Vicegerent
2005-11-14 17:31:15 UTC
From:: http://nationalvanguard.org/story.php?id=2437
My name is Eric Holmes May, born 1960. From 1977-1980,
I served in the U.S. Chemical Corps in the 1st Cavalry
Division, holding ranks from private to sergeant. In
1980, I entered the University of Houston Honors
College, and while there received my commission as a
second lieutenant (December 15, 1983). I completed my
degree in Classics (Latin & Greek) in 1985.
After graduation, I attended the Military Intelligence
Officers Basic Course at Ft. Huachucha, Arizona, where
I remained for a year working on special projects for
the Director of Reserve Intelligence. In 1986 I
attended the Defense Language Institute (DLI) at the
Presidio of Monterey, California, where I completed
the Russian basic and intermediate courses. In 1988 I
was selected as an inspector/interpreter for the
Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty team, and
afterwards worked on special projects for an
intelligence asset in the area of Washington, D.C.
Afterwards, I attended the Military Intelligence
Officers Advanced Course in Ft. Huachuca, Arizona.
In 1990 I returned to civilian life, teaching
languages (Latin, Greek and Russian) for Houston's Mt.
Carmel High School (where I was elected teacher of the
year), and serving in the Army Reserves as an expert
on Opposing Forces (OPFOR) doctrine and tactics with
the 75th Division (Exercise). In 1991, I began to
write op-eds for the two Houston daily papers, the
Post and the Chronicle. Most of my op-eds were about
education and general-interest topics, but twice
(after Operation Desert Storm), they were strategic
warnings. My first strategic op-ed, "Success of Desert
Storm being judged unfairly" (Houston Chronicle
Outlook, August 12, 1992) was based on my insights as
a Desert Storm volunteer. In it I stated that, had we
invaded Iraq after liberating Kuwait, we would have
ended up in a quagmire like Vietnam. My second
strategic op-ed, "Somalia intervention not as simple
as it seems" (Houston Chronicle Outlook, December 3,
1992) advised that we were making a big mistake by
going into a little-known African country called
Somalia - an opinion borne out by later events.
In 1993, I became the public affairs officer for the
75th Division, and attended the Defense Information
School in Ft. Benjamin Harrison, Indiana. In 1995 I
began a new civilian career as a freelance executive
speech writer for many prominent Houston companies:
Texaco, Enron, Compaq, Hill & Knowlton - you name 'em.
At the same time I was the editorial writer for NBC
affiliate KPRC-TV. I continue to publish op-eds in the
local and national media, mostly for clients, without
my own name. I am what is known in the info biz as a
ghostwriter.
Early Iraqi Freedom published essays
Before the fall of Saddam Hussein's statue April 9,
2003, I had published two more strategic warnings,
specific to the new Gulf War. The first, "Don't laugh
at duct tape, it saves lives" (Houston Chronicle
Outlook, February 23, 2003) urged greater domestic
caution in light of the pending conflict, particularly
at Houston's chemical plants. Government agencies
(e.g., EPA) started issuing the same warning late this
summer - half a year after my initial analysis. The
second op-ed, "Visions of Stalingrad: Claim victory in
Iraq now" (Houston Chronicle Outlook, April 3, 2003)
flatly predicted that the Iraq war would turn into
quicksand, and perhaps spin out of control into a
world war. Here is the op-ed's concluding paragraph:
"Military intelligence officers are accustomed to
being told that their field is a contradiction in
terms, and that they are the bearers of bad news and
worst-case scenarios. But it seems to me that fortune
is no longer smiling on our heroic liberation of Iraq,
and I'm afraid we may learn too late that we have
stepped into quicksand."
Nowadays when I search the Internet, I find the word
quicksand frequently used in mainstream media to
describe Iraq (around 5,000 times in my search), but I
used it first by a month. George W. Bush certainly got
us into the Quicksand War, but I sure as hell named
it.
As my op-ed suggested, I was plenty skeptical about
the American media's presentation of the war. After
all, I had been trained at the Defense Language
Institute to evaluate the techniques and tendencies of
the Soviet media, which some of my most intelligent
Soviet-emigrant instructors assured me had duped them
for decades on the realities of the world. I never
forgot the important lesson that smart people could be
misled by "the big lie" (as Hitler used to call it) of
a false media picture.
