Ran across this link from Neptunus Lex. It is a survey that, on the whole, suggests that Iraqi’s are much more upbeat about their situation and the future.
There are a few oddball things in it, but I attribute most of it to the folks responsible for the survey - the BBC and ABC News. I’m nearly positive it was not presented in a biased fashion. ABC and the BBC have both been extremely strong supporters of the Iraq W…..just kidding.
I found it interesting that on the same page of the BBC site of this article, there were two completely divergent articles in sequence on the sidebar. As though the BBC can’t make up their mind whether it’s going good or going bad-
Which is it? Who knows. It’s almost as clear as our hopeychangey Congress trying to showcase their understanding of capitalism.
Here’s a link to the pdf file that has the actual survey results. It’s fun to flip through. There are some interesting numbers in there. Just keep in mind that Iraqi’s (according to this survey) look on the United States about the same as they do Iran.
A few comments -
1) The Messiah is sort of panned in Q29.
2) They think it’s pretty damn positive that the Sunni’s got on board this election cycle - Q35
3) Q45 is a riot - we’re right up there with Iran.
4) Oddly, on Q20, 53% think the US still controls the country but on Q19,
5) 61% of respondents believe that the Iraqi Council of Representatives will not “prevent or reduce official corruption” (unofficial corruption isn’t addressed). On a positive note, the other 29% is still a much higher approval rating than our own Congress has.
Lots of fun reading.
March 17th, 2009
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I wasn’t going to say anything about Imus - so much has already been said. But after hearing a few things today, they’re worth repeating. Remember, Imus said the Rutgers basketball team looked like “nappy headed ho’s” - for which, in my opinion, he should have apologized to the basketball team. End of story.
Firstly, the righteous most reverend Missuh Al Sharpton is leading the fight to censor and eliminate Imus from the air. Let’s recall Sharpton’s previous attempts at painful but useless shellacking of those he considers “bigoted”. Does anyone remember Tawana Brawley?
On October 6, 1988, the Abrams Grand Jury released its extensive and thorough 170 page report concluding that Tawana Brawley (”Brawley”) had not been abducted, assaulted, raped and sodomized as had been claimed by Brawley and her advisors. The report further concluded that the “unsworn public allegations against Dutchess County Assistant District Attorney Steven Pagones” were false and had no basis in fact. To issue the report, the Grand Jury heard from 180 witnesses, saw 250 exhibits and recorded over 6,000 pages of testimony.
And from CNN:
But during the furor that preceded the investigation, Sharpton, Maddox and Mason leveled repeated, unsubstantiated charges that Pagones was among those who abducted and raped Brawley.
[…]
Speaking outside the Dutchess County Courthouse after the jury’s decision, Pagones said Sharpton, Alton Maddox Jr. and C. Vernon Mason had “hurt a lot of people.”
The jury found Sharpton liable for making seven defamatory statements about Pagones, Maddox for two and Mason for one. Pagones, a former assistant county prosecutor, is white; the defendants are black.
Page forward to today:
Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong, who charged three Duke lacrosse players with raping a stripper, apologized Thursday, acknowledging that this week’s decision of state prosecutors to dismiss all charges against them was correct.
Of course, this comes after missuh Sharpton and Jessay Jackson calls the whole incident a “rape” - though one was never proved. Jeff Jacoby has a litany of excrement about Sharpton and notes the Tawana Brawley case:
To this day, Sharpton refuses to recant his unspeakable slander or to apologize for his role in the odious affair.
Ann Coulter has it right:
Imus should apologize to the Rutgers women — and those women alone — send them flowers, and stop kissing Al Sharpton’s ring.
Don Imus wants to know when Sharpton is going to apologize to the Duke players.
I’m waiting……………… (chirp, chirp)………..
April 12th, 2007
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Dafydd at Big Lizards notes an article set for print today in the New York Times that will be an attempt at showing disunity and rebellion in the ranks of the Bush White House.
It will be nothing of the sort.
The chief suspect of the lame attempt at ”a new scandal” is the former dumocrat turned Republican and now back to dumocrat, Bush “insider” Matthew Dowd. Dowd may actually have flip-flopped more than Kerry on his multiple positions and changing perspectives - a veritable “who’s who” of flip-flops. In the end, it may all be because Dowd’s own son has to actually serve - in Iraq. As a volunteer member of the Armed Services. As Dayfdd notes, it’s OK when others are taking the risks:
Dowd was not particularly opposed to the war when other people’s sons and daughters were bravely volunteering to defend democracy and modernity against the most horrific butcher in the Middle East, a man who supported barbaric terrorists and who was in talks with al-Qaeda to develop a closer relationship; he didn’t speak up when other people’s fathers and mothers were risking their lives to create a stable democracy in the heart of the Arab ummah, to try to rescue 25 million people from the hell of the Non-Integrating Gap and nationbuild them into the Functioning Core instead.
