Because It's Hard to be A Hero

James Robbins writes today:

Invented atrocities usually demonize the enemy. That makes sense – it is normal in war to think that the bad guys are capable of anything. We are fortunate in the war on terrorism in being faced with an enemy we don’t have to stigmatize. Al Qaeda’s principle war-fighting method involves killing noncombatants en masse, and they further make the case for us by videotaping their acts of torture and brutality and posting them on the web. You don’t need a master propagandist to spin evil out of beheading helpless hostages.

But:

Jesse MacBeth claimed to be an Army Ranger, admitted to having executed children while interrogating their parents, shot down rock-throwing protesters, and slaughtered hundreds of worshippers in a mosque. None of that was true. Former Marine Jimmy Massey says he either killed children and civilians personally, witnessed the killings, or heard about them, depending on which story he is telling at the moment. Korean War Veteran Edward Lee Daily came forward in the 1990s claiming to be present at the killings at No Gun Ri, as well as being a lieutenant, a POW, and wounded by shrapnel, all lies. These men are spiritual descendants of the troops interviewed in Mark Lane’s 1970 shocker Conversations with Americans, the book that spurred the “Winter Solider” investigations that brought John Kerry to prominence. It contained a number of confessions by Vietnam veterans who had participated in a variety of gruesome activities, vividly portrayed. The problem was, the confessions were false, and the book was a sham. But it ushered in this new kind of invented atrocity story, aimed not at the enemy but at the United States.

And besides, making stuff up is so much safer than doing the things that real heroes do.