My readings of the international press, my own
observations and a few choice conversations led me to
believe that the American media had self-mobilized to
support the war effort, much in the same way it
self-mobilized to support the war effort in World War
II; it had become something of a national propaganda
agency, like the former Soviet TASS, or like Nazi
Josef Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry. 911 was waved
like a bloody shirt. Whatever did fit the war picture
(e.g., patriotism and profiteering) was hyped, while
whatever didn't fit the war picture (e.g., lack of WMD
evidence and lack of terrorist connection evidence)
was neatly omitted. The propaganda crested as U.S.
forces approached the city of Baghdad, which they
began to surround for an eventual assault...
Battle of Baghdad
You might now remember that on the night before the
Battle of Baghdad began Saddam had promised us an
attack... Well, he kept his promise. Friday night at
8:30 p.m. (Central), I was watching CNN showing the
predawn of Saturday 5:30 morning half-way around the
world in Baghdad...
All at once the skyline of the besieged city erupted
with the flash and report of sustained explosions. The
CNN people (Aaron Brown and Fredricka Whitfield)
reacted with surprise, saying that U.S. public affairs
hadn't alerted them that there would be a major fire
mission tonight. I immediately became anxious, knowing
it exceedingly unlikely that public affairs hadn't
contacted affected media about a major fire mission in
a choreographed war. "It probably wasn't us doing the
firing," I thought.
In the next few minutes CNN's reporter Walter Rodgers,
embedded with the 3/7 Cavalry, attempted to make a
report from the Baghdad Airport. Rodgers' voice was
indistinguishable because of the extreme background
noise of artillery impacting around him, automatic
small arms fire striking his vehicle and the shouts of
the soldiers inside. It was the fog of war, no doubt
about it. Aaron Brown offered no explanation of the
noise, merely stiffly saying that the network was
having technical difficulties.
Thankfully, Walter Rodgers' luck held. A half hour
later Fredericka and Aaron were off the clock and
Larry King Live carried an interview between Rodgers
and Lt. Col. Terry Ferrell - the commander of the very
3/7 Cavalry under fire at the airport. I had never
seen the unit commander in two weeks of the TV war, so
his sudden appearance was just more sad corroboration
of my theory that we were getting the worst of it in
the early Battle of Baghdad. Lt. Col. Ferrell bravely
tried to keep a straight face as he told Rodgers that
all was well at the airport, but ended up in tears;
Rodgers was too choked up to pick up the conversation.
The put-up interview was yet more tragic corroboration
of my sad analysis, and I began to cry along with
Lieut. Col. Ferrell and Rodgers, for the boys of the
3/7 Cavalry, remembering that I had once been a young
cavalryman, too.
Over the weekend I picked up around twenty
"indicators" (to use the intelligence term) of a
cover-up of the Battle of Baghdad, which I believe
began with the attack against the 3/7 Cavalry. To all
but a few people, the CNN surprise about the
explosions and the consequent events seemed little
more than sloppy journalism, maybe frayed nerves, but
I had the military and media background to see through
the shadows and into the sun: We had come under attack
from Iraqi forces. It wasn't our explosions that had
been blowing them up - it was the other way around!
Eight hours later, when it was morning back in the
United States, most Americans thought nothing if they
tuned into the news to find that the president had
suddenly decided to go and visit Tony Blair in
England; that last night's build-up to the Battle of
Baghdad had been supplanted by the contrived human
interest story of Private Jessica; and that the
Pentagon had cancelled it's 1230 (Eastern Time)
Saturday briefing, with no reasons given. The tone of
CNN, which I continued to watch, was secretive, and at
times apologetic. Aaron Brown said that there were
things that they couldn't talk about now that they'd
later explain... Reporter Christiane Amanpour chaffed at
the conduct of the American misinformation campaign,
and came close to condemning it on the air when she
said that there were "substantial contradictions of
fact" between allied and independent media accounts of
events.
Media duly continued to broadcast Jessica for two
days, then bombings meant to get Saddam for a third;
they broadcast everything but the Battle of Baghdad.
On Wednesday, April 9, public affairs contrived a
pulling down of Saddam Hussein's statue and word
generally spread that the battle (never shown before
and never acknowledged as begun) was over. Frustrated
by the failure of the American media to cover the
much-awaited battle, millions of Americans turned to
the English-version Al-Jazeera online for their news -
and it promptly crashed (probably interrupted on White
House orders).
The public had (and continues to have) no idea that
the Iraqis did make their promised counterattack on
April 5, at the Baghdad Airport and later across
Baghdad, inflicting hundreds of casualties while
fighting a rearguard action as they dispersed into the
underground. On the basis of twenty years of military
service, I infer that the Battle of Baghdad is what
was raging every minute the media was airing or
printing distraction.
