Using Imperfect Evidence

Those of us who are pacifists fighting against war and violence do have to be careful what evidence they present. Because, even though war is full of atrocities, with loads of stories of human suffering, if we present even one story that is not totally factual and totally accurate, they will use it against us. Here is an example of the usage of the statements made on a video by a man named Jessie MacBeth, who claimed to be a US military person in Iraq. His story was full of atrocities of the Iraq war, all of which are possible, but he was just making it up.

From Dahr Jamail

"The video was in fact downright difficult to find anywhere on the web that day, let alone the "last few weeks" before FOX's broadcast. FOX's deceptive promotion of this video and concurrent discrediting was deliberate propaganda to preempt any future or existing claims of war crimes, such as the Haditha Massacre, as well as an attempt to dismiss the entire left wing blogosphere and the "antiwar" movement. By far the greatest promoters of the MacBeth video were FOX news and the right-wing bloggers."