No, Dowd has his epiphany only when his own son nobly (and voluntarily) undertakes that same mission. My God, how humiliated that soldier must feel, now that the New York Times is about to plaster his father’s grotesque road-to-Damascus conversion on Sunday’s front page: his own father saying that this brave and committed soldier is on a fool’s errand, has been duped, and is walking into an unwinnable disaster.
That’s the part I can identify with. My son is serving - in Iraq at the moment. Where does the whole pointy headed argument of the dumocrat left exist when their own balls are against the wall?
You got it. “Bush-Hitler” immorality, Crusader mentality, and oppressing colonialism.
Oh wait, that’s what the jihadists are saying. Oh well, figure out what’s different, if you can.
Take a read of Dafydd’s article. It’s well worth the time to see again how antique media simply acts like they do because of who they are - not the material.
April 1st, 2007
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The Washington Post says it better than any Republican could:
Radical Cleric Blames U.S. for Iraq Woes
The radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr issued a scathing attack on the United States on Friday, following one of the country’s bloodiest days, blaming Washington for Iraq’s troubles and calling for a mass demonstration April 9 _ the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad.
“I renew my call for the occupier (the United States) to leave our land,” he said in the statement, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. “The departure of the occupier will mean stability for Iraq, victory for Islam and peace and defeat for terrorism and infidels.”
The Washington Post likes to soften the the stab in the back by suggesting that Sadr’s Mahdi Army isn’t a threat:
Al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militiamen fought U.S. troops in 2004 but have generally cooperated with an ongoing U.S.-Iraqi security push in Baghdad, blamed the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq for the rising violence, lack of services and sectarian bloodshed.
“Generally cooperated?” That’s soooo lame.
Of course, Sadr is still holed up in Iran while Bill Roggio points out that he vainly attempts to control his own splintering militia.
A major success that has helped to keep sectarian tensions at bay (deaths in Baghdad are at the lowest rate since March of 2005) has been the sidelining of Muqtada al Sadr and the fracturing of his Mahdi Army. We’ve noted this process has been ongoing for almost a year, and the Sadr’s flight to Iran has destroyed his command and control over the militia. “Sadr has had trouble both leading and controlling his movement from afar, [Pentagon Officials] said, as his absence has encouraged subordinates and earlier rivals to move in on his turf,” the Washington Post notes today. “It’s clear that he does not control all the organization. There are splinter groups that don’t answer and won’t answer to him, particularly since he is in Tehran now,” a senior Pentagon official told the Post.
So it’s easy for Sadr to speak to his minions while secluded in Tehran - he can’t be seen there either since that would point to his own people lying for him. But his “victory” talk is premature - especially the part about “defeating terrorism” while Iran is paying for bombings in Basra. According to ThreatsWatch, $500 goes a long way:
A British commander has revealed that in Basra, local leaders have confided that Iran is paying for bombings and attacks against the coalition in southern Iraq. Lt. Col. Justin Maciejewski, commanding officer at the British base at Basra Palace, said, “Local sheikhs and tribal leaders here in Basra - who are desperate to prevent this violence escalating - are telling us that Iranian agents are paying up to $500 a month for young Basrawi men to attack us.”
Lt. Col. Maciejewski added that “We have a lot of very modern and quite sophisticated weaponry being used against us - weaponry that could only really have been procured from a state. These are not old munitions from the Iran-Iraq war. They are much more modern, some of them produced in 2006 and the locals are telling us that these are coming in from Iran.”
March 30th, 2007
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If you haven’t heard, Fox news was sponsoring a debate of Democrat presidential candidates (that sounds so lame) in Las Vegas. The Nevada Democratic Party has cancelled the debate - though most involved will say it was the far left group MoveOn.Org that actually caused the cancellation. Fox News pointed to a story from the Las Vegas Review Journal that says it more explicitly. And it’s basically because the Democrats don’t have the balls to watch Fox News Channel.
The Nevada Democratic party’s recent decision to cancel a FOX News sponsored debate between presidential candidates was a move triggered by the left’s “lunatic fringe,” according to an editorial published Saturday by the Las Vegas Review Journal.