If I'm wrong, why didn't they report it? Wasn't
Baghdad the climax of the war that they had set us up
to watch? Well, they changed the programming because
it turned into something worse than an anticlimax - a
military disaster, and just the kind of thing to
undercut public support for the war and public
confidence in the commander in chief. The media stayed
true to the administration plan and false to the
American people by covering up the Battle of Baghdad
for George W. Bush and the pro-war factions,
Republican and Democrat, in control of Congress. It
was clear to me from then that we had slipped off our
constitutional foundation.
Military honors
At noon, April 8, 2003, I began a solitary protest of
the war and collection for the fallen of the 3/7
Cavalry at my alma mater, the University of Houston
Honors College. In the next two weeks I sat and took
collections from the pampered elite of America for
forty full hours. They gave but twenty dollars of
emergency relief for their less privileged peers (or
their widows), who had tried to go to college the hard
way, as I did: after an Army tour. The same craven
bunch hoorayed when I told them I believed the Army
had assassinated Al Jazeera journalists on orders from
the White House. They were generally jingoistic about
the war - as long as it was less fortunate Americans
who were fighting it.
The Honors students were of service in one thing,
though, despite their inhuman indifference to their
brothers (American and Iraqi) suffering in the war.
Despairing of their humane assistance, I appealed to
their avarice, and with far better results. I posted a
bounty offering $100 to any Honors College student who
would effectively refute the proposition that there
had been a big battle in Baghdad over the prior
weekend.
The foreign students, ever more enterprising than the
homegrown, made up the first posse for the truth of
the Battle of Baghdad, saying that they would discover
what had really happened from foreign sources. The
next day they came back, jabbering to each other in a
bewildering array of Asian languages, then told me
with wonder what I already knew: that from Morocco to
Malaysia, independent media were reporting that
Americans had been fighting and dying in Baghdad all
weekend.
My brother Baptists, the Righteous Republican
students, promised to claim the prize by researching
the liberal American media, joking that such a media
as ours would make the worst case it could against the
war, because it was pacifistic, leftist and inimical
in the ongoing kulturkampf (a word they learned from
right-wing megastar Rush Limbaugh - along with all
their ideas). The next day they came back even more
confused than the foreigners. They said apologetically
that they couldn't find anything at all about the
missing Battle of Baghdad in the liberal American
media!
On April 13, I wrote an op-ed "3/7 Cavalry, tragedy
and travesty" for Frank Michel, the associate editor
of the Houston Chronicle, who had been a colleague for
more than ten years. He sealed it and put it in his
desk, with witnesses watching, because he knew that I
knew what I was writing about. He told his colleagues
that the essay was history.
Scouting to Georgia
CNN's Aaron Brown had an on-air conversation with
Walter Rodgers (evening, April 9), in which Brown
cryptically noted that CNN had been with the 3/7
Cavalry at the Baghdad Airport. He then asked a
strange question, given the rosy picture the media had
painted of the war: "Do they (the 3/7 Cavalry) feel
safe, now?" Rodgers' reply was as grim as Brown's
question. He said that Lt. Col. Ferrell had addressed
the assembled squadron that afternoon, and had summed
it up for all the command when he said that "no one
will ever feel safe again until they get back home to
Ft. Stewart, Georgia."
April 22, 2003 I began my annual bicycle tour a bit
early this year, and took it in the direction of Ft.
Stewart, Georgia, some 1,000 miles away from Texas. I
wasn't in a hurry, wanting to take the pulse of our
people. Along the way I discussed my observations of
April 5-9 with dozens of common people at the diners,
hotels, stores and post offices where I stopped to
chat. I found that many of them remembered various
things about the information picture that didn't quite
fit right, but that none of them could give an
explanation for what, if anything, it all meant.
Events were fresh on people's minds, then, and as I
explained it all they had an easy time seeing through
the deception of the times, but after we parted they
left the topic and the talk behind them and returned
to their normal lives, content that even if there was
a bit of funny business going on in Iraq, everything
was still fine in America.
I reached Ft. Stewart May 14 and went to the Marne
Chapel, one of the 3rd Infantry Division churches, and
there met with a Colonel Dennington, a Special Forces
chaplain. He acknowledged the Battle of Baghdad and
its dead, telling me that more soldiers than just the
3/7 Cavalry had perished. He urged me to cover it up
for the greater good of the war effort, and said a few
things that a reasonable person might have thought
menacing. I still have Colonel Dennington's receipt
for the paltry donation of the University of Houston
Honors College, which I carried to Ft. Stewart first
for my fallen comrades, and second as a cover for
getting inside their Army post in time of war to find
out what the hell was going on!
