Hoax Museum Blog: Military

Has Rumsfeld Banned Camera Phones in Iraq? — Lots of media outlets have been reporting that Rumsfeld has decided to ban camera phones in Iraq, in the wake of the photos of prisoner abuse coming out of Abu Ghraib. For instance, the story is on Yahoo! news, the Washington Times, and The Sydney Morning Herald. The Register, at least, points out that there are doubts about the story, while also noting that it would be almost impossible to actually enforce such a ban. But what's the source for this news. The Sydney Morning Herald refers to some British newspaper called The Business. But what's that? Is there such a paper? The story actually seems to come from The Daily Farce, an online satirical magazine who printed the story (as a joke) about two weeks ago. Apparently yet another example of satirical articles being treated as real news. (via The Prison Blog)

The Colonel and The Ketchup — While the British military is dealing with fake abuse photos, the Indian military is dealing with a growing scandal involving fake enemy casualty photos. Last week I noted the case of Indian army officers posted on the Siachen glacier inventing fake battles. Now there's another similar case (though in a different location) involving an Indian Colonel. According to the Statesman: The Colonel and a Major are allegedly responsible for filing a false report saying the regiment’s soldiers had killed five militants and asking for medals. Later, they sprayed tomato ketchup on three civilians employed by the army to “forge” a photograph.

Daily Mirror Hoaxed — The photos of British soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners published by the Daily Mirror turn out to have been staged, as was speculated since the photos first saw the light of day. The board of the Daily Mirror has apologized for printing them and fired its editor, Piers Morgan. Tip-offs that the photos were fake included:

• One soldier was carrying a type of rifle not issued to soldiers in Iraq
• The soldiers were wearing the wrong type of hat
• One of the vehicles shown in a photo was a type not deployed in Iraq
• There was no sweat or injuries on the prisoner who had supposedly been tortured for eight hours
• The people in the pictures looked like they were standing still and posing

The BBC also has an interesting, short article detailing other famous cases in which newspapers have been hoaxed, the most famous instance probably being the 1983 case of the Hitler Diaries.

Abu Ghraib Prison Fantasy Camp — Something like this was inevitable, I suppose. It's the Abu Ghraib Iraqi Prison Fantasy Camp, situated in scenic Mountain Home, Idaho. I'm assuming this was inspired by Rush Limbaugh's recent comments about the torture scandal. According to the website: "Just want to 'blow off some steam' (as Rush Limbaugh so correctly put it)? Abu Ghraib Fantasy Camp is here for you! (actual opening date set for Summer '04). At Abu Ghraib Fantasy Camp... you'll find dozens of 'Iraqi prisoners' you'll be able to 'discipline.' Don't worry, they (and you) will be perfectly safe. Unlike in Iraq, we've taken every precaution to protect your safety."

Update: It turns out, according to Wonkette, that the Abu Ghraib Fantasy Prison Camp is the creation of Bob Pagani, aka Cranky Media Guy. Bob is quite well known to us here at the Museum of Hoaxes. I think you'll find a few of his other creations in the Gallery of Hoax Websites, such as Tom's Girl. Congratulations, Bob. This was a good one. Very weird. But good.

Draft Registration — According to this official looking website, the military is now readying for a general draft. But wow, they're sure asking some weird questions of draftees. For instance, under the Mental Fitness Pre-Screening section, they want to know if you suffer from "NPR listenerism." But wait a second. You guessed it. It's not really a military website, despite the official-sounding URL they managed to acquire. No, it's just another gimmick to sell some t-shirts. The site is pretty well-designed, however. It had me going for a second or two.

Fake Battle, Fake Casualties — The Indian Army has admitted that some battles fought last year high up on the Siachen Glacier north of Kashmir were completely fake. The reports of enemy casualties were made up, and the video footage of a Pakistani bunker being blown up was staged. The bunker actually had been built by Indian troops. The army officers apparently did all this in order to win awards for gallantry.