The party had originally agreed to allow FOX News Channel to co-sponsor the debate between Democratic presidential candidates in Reno in August, but backed out of the deal Friday afternoon, citing comments made by FOX News president Roger Ailes as the reason for the decision.
The Journal’s editorial, however, blames the “socialist, Web-addicted wing of the Democratic Party” for sabotaging the debate, saying they were “apopleptic” over the thought of having to watch FOX News Channel in order to see their candidates.
The editorial goes on to argue that if the Republican party decided to pick and choose coverage based on political leanings as the Democrats are doing, they would have rejected PBS, CBS, NBC, ABC, National Public Radio and The Associated Press decades ago.
That last sentence is certainly true. And add al-Reuters news to that list.
To tell you the truth, I don’t find Fox any more “newsworthy” than anyone else. They report the same crap as the other news media. Their embellishment is a little less obvious. Perhaps the biggest reason the left dislikes Fox News so much is that Fox doesn’t really do the thinking for them. The article in Las Vegas Review snickers over the left wing response:
Hard-core liberals can’t stand the Fox News Channel. Passing a television that’s tuned to the conservative favorite forces many of them to close their eyes, cover their ears and scream, “La la la la la la la la la!” Then they dash to their computers and fire off 2,500 e-mails condemning the outlet, none of which are ever read.
And:
You’d think the deal called for having Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter mock the candidates between comments. No, even unfiltered, unedited, live debate between loyal Democrats couldn’t be entrusted to Fox News.
Oh wait… how does that laughable bumper snicker go? “I think for myself - therefore I am a liberal”. That’s about as clearly defined as “I support the troops but not the mission”.
And a news channel is just too much for these people to handle. No wonder they don’t understand the enemy.
The Las Vegas Review summed it up well:
This hyperventilation results from the fact that far-left Democrats have no comparable media outlet, nor any widespread national appeal, for their radical views in favor of heavy-handed regulation, wealth redistribution, diplomatic capitulation and economic protectionism. So they attack their rivals’ messenger with a reckless barrage of rhetoric that cuts down their own allies with friendly fire.
By Friday, the Nevada Democratic Party caved in to the lunatic fringe and began seeking a more “appropriate” television partner.
Comedy Central, perhaps?
The very best the liberal dumocrats could do. Pathetic. Even Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich is calling the debate cancellation by “candidates who would rather run and hide” as manipulation.
As I said in an earlier post, welcome to the real world Mr. Kucinich.
March 11th, 2007
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Bill Roggio at the Fourth Rail is carrying a report that Ethiopia is now routing the Islamic Courts Union (Islamic radicals and the Sharia Law they have imposed) all the way to Mogadishu. It appears that Mogadishu will fall in the next day or two.
Nine days after the onset of open warfare between the al-Qaeda backed Islamic Courts and the Ethiopian backed Transitional Federal Government, the Islamic Courts have surrendered. “After having crucial and urgent meeting tonight in the capital, the leaders of executive and Shura councils of Islamic Courts Union and deputy leader of executive council of ICU, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed and Sheik Abdirahman Janaqow resigned and issued a joint press statement over the current situation in Somalia particular in Mogadishu,” reports SomaliNet
Of course, SomaliNet is also reporting that the Islamic fighters have put back on their civilian clothes, taken their AK-47’s and “melted into the civilian population” - a euphemism for the beginnings of an insurgency.
Froggy at Blackfive noted that this is the way to wage war - don’t let the media dictate the goals and don’t let the opinions of the weak get in the way of winning.
Off the top of my head, I would say that Ethiopia is not afflicted with a pernicious and defeatist media machine that is capable of manipulating public opinion, and even if it was, it doesn’t look like the Ethiopian president would give a damn in any case. The word that comes to mind is resolve. When a leader resolves to send men into battle, he is obligated to withstand the criticism of the media so that the troops who are withstanding hostile fire from the enemy are able to decisively defeat that enemy. This is the area where the President, Rumsfeld, and the Generals have been found wanting. Wars cannot be won with restrictive ROEs (Rules of Engagement) that allow the enemy to use our self imposed limitations against us.
Froggy notes that the Ethiopians combat power and military capabilities are a fraction of ours, yet they had no trouble decimating the ICU’s so-called “fighters”. Waging an insurgency may be their only hope left for the ICU. It remains to be seen how successful they will be. Or how successful the Ethiopians will be at defeating that which we have had difficulty doing in Iraq.
Just to remind you, there are several links to Iran in Mogadishu - including trading arms fo yellowcake, the primary ingredient for the nuclear fuel cycle.