It's the first rule of a mission, after all, and every
leader should know it: You always scout things out
thoroughly before you act. If the president had kept
this basic rule in mind, we wouldn't be at war now.
Infowar - the last published essay
After returning to Houston (via bus) I kept low for
the rest of May and most of June, as the Houston
Chronicle waited for the military to let the media
tell the story of Baghdad. According to my editorial
contacts Frank Michel and David Langworthy, the
military had ordered the media to suppress the Battle
of Baghdad when it was raging because real-time
reports would have compromised operational security of
an ongoing operation (a valid concern). Things went
crooked, though, when the military ordered the media
to continue to suppress the story after operations
were concluded. David and Frank agreed that this put
the Pentagon and the White House outside the
parameters of the Constitution, but they weren't going
to stake their careers on any futile heroics - the big
bosses were telling them what to tell the public, and
it wasn't the truth, but it was a paycheck.
On June 25 General Clark came out against the Bush war
on CNN Crossfire, and on June 27 I sent the Houston
Chronicle's opinion page editor, David Langworthy, my
"Worried about the quicksand of war in Iraq"
denouncing the Bush war plan and attacking the
integrity of the commander-in-chief. Encouraged by the
New York Times publication of Ambassador Joe Wilson's
op-ed against hyped WMD claims July 6, the Chronicle
finally published my op-ed July 8.
Afterwards, I believed that I had caused a fair amount
of anger in the White House with my words and deeds,
because my editors carried no letters to the editor in
response to someone who had called George W. Bush a
liar, avoided my calls, and stopped publishing my
op-eds - even going so far as to take sudden vacations
to be away when my essays arrived for editing. On the
advice of friends and family I ducked out of
circulation for a while. Between July 17 and September
21, I stayed inside my home. The timing of my move
underground was fortunate, perhaps, because other
critics of the war (e.g., David Kelly of England and
Ambassador Joe Wilson of the U.S.) became targets for
retaliation by leaders of their respective countries
during July. As a matter of fact, Kelly's strange
death came the evening of the day when I went into
hiding.
I began to call this state of affairs, in which
speaking the simple truth becomes dangerous, infowar,
and it's being waged against the American People. My
media contacts (among them Thom Shanker of the New
York Times, Barbara Phillips of the Wall Street
Journal and Frank Michel of the Chronicle) have
confirmed my pessimistic analysis: the infowar is
real, reporters are frightened of the Bush people, and
no one is talking or writing about (or allowing anyone
else to talk or write about) the Battle of Baghdad -
until public outcry makes some explanation
unavoidable.
In other words, the media are afraid to tell us what a
few of us have known from the start until we find out
for ourselves - they're not doing their jobs. In the
meanwhile those who favor continued military action
are smiling with the knowledge that every passing
month of public ignorance about the human cost of the
war pulls America deeper and deeper into the Arabian
quicksand. Ever loyal (to the war), the American media
is now beginning to discuss the need for a draft. I've
got a feeling that the brats of the Honors College of
the University of Houston are about to find out a new
word, conscription, and their interest in it will be
far greater than merely academic.
Ghost Troop, 3/7 Cavalry
So now we come to it...
Ghost Troop, 3/7 Cavalry is the unit comprised of all
the unacknowledged dead soldiers from the Battle of
Baghdad, who are receiving no just reckoning or
recognition because the media lied - and continue to
lie - about the Battle of Baghdad. We have a Watergate
cover up on our hands; worse, we have a war. I have
assumed command of Ghost Troop and, according to the
oath I swore when I accepted commission as an Army
officer, I have self-mobilized (under my former rank
of captain) to oppose the Bush cover up of the
unpleasant realities of Iraq - especially of Ghost
Troop, 3/7 Cavalry. I consider myself to be in a state
of revolution against an unconstitutional,
unconscionable abuse of the public's right to know -
the first freedom guaranteed to Americans. So long as
there is no talk of what actually happened in Baghdad
that weekend in April, there is no freedom of the
American press. The fix is in, my friend, and
America's in a fix.
The $100 offer to find out the truth about the lost
weekend in Baghdad still stands. In fact, given the
depth of the denial, I've increased it to $1000 for
the reporter who breaks the story of the Battle of
Baghdad - and thirty pieces of silver for his or her
megamedia parent.