Micah Wright, Pseudo Army Ranger — Micah Wright is the author of You Back the Attack, We'll Bomb Who We Want, a satirical take on war propaganda. Publishers Weekly described him as a "former Army Ranger turned antiwar comic book artist." In an interview with the Washington Post in July, 2003 Wright elaborated at some length on his experience as an Army Ranger. Here's a quote from that article:

He endured rigorous Ranger training, including capturing and eating a snake. He says he participated in classified combat missions in South and Central America, but can talk only about Operation Just Cause, the capture of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega. (Or, as he calls it, "Operation Just Because.") Did he ever kill anyone? "That's one of those questions that I really don't like to answer," he says after an uncomfortable pause. "You're shooting at people and other people are shooting and people fall down. Put it this way: I never shot at anybody who hadn't shot at me first."

Sounds pretty exciting and mysterious, except now Wright has admitted that he was never an Army Ranger. The extent of his military experience is some Army ROTC training. So Wright now joins a long tradition of lying about military service. It's a tradition that includes both pro-war and anti-war activists, democrats as well as republicans. I could easily have a whole gallery of the museum devoted to phony veterans. (Thanks, Shane)

Updates from the War Against Terror — Here are a couple of news reports that are deeply disturbing on many different levels. First, a story from Macedonia where the police have admitted that seven Pakistani 'terrorists' they gunned down two years weren't terrorists at all. The seven men were actually completely innocent would-be immigrants who were lured to Macedonia with the promise of being granted access to Western Europe. The Macedonian police then killed them and created a phony story about how they were terrorists in order to win US support. Next, there were those photos of Iraqi prisoners being tortured by US soldiers that recently surfaced, prompting President Bush to remark how disgusted he was by what he saw. I haven't heard anything to indicate that those pictures were fake, but British authorities are questioning the authenticity of similar pictures that became public a day or two later showing British troops engaged in similar activities. The British government is noting that the prisoners in those pictures appear too clean and too unharmed, and the soldiers appear to be wearing incorrect uniforms.

Operation Take One for the Country — Operation Take One for the Country (or OTOFTC) has been getting a lot of publicity lately. It claims to be "a movement of like-minded women (women predominantly as of right now) who have covertly organized into groups to frequent eating and drinking establishments near armed service bases where troops are preparing to ship out overseas, and take one for the country, so to speak." In other words, they pick up soldiers in bars and sleep with them. This has been generating a lot of cries of hoax. For instance, Single Southern Guy notes that there's a transcript of a radio interview with two of the OTOFTC participants on the site, but the radio station that supposedly conducted this interview doesn't appear to exist. My thoughts on this? First, even if it's not real, this will obviously immediately inspire 'Operation Pretend You're a Soldier.' Second, women sleeping with departing soldiers certainly lies well within the realm of possibility. The real question is whether it's being done on an organized basis with entire sororities and the like participating, as this site claims. That seems less likely. Sure, some women may joke that they're participating in OTOFTC, but that doesn't really constitute a covertly organized movement. It seems more likely that this is a cute idea that someone is using to sell some t-shirts and bumper stickers.

Soldier Picture Follow-Up — This is good. Some guy has created a program that lets you put whatever text you want on the sign held by those kids posing in the desert with an American soldier.
Also, Salon.com recently had an article about this picture, although I didn't think it was a particularly well researched article. The author tried to argue that the new ease with which images can be manipulated somehow poses a dangerous threat. It contains statements such as:

There was a time when photographs were synonymous with truth -- when you could be sure that what you saw in a picture actually occurred.

Oh, really? What period in history was that? Images have always been manipulated, and people have always known it can be done.

Then he warns that a doctored photo might be used for political dirty tricks, going on to state:

If a doctored photo ever does lead to the defeat of a political candidate or some other disaster -- puts the wrong guy in jail, say -- one immediate consequence might be a quick decline in the trust we have in pictures.

Reading this, I can only assume he doesn't know anything about the history of photography. What about the Tydings Affair, when Senator Tydings lost his 1950 Senate reelection bid because of a doctored photo? And William Randolph Hearst, of course, was notorious for using fake (or misleading) pictures in his newspapers for political purposes.