December 28th, 2006
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You may remember Eason Jordan, the acclaimed top news executive of CNN who resigned somewhat disgracefully in February of ‘05 for claiming in a World Economic Forum panel discussion in Switzerland that the US Military was targeting journalists in Iraq. He was used to wipe the floor over this scandal by bloggers and the Antique Media itself. The scandal followed on the heels of the discovery in the 2003 Iraq invasion that CNN had covered for Saddam Hussein.
Now it appears that Eason Jordan is trying to stay in the news media business by starting his own blog - IraqSlogger - with a post of how he perceives the Iraqi press and its failures. Of all the people who would call any news media biased, Eason Jordan is not one who gains any credibility by throwing stones, particularly with accusations of Iraqi news groups “kowtowing” and “sanitizing” the news.
Omar at Iraq the Model took him to task for just that.
The story is presented as “analysis” by the website’s editors but I can’t figure out how it could fit this description when it’s filled with “harder to explain”, “even more puzzling”, “one has to wonder” and “how can we explain” instead of phrases that are usually used to introduce the author’s analysis and conclusions to the readers about a given subject.
The so-called analysis tries to describe and analyze the situation of the local press in Iraq and its inability to provide reliable and timely coverage of topics and news that supposedly interest Iraqis.
Yet all I could read was bewildered and ostensible disappointment with the new press in Iraq, a disappointment that I can feel is hiding morbid satisfaction.
When you read the story on IraqSlogger (and what the hell is a slogger?), it sounds so much like CNN that - well - it is CNN from a former life. Omar goes through a point by point takedown of the article (written by Amer Moshen, not Jordan). One of Omar’s points is something that is sort of a reverse “stringer” accusation, though used quite routinely by antique Media “journalists” in Bahgdad:
Or this about the Haditha case story:
Even more puzzling, Az-Zaman ‘covered’ the story by their correspondent in Washington…
What’s puzzling in that? As far as I know, the legal proceedings are conducted by American military courts so it’s very natural to let a correspondent in America handle the coverage.
Of course, reporters in America don’t worry about losing their heads while reporting the news nor do they have to ride around in up-armored Humvees.
Omar appropriately cuts to the chase in his summary:
If the Slogger team wants to offer analysis or become a better alternative for whatever other sources of Iraq news, they ought to try better than this. Because if they keep writing like this, their site will soon be regarded as just one new waste of bandwidth, the same way that flipping channels looking for the whole image can be a waste of time.
You put them right where they need to be Omar. In the irrelevant file.
December 25th, 2006
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Just thought I’d add a little to the dumbass moonbat antique media event log ticker. Michael doesn’t really criticize. He just states the facts - which speaks volumes.
The al-Washington Post has to upchuck. Again.
Michael Fumento.com - Weblog
The real Ramadi HAS stood up
By Michael Fumento
In a Nov. 29 blog, “Will the real Ramadi please stand up?” I observed that three articles on conditions in Ramadi and al Anbar Province had appeared within a week of each other giving entirely different points of view. Mine and one in the Times of London said we’re winning the war in Ramadi; a Washington Post A1 story co-authored by “Fiasco” author Thomas Ricks claimed exactly the opposite. The difference, I said, could be explained simply. I and the Times writer reported from Ramadi. Ricks and his co-author have not only never been to Ramadi, they wrote their piece from Washington. Well now the WashPost has printed another article on the city, this time an upbeat one. What gives? You guessed it.The second one was reported from Ramadi. Case closed, thank you very much. Unfortunately, it’s little solace knowing how few journalists ever leave their safe little hovels in Baghdad hotels or Washington, D.C.
December 10, 2006 07:59 PM
December 11th, 2006
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Mohammed at Iraq The Model lights up Kofi Annan for his recent comments in (what else) the BBC News. Calling him ‘Kofi al-Tikriti’, Mohammed blasted Annan for his support of Saddam Hussein:
Isn’t it a shame that the secretary general of the UN is whining about he wasn’t able to save a murderous dictator?
I’m not living in denial, I admit it that living here is so difficult and there’s a lot of fear and pain, and a lot of patience and hard work is needed.
But that’s the worst part about Kofi; he knows how things are in Iraq right now yet instead of trying to do anything to help us out, and instead of apologizing for the UN’s failure to do something good for Iraq, he comes and says he’s sorry he couldn’t save the dictator!