Captain Eric Holmes May, MI, USA
Posted by: Vicegerent
My name is Eric Holmes May, born 1960. From 1977-1980,
I served in the U.S. Chemical Corps in the 1st Cavalry
Division, holding ranks from private to sergeant. In
1980, I entered the University of Houston Honors
College, and while there received my commission as a
second lieutenant (December 15, 1983). I completed my
degree in Classics (Latin & Greek) in 1985.
After graduation, I attended the Military Intelligence
Officers Basic Course at Ft. Huachucha, Arizona, where
I remained for a year working on special projects for
the Director of Reserve Intelligence. In 1986 I
attended the Defense Language Institute (DLI) at the
Presidio of Monterey, California, where I completed
the Russian basic and intermediate courses. In 1988 I
was selected as an inspector/interpreter for the
Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty team, and
afterwards worked on special projects for an
intelligence asset in the area of Washington, D.C.
Afterwards, I attended the Military Intelligence
Officers Advanced Course in Ft. Huachuca, Arizona.
In 1990 I returned to civilian life, teaching
languages (Latin, Greek and Russian) for Houston's Mt.
Carmel High School (where I was elected teacher of the
year), and serving in the Army Reserves as an expert
on Opposing Forces (OPFOR) doctrine and tactics with
the 75th Division (Exercise). In 1991, I began to
write op-eds for the two Houston daily papers, the
Post and the Chronicle. Most of my op-eds were about
education and general-interest topics, but twice
(after Operation Desert Storm), they were strategic
warnings. My first strategic op-ed, "Success of Desert
Storm being judged unfairly" (Houston Chronicle
Outlook, August 12, 1992) was based on my insights as
a Desert Storm volunteer. In it I stated that, had we
invaded Iraq after liberating Kuwait, we would have
ended up in a quagmire like Vietnam. My second
strategic op-ed, "Somalia intervention not as simple
as it seems" (Houston Chronicle Outlook, December 3,
1992) advised that we were making a big mistake by
going into a little-known African country called
Somalia - an opinion borne out by later events.
In 1993, I became the public affairs officer for the
75th Division, and attended the Defense Information
School in Ft. Benjamin Harrison, Indiana. In 1995 I
began a new civilian career as a freelance executive
speech writer for many prominent Houston companies:
Texaco, Enron, Compaq, Hill & Knowlton - you name 'em.
At the same time I was the editorial writer for NBC
affiliate KPRC-TV. I continue to publish op-eds in the
local and national media, mostly for clients, without
my own name. I am what is known in the info biz as a
ghostwriter.
Early Iraqi Freedom published essays
Before the fall of Saddam Hussein's statue April 9,
2003, I had published two more strategic warnings,
specific to the new Gulf War. The first, "Don't laugh
at duct tape, it saves lives" (Houston Chronicle
Outlook, February 23, 2003) urged greater domestic
caution in light of the pending conflict, particularly
at Houston's chemical plants. Government agencies
(e.g., EPA) started issuing the same warning late this
summer - half a year after my initial analysis. The
second op-ed, "Visions of Stalingrad: Claim victory in
Iraq now" (Houston Chronicle Outlook, April 3, 2003)
flatly predicted that the Iraq war would turn into
quicksand, and perhaps spin out of control into a
world war. Here is the op-ed's concluding paragraph:
"Military intelligence officers are accustomed to
being told that their field is a contradiction in
terms, and that they are the bearers of bad news and
worst-case scenarios. But it seems to me that fortune
is no longer smiling on our heroic liberation of Iraq,
and I'm afraid we may learn too late that we have
stepped into quicksand."
Nowadays when I search the Internet, I find the word
quicksand frequently used in mainstream media to
describe Iraq (around 5,000 times in my search), but I
used it first by a month. George W. Bush certainly got
us into the Quicksand War, but I sure as hell named
it.
As my op-ed suggested, I was plenty skeptical about
the American media's presentation of the war. After
all, I had been trained at the Defense Language
Institute to evaluate the techniques and tendencies of
the Soviet media, which some of my most intelligent
Soviet-emigrant instructors assured me had duped them
for decades on the realities of the world. I never
forgot the important lesson that smart people could be
misled by "the big lie" (as Hitler used to call it) of
a false media picture.