Soldier Guy — About a month ago a photo began to circulate around the internet showing an American soldier posing with two Iraqi boys. One of the boys was holding up a sign that read, 'Lcpl Boudreaux killed my Dad, then he knocked up my sister!' Needless to say, the photo caused a lot of outrage. The Council on American-Islamic Relations complained to the Pentagon about it. And it received coverage in publications such as Islam Online. According to the Marine Corps Times, "Investigating officers have spoken with Boudreaux and are working to determine whether the claims on the sign are true and what, if any, charges to bring against him." In the meantime, a second, more innocuous version of the sign began circulating that read, 'Lcpl Boudreaux saved my dad then he rescued my sister.' Everyone immediately assumed that this was, in fact, the real picture, and that the initial one had been a hoax. But this may not be the case, because even more versions of the picture are on the loose, including one in which the sign is blank. And then there are the inevitable spoofs of it. It's hard to know what the reality is here. We'll probably have to wait for the Marine Corps investigators to report before we find that out. But one observation to make is how easy it's become to photoshop text onto signs. As a consequence, this seems to be the latest trend in photo hoaxes. (via Balloon Juice)
Update: The Marines finished their investigation, but they haven't yet made the results of it public.

ID Sniper Rifle — The ID Sniper Rifle is a high-powered rifle, produced by Empire North, that supposedly can implant a GPS-microchip into a person, allowing the military to track them wherever they go in the world. Here's the description from Empire North's website: The microchip will enter the body and stay there, causing no internal damage, and only a very small amount of physical pain to the target. It will feel like a mosquito-bite lasting a fraction of a second. Given the low-tech feel of Empire North's website, I'd have to say this is a hoax. Plus, is it really possible to hit someone from a long-distance with a microchip and a) have the microchip survive the impact, and b) have the person only feel a small prick? Seems unlikely. Also check out the company's other product, Juju, the Citizen Eye, a device that allows you to photograph suspicious-looking people and beam the images directly to the Department of Homeland Security. This seems like obvious satire. The weird thing is that Empire North is listed as one of the international exhibitors at the 2002 China Police Technology Conference. Somehow whoever created this website must have conned their way into getting listed as one of the conference's exhibitors. (Thanks to 'Saints' for the link)

Coalition to Promote the Use of Child Soldiers — There are quite a few satirical hoaxes that I find myself comparing to Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal For Preventing The Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being A Burden to Their Parents or Country (by feeding them to rich people). The Arm the Homeless prank was one such satire. This is another. It's the Coalition to Promote the Use of Child Soldiers. Yeah, I'm assuming it's satire.

Taliban Reunited — Have a hankering to find out what your old terrorist chums are up to now that Afghanistan is occupied by the American military? Then check out Taliban Reunited, the site that lets terrorists get reacquainted with their former friends and acquaintances.

The Sasquatch Militia — The Republic of Cascadia is recruiting for the Sasquatch Militia. Help defend the Sasquatch homeland against invading cryptozoologists, Canadians, and others. Militia activities include boulder throwing, stomping, and delimbing.

Saddam Claus — John Walkenbach has a great photoshop on his weblog (J-Walk): the disguise Saddam Hussein was wearing when he was captured.

New Stealth Bomber — Here it is. The first unclassified photo of the new F-22 Stealth Fighter Bomber. Invisible not only to radar but also to the human eye. (Thanks to Darren McEwen for the picture).

Nigerian Navy Recruitment Scam — Just when we had all gotten used to those Nigerian email scams that fill up our inboxes every day, the Nigerian criminal class has gone back to the drawing board and come up with an entirely new way to con people out of money: it's the Nigerian Navy Recruitment Scam. Nigerian fraud artists are circulating fake documents that appear to be recruitment forms for the Nigerian Navy. I'm at a loss to see how exactly they make money out of this, but I'm sure they have a way. Meanwhile, the real Nigerian navy has announced that it will begin circulating real recruitment forms sometime this month.

CIA Tricks of the Trade — Some of the CIA's recent strategies are outlined here. For instance, it's been creating fake religious leaders in the Middle East to drum up support for American polices... i.e. it's been paying people to pose as pro-American Muslim clerics. They've also been giving agents satellite phones hidden in rifles. But even though they've got all kinds of high-tech gadgets, they're also still using disappearing ink.

Air Force Hoax — An email has been going around containing the text of a supposed Air Force press release that lists bases slated for reduction or closure due to budget cuts. The Air Force announced today that the press release is a hoax.