Tram Town
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
| Category: Fraud If you Google for Jesse Macbeth as of today, the first hit is an entry in Wikipedia starting as follows: Jesse Adam Macbeth (born Jesse Adam Al-Zaid,[1] 1984) falsely claimed to be an Army Ranger and veteran of the Iraq War. He lied in alternative media interviews that he and his unit routinely committed war crimes in Iraq. Macbeth began to attract significant attention after the release of a video containing his allegations; transcripts of the video were made in English and Arabic. According to the U.S. Army, there is no record of Macbeth being a Ranger, [2] or serving in a combat unit: he was discharged from the service after having been declared unfit or unsuitable for the Army, or both, before he could complete basic training.Terry Lane didn't bother with the search presumably because he thought the story was too good so he submitted a column about Macbeth to the TTT without even a limited check on its veracity. Slatts (who I spent a very pleasant couple of hours with over lunch last week) asks:
UPDATE: Noted in the comments mentioned above is the irony of the columns headline: Turning a blind eye to the real horrors. UPUPDATE: Terry Lane has resigned. |