My readings of the international press, my own
observations and a few choice conversations led me to
believe that the American media had self-mobilized to
support the war effort, much in the same way it
self-mobilized to support the war effort in World War
II; it had become something of a national propaganda
agency, like the former Soviet TASS, or like Nazi
Josef Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry. 911 was waved
like a bloody shirt. Whatever did fit the war picture
(e.g., patriotism and profiteering) was hyped, while
whatever didn't fit the war picture (e.g., lack of WMD
evidence and lack of terrorist connection evidence)
was neatly omitted. The propaganda crested as U.S.
forces approached the city of Baghdad, which they
began to surround for an eventual assault...
Battle of Baghdad
You might now remember that on the night before the
Battle of Baghdad began Saddam had promised us an
attack... Well, he kept his promise. Friday night at
8:30 p.m. (Central), I was watching CNN showing the
predawn of Saturday 5:30 morning half-way around the
world in Baghdad...
All at once the skyline of the besieged city erupted
with the flash and report of sustained explosions. The
CNN people (Aaron Brown and Fredricka Whitfield)
reacted with surprise, saying that U.S. public affairs
hadn't alerted them that there would be a major fire
mission tonight. I immediately became anxious, knowing
it exceedingly unlikely that public affairs hadn't
contacted affected media about a major fire mission in
a choreographed war. "It probably wasn't us doing the
firing," I thought.
In the next few minutes CNN's reporter Walter Rodgers,
embedded with the 3/7 Cavalry, attempted to make a
report from the Baghdad Airport. Rodgers' voice was
indistinguishable because of the extreme background
noise of artillery impacting around him, automatic
small arms fire striking his vehicle and the shouts of
the soldiers inside. It was the fog of war, no doubt
about it. Aaron Brown offered no explanation of the
noise, merely stiffly saying that the network was
having technical difficulties.
Thankfully, Walter Rodgers' luck held. A half hour
later Fredericka and Aaron were off the clock and
Larry King Live carried an interview between Rodgers
and Lt. Col. Terry Ferrell - the commander of the very
3/7 Cavalry under fire at the airport. I had never
seen the unit commander in two weeks of the TV war, so
his sudden appearance was just more sad corroboration
of my theory that we were getting the worst of it in
the early Battle of Baghdad. Lt. Col. Ferrell bravely
tried to keep a straight face as he told Rodgers that
all was well at the airport, but ended up in tears;
Rodgers was too choked up to pick up the conversation.
The put-up interview was yet more tragic corroboration
of my sad analysis, and I began to cry along with
Lieut. Col. Ferrell and Rodgers, for the boys of the
3/7 Cavalry, remembering that I had once been a young
cavalryman, too.
Over the weekend I picked up around twenty
"indicators" (to use the intelligence term) of a
cover-up of the Battle of Baghdad, which I believe
began with the attack against the 3/7 Cavalry. To all
but a few people, the CNN surprise about the
explosions and the consequent events seemed little
more than sloppy journalism, maybe frayed nerves, but
I had the military and media background to see through
the shadows and into the sun: We had come under attack
from Iraqi forces. It wasn't our explosions that had
been blowing them up - it was the other way around!
Eight hours later, when it was morning back in the
United States, most Americans thought nothing if they
tuned into the news to find that the president had
suddenly decided to go and visit Tony Blair in
England; that last night's build-up to the Battle of
Baghdad had been supplanted by the contrived human
interest story of Private Jessica; and that the
Pentagon had cancelled it's 1230 (Eastern Time)
Saturday briefing, with no reasons given. The tone of
CNN, which I continued to watch, was secretive, and at
times apologetic. Aaron Brown said that there were
things that they couldn't talk about now that they'd
later explain... Reporter Christiane Amanpour chaffed at
the conduct of the American misinformation campaign,
and came close to condemning it on the air when she
said that there were "substantial contradictions of
fact" between allied and independent media accounts of
events.
Media duly continued to broadcast Jessica for two
days, then bombings meant to get Saddam for a third;
they broadcast everything but the Battle of Baghdad.
On Wednesday, April 9, public affairs contrived a
pulling down of Saddam Hussein's statue and word
generally spread that the battle (never shown before
and never acknowledged as begun) was over. Frustrated
by the failure of the American media to cover the
much-awaited battle, millions of Americans turned to
the English-version Al-Jazeera online for their news -
and it promptly crashed (probably interrupted on White
House orders).
The public had (and continues to have) no idea that
the Iraqis did make their promised counterattack on
April 5, at the Baghdad Airport and later across
Baghdad, inflicting hundreds of casualties while
fighting a rearguard action as they dispersed into the
underground. On the basis of twenty years of military
service, I infer that the Battle of Baghdad is what
was raging every minute the media was airing or
printing distraction.
