patton was known to treat people less than politely now and then.

I never cared much about the guy one way or the other, but as far as the hit pece goes: BFD

Well, Josie, that's because of your OCD. There's medication for that you know.

There's also medication for people like you, brewfan, who act like assholes the moment someone disagrees with them.

There's also medication for people like you, brewfan, who act like assholes the moment someone disagrees with them.

See the benefit of putting a nickname on your comments, Josie? If I didn't do that then everybody would think I was you and that you were a big asshole. You can thank me later.

Fucking, Spielberg. See the shit he causes?

This is what pissed you off:

I read it. It was interesting.

This is what you think gives you the right to go around and insult people. Go fuck yourself, Brewfan.

This is what you think gives you the right to go around and insult people. Go fuck yourself, Brewfan.

Let me see if I have this right: McStansbury chides somebody for posting long comments because they won't get read. You, Josie, pop in minutes later and contradict him for no good reason. And I'm the asshole? Ok then.

Is this Bill?

The good reason, dumbass, was that contrary to his assertion, I read it.
And yes, you were, are, and no doubt, will continue to be, the asshole.

At least he's consistent.

Lighten up, Josie. Have a drink.

Ok. I get it now. MacStansbury failed to account for people like yourself, Josie, who enjoy reading moonbat cut & pastes. You, in your quest for justice just had to call him out. Good for you.

Thanks for the attention, now get out of my face

Josie and I. Are we still friends? Yes. Do we talk? No.

No, dumbass, MacStansbury didn't fail to do anything. He made a statement and I expressed a difference in opinion as to whether the posts that have twisted your panties so tight would be read.

You, are the one who used it as an excuse to express your inner asshole.

Let me rephrase that: I only stated that I had read them and that I found them interesting. Again, if you don't like it, go fuck yourself.

Okay, good. So we can all agree it was MacStansbury's fault. Fifty lashes with a wet noodle to MacStansbury.

Lighten up yourself, bart. I am sick of people who say lighten up to someone who is merely giving back what others are giving to them.

Yep, you've returned the insult to Brew.

The problem is that you keep going and going.

Admit it, Josie. Being an asshole can be fun! You're trying hard and I give you credit for that but when you go right to the 'go fuck yourself' you come off being a little childish and/or unhinged. Try something pithy or clever. I know you can do it. After all you do like to read.

Learn to read, bart. The only person who kept going and going was him.

Bart,

Please stand aside, sir. Its obvious Josie is looking for an alpha heterosexual. I'm betting she's an 8-10 with all that sassiness.

I wouldn't know, brewfan. You've got the asshole/childish/unhinged market cornered. So, once again, fuck you.

You're starting to sound like a raving lunatic. If you keep this up, we'll re-name you Capt. Queeg.

P.S. Ace has a Taser, you know.

You're starting to sound like a raving lunatic. If you keep this up, we'll re-name you Capt. Queeg.

Hey everybody, I've got an idea...

A little more excerpting would have been welcome, but a datastorm is a perfectly reasonable response to a put-up-or-shut-up.

a datastorm is a perfectly reasonable response to a put-up-or-shut-up.

While I respect your opinion, Mr. Weasel, I disagree. This datastorm you refer to should minimally have something to do with the original allegation which was Mr. Hackworth was avoiding criminal prosecution by residing in Australia. I believe I concurred on the other assertion that he was disliked by many of his peers.

[how was that, Josie?]

If you keep this up, we'll re-name you Capt. Queeg.

More like Captain Queef.