Reply #42: Yes, I admit that I shouldn't call him a liar [View All]

[alcibiades_mystery]

Since I do not know for sure that what he says is a lie.

It is only the vast probability of it. And my own (Brooklyn-bred, like Randi) bullshit detector went whizzing to overdrive, primarily because of the way he phrased his answer. Here's what I think: this man may have lost one son in Iraq. I think that's plausible. It was Randi who put it in his head that he'd lost two when she asked him the question. He seemed willing to talk about one, but was cut off and then changed the topic. The BSD was whizzing at this point. Sounds like a half-lie to me.

There simply is no evidence that two siblings have been killed in Iraq. As for the tree in the forest, I very much doubt that local media wouldn't have heard from somebody on this. Think of all the people who would have known two brothers close enough in age to join after 9/11. All those neighbors, all those high school friends, all those girlfriends, and teachers ("Are you Jamie's brother?"), and yet not one called the local paper to say "Hey, both Carter brothers have been killed in Iraq!"). The same dynamic that makes this story a tear-jerker for so many people here would also make it an almost inevitable news story for anyone that knew these guys. OK. Say they were half brothers and lived in different states. Now imagine the people that knew the first surviving brother (certainly we wouldn't assume that they were killed in the same incident!, especially since K.C. said "The first one..." which would indicate different incidents), when he informed them that his half-brother, also serving, was killed ("Jamie's half-brother was killed in Iraq yesterday."). Then, the surviving brother is killed. Not one of these people - no spouse, no parent, no girlfriend, no friend of the parent, nobody, would even contact local media and say "Hey, Jamie's half-brother was also killed 6 months ago." Nobody. This despite the fact that almost every single American killed in Iraq has a local news story attached to them, woith an interview with their friends, siblings, and parents! In fact, I would ask anyone to find a US serviceperson killed in Iraq that does not have an interview with parents printed in a local paper. Even two would suffice!

That's simply implausible. Except for people who desperately want to believe it, and for whom the implausible is always possible, and the possible always probable, and the probable always an inch from certain.