If I'm wrong, why didn't they report it? Wasn't
Baghdad the climax of the war that they had set us up
to watch? Well, they changed the programming because
it turned into something worse than an anticlimax - a
military disaster, and just the kind of thing to
undercut public support for the war and public
confidence in the commander in chief. The media stayed
true to the administration plan and false to the
American people by covering up the Battle of Baghdad
for George W. Bush and the pro-war factions,
Republican and Democrat, in control of Congress. It
was clear to me from then that we had slipped off our
constitutional foundation.
Military honors
At noon, April 8, 2003, I began a solitary protest of
the war and collection for the fallen of the 3/7
Cavalry at my alma mater, the University of Houston
Honors College. In the next two weeks I sat and took
collections from the pampered elite of America for
forty full hours. They gave but twenty dollars of
emergency relief for their less privileged peers (or
their widows), who had tried to go to college the hard
way, as I did: after an Army tour. The same craven
bunch hoorayed when I told them I believed the Army
had assassinated Al Jazeera journalists on orders from
the White House. They were generally jingoistic about
the war - as long as it was less fortunate Americans
who were fighting it.
The Honors students were of service in one thing,
though, despite their inhuman indifference to their
brothers (American and Iraqi) suffering in the war.
Despairing of their humane assistance, I appealed to
their avarice, and with far better results. I posted a
bounty offering $100 to any Honors College student who
would effectively refute the proposition that there
had been a big battle in Baghdad over the prior
weekend.
The foreign students, ever more enterprising than the
homegrown, made up the first posse for the truth of
the Battle of Baghdad, saying that they would discover
what had really happened from foreign sources. The
next day they came back, jabbering to each other in a
bewildering array of Asian languages, then told me
with wonder what I already knew: that from Morocco to
Malaysia, independent media were reporting that
Americans had been fighting and dying in Baghdad all
weekend.
My brother Baptists, the Righteous Republican
students, promised to claim the prize by researching
the liberal American media, joking that such a media
as ours would make the worst case it could against the
war, because it was pacifistic, leftist and inimical
in the ongoing kulturkampf (a word they learned from
right-wing megastar Rush Limbaugh - along with all
their ideas). The next day they came back even more
confused than the foreigners. They said apologetically
that they couldn't find anything at all about the
missing Battle of Baghdad in the liberal American
media!
On April 13, I wrote an op-ed "3/7 Cavalry, tragedy
and travesty" for Frank Michel, the associate editor
of the Houston Chronicle, who had been a colleague for
more than ten years. He sealed it and put it in his
desk, with witnesses watching, because he knew that I
knew what I was writing about. He told his colleagues
that the essay was history.
Scouting to Georgia
CNN's Aaron Brown had an on-air conversation with
Walter Rodgers (evening, April 9), in which Brown
cryptically noted that CNN had been with the 3/7
Cavalry at the Baghdad Airport. He then asked a
strange question, given the rosy picture the media had
painted of the war: "Do they (the 3/7 Cavalry) feel
safe, now?" Rodgers' reply was as grim as Brown's
question. He said that Lt. Col. Ferrell had addressed
the assembled squadron that afternoon, and had summed
it up for all the command when he said that "no one
will ever feel safe again until they get back home to
Ft. Stewart, Georgia."
April 22, 2003 I began my annual bicycle tour a bit
early this year, and took it in the direction of Ft.
Stewart, Georgia, some 1,000 miles away from Texas. I
wasn't in a hurry, wanting to take the pulse of our
people. Along the way I discussed my observations of
April 5-9 with dozens of common people at the diners,
hotels, stores and post offices where I stopped to
chat. I found that many of them remembered various
things about the information picture that didn't quite
fit right, but that none of them could give an
explanation for what, if anything, it all meant.
Events were fresh on people's minds, then, and as I
explained it all they had an easy time seeing through
the deception of the times, but after we parted they
left the topic and the talk behind them and returned
to their normal lives, content that even if there was
a bit of funny business going on in Iraq, everything
was still fine in America.
I reached Ft. Stewart May 14 and went to the Marne
Chapel, one of the 3rd Infantry Division churches, and
there met with a Colonel Dennington, a Special Forces
chaplain. He acknowledged the Battle of Baghdad and
its dead, telling me that more soldiers than just the
3/7 Cavalry had perished. He urged me to cover it up
for the greater good of the war effort, and said a few
things that a reasonable person might have thought
menacing. I still have Colonel Dennington's receipt
for the paltry donation of the University of Houston
Honors College, which I carried to Ft. Stewart first
for my fallen comrades, and second as a cover for
getting inside their Army post in time of war to find
out what the hell was going on!
