Superstar journalist Sy Hersh (Abu Ghraib, the Office of Special Plans stovepipe, Richard Perle's corruption, CIA involvement in Allende coup, My Lai) recently spoke of hearing allegations from a U.S. Lieutenant that another U.S. unit massacred friendly Iraqi guards just so they could claim a high "insurgent" body count. Hersh hasn't put the allegation in print yet, and it appears to be just something one guy told him, but coming from Hersh, "something some guy told me" has a lot of weight. We can hope from his stature that he has done at least some rudimentary work towards determining his source wasn't just a kook caller.
Perhaps more distressing is Hersh's warning to his source:
You know what I told him? I said, fella, I said: you've complained to the captain. He knows you think they committed murder. Your troops know their fellow soldiers committed murder. Shut up. Just shut up. Get through your tour and just shut up. You're going to get a bullet in the back. You don't need that. And that's where we are with this war.
I'd like to know if Hersh actually knows of any soldiers in Iraq who have been killed or threatened with death for whistleblowing, and why that hasn't been a big story.
Posted by Warrior Tang at October 12, 2004 05:26 PM