Onetime Hero of Anti-War Movement Faces Federal Charges

Featured by many leftist anti-war blogs, he claimed to have murdered and burned hundreds of innocent Iraqis in a mosque. One problem: he only spent six weeks in the army before being kicked out. Now he faces federal charges for trying to fraudulently collect veterans' benefits.

From the Associated Press:

Jesse Adam Macbeth, 23, formerly of Phoenix, garnered attention on blogs and in some alternative media after he began claiming in 2005 to have been awarded a Purple Heart for his service, which he said included slaughtering innocents in a Fallujah mosque. His story was contradicted by his discharge form, showing that he was kicked out of the Army after six weeks at Fort Benning, Ga., in 2003 because of his "entry level performance and conduct."

A complaint unsealed Friday in U.S. District Court in Seattle charged him with one count of using or possessing a forged or altered military discharge certificate, and one count of making false statements in seeking benefits from the Veterans Administration.

Eager to subvert US interests, lefty blogs posted MacBeth's spectacular allegations without corroboration:

Organizations that opposed the war, including Iraq Veterans Against the War, posted videos or statements containing Macbeth's claims on their Web sites. In one videotaped interview, a skinny, stuttering Macbeth, dressed in a camouflage jacket, described slaughtering hundreds of people in a mosque: "We would burn their bodies ... hang their bodies from the rafters in the mosque," he said.