It's the first rule of a mission, after all, and every
leader should know it: You always scout things out
thoroughly before you act. If the president had kept
this basic rule in mind, we wouldn't be at war now.
Infowar - the last published essay
After returning to Houston (via bus) I kept low for
the rest of May and most of June, as the Houston
Chronicle waited for the military to let the media
tell the story of Baghdad. According to my editorial
contacts Frank Michel and David Langworthy, the
military had ordered the media to suppress the Battle
of Baghdad when it was raging because real-time
reports would have compromised operational security of
an ongoing operation (a valid concern). Things went
crooked, though, when the military ordered the media
to continue to suppress the story after operations
were concluded. David and Frank agreed that this put
the Pentagon and the White House outside the
parameters of the Constitution, but they weren't going
to stake their careers on any futile heroics - the big
bosses were telling them what to tell the public, and
it wasn't the truth, but it was a paycheck.
On June 25 General Clark came out against the Bush war
on CNN Crossfire, and on June 27 I sent the Houston
Chronicle's opinion page editor, David Langworthy, my
"Worried about the quicksand of war in Iraq"
denouncing the Bush war plan and attacking the
integrity of the commander-in-chief. Encouraged by the
New York Times publication of Ambassador Joe Wilson's
op-ed against hyped WMD claims July 6, the Chronicle
finally published my op-ed July 8.
Afterwards, I believed that I had caused a fair amount
of anger in the White House with my words and deeds,
because my editors carried no letters to the editor in
response to someone who had called George W. Bush a
liar, avoided my calls, and stopped publishing my
op-eds - even going so far as to take sudden vacations
to be away when my essays arrived for editing. On the
advice of friends and family I ducked out of
circulation for a while. Between July 17 and September
21, I stayed inside my home. The timing of my move
underground was fortunate, perhaps, because other
critics of the war (e.g., David Kelly of England and
Ambassador Joe Wilson of the U.S.) became targets for
retaliation by leaders of their respective countries
during July. As a matter of fact, Kelly's strange
death came the evening of the day when I went into
hiding.
I began to call this state of affairs, in which
speaking the simple truth becomes dangerous, infowar,
and it's being waged against the American People. My
media contacts (among them Thom Shanker of the New
York Times, Barbara Phillips of the Wall Street
Journal and Frank Michel of the Chronicle) have
confirmed my pessimistic analysis: the infowar is
real, reporters are frightened of the Bush people, and
no one is talking or writing about (or allowing anyone
else to talk or write about) the Battle of Baghdad -
until public outcry makes some explanation
unavoidable.
In other words, the media are afraid to tell us what a
few of us have known from the start until we find out
for ourselves - they're not doing their jobs. In the
meanwhile those who favor continued military action
are smiling with the knowledge that every passing
month of public ignorance about the human cost of the
war pulls America deeper and deeper into the Arabian
quicksand. Ever loyal (to the war), the American media
is now beginning to discuss the need for a draft. I've
got a feeling that the brats of the Honors College of
the University of Houston are about to find out a new
word, conscription, and their interest in it will be
far greater than merely academic.
Ghost Troop, 3/7 Cavalry
So now we come to it...
Ghost Troop, 3/7 Cavalry is the unit comprised of all
the unacknowledged dead soldiers from the Battle of
Baghdad, who are receiving no just reckoning or
recognition because the media lied - and continue to
lie - about the Battle of Baghdad. We have a Watergate
cover up on our hands; worse, we have a war. I have
assumed command of Ghost Troop and, according to the
oath I swore when I accepted commission as an Army
officer, I have self-mobilized (under my former rank
of captain) to oppose the Bush cover up of the
unpleasant realities of Iraq - especially of Ghost
Troop, 3/7 Cavalry. I consider myself to be in a state
of revolution against an unconstitutional,
unconscionable abuse of the public's right to know -
the first freedom guaranteed to Americans. So long as
there is no talk of what actually happened in Baghdad
that weekend in April, there is no freedom of the
American press. The fix is in, my friend, and
America's in a fix.
The $100 offer to find out the truth about the lost
weekend in Baghdad still stands. In fact, given the
depth of the denial, I've increased it to $1000 for
the reporter who breaks the story of the Battle of
Baghdad - and thirty pieces of silver for his or her
megamedia parent.
Captain Eric Holmes May, MI, USA
Posted by: Vicegerent