Kofi has far out-lived his usefulness uselessness to the UN. Between the lack of spine the UN displayed in Iraq (which, interestingly, Annan thinks of as a UN failure for not stopping the US) and it’s lack of resolve in stabilizing the situation in Sudan’s Darfur region by putting it on a back burner, the UN has lived up to its reputation as worthless in so many ways. And Kofi should know better. The BBC interview notes his arrival in the UN as the first leader from a sub-Saharan country - Ghana. So one would think that the Rwanda massacres and the killings in Srebrenica would have sensitized him to the wholesale slaughter’s by Saddam’s Bathhist party.
Apparently not as Kofi notes in the BBC:
“If I were an average Iraqi, obviously I would make the same comparison, that they had a dictator who was brutal but they had their streets, they could go out, their kids could go to school and come back home without a mother or father worrying: ‘Am I going to see my child again?’
Asked whether the situation in Iraq could now be classified as a civil war, Mr Annan pointed to the level of “killing and bitterness”, and the way forces in Iraq were now ranged against each other.
So it’s obvious that Kofi reads the CNN and other antique media outlets for heads up analysis of Iraq (who seem to be the only groups proclaiming a “civil war”). Disregard the MNF reports - after all, these people are on the ground and wouldn’t know.
The BBC report also noted the reaction of Kofi al-Tikriti’s comments by Iraq’s National Security Advisor, Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie:
Mr Rubaie rejected Mr Annan’s comments, asking: “Doesn’t Kofi Annan differentiate between the mass killing of Iraqis by the security and intelligence apparatus of Saddam Hussein and the present indiscriminate killings of civilians, Iraqi civilians, by the al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq?”
He added: “I’m shocked and stunned by what Kofi Annan alluded to, that the condition was better under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.”
Kofi has spent the last three or four years acting completely irrelevant - and is encouraging his successor to do the same. After shifting the UN away from a Human Rights group dominated by free countries, Annan now has focused a Human Rights Committee - with a majority membership of Arab and Islamic Countries - directly at Israel. This committee has issued only three reports in its lifetime - all on Israel. Nothing on Darfur or Srebrenica or any other notoriously dark and dangerous place. Not even on al-Qaeda and its program of death and defiance and torture.
Mohammed at ITM has it right.
Saddam is not coming back and history moves in one direction Kofi, and your term is about to end, so please shut up.
Just go away Kofi. Sooner than later.
December 8th, 2006
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Or - How to stay on a Mobius Strip and never get caught.
When Antique Media spins a yarn, most people seem to lap it up (recall the Associated Press and their vapid response to the “Burning Sunnis” that, well, doesn’t seem to have ever happened). Some folks talk distinctly about what they have read but I think most simply have conversation about the bulk of what they read and nothing specific. The comment “I see where they want to add more Marines in Iraq” would simply be the summary of this story, yet the explicit details would be completely missed.
Steve Schippert at ThreatsWatch has an eye opening post on just how the Antique Media formulates a result based on shadowy information and conclusions obviously tailored to appreciate the equally shadowy source. A Marine Corps intelligence officer has issued a report - still classified - that calls for an additional 15-20,000 troops in Anbar province to eliminate the insurgency.
When Marine Colonel Peter Devlin, currently in Ramadi, Iraq, wrote a detailed and recently updated classified August memo on the situation in al-Anbar province, “State of the Insurgency in Al-Anbar,” he concluded that an additional division (15,000 – 20,000 troops) would be required. The pro-active recommendation was based on what was believed to be needed in order to break al-Qaeda in Iraq’s establishment in Anbar and the six Sunni tribes that have aligned themselves with al-Qaeda in Iraq’s Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Muhajir (aka Abu Ayyub al-Masri) and the ‘emir’ of the Iraqi Sunni resistance, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi.
Needless to say, it didn’t remain secret long enough for the ink to dry. This Marine apparently twisted somebody’s shorts in the Intelligence community. Whoever that was became an immediate hit with the Washington Post as a “senior intelligence official”. From Steve’s post:
The Washington Post writers, Dafna Linzer and Thomas E. Ricks, have surely read the entire classified report (officially ‘Secret’), supplied once again by a leaker within the Intelligence Community. The Post’s anonymous source of the secret intelligence information, which Linzer and Ricks concede is intended solely for military commanders in Anbar, seems to have his own axe to grind with the report and found like-minded journalists in which to confide. He is described in the article as requesting anonymity “because of the sensitivity of his work,” though would surely privately concede that it is because he is committing a federal crime by divulging classified intelligence documents to unauthorized individuals.
The “senior intelligence source” presents himself as representative of a group of people who disagree with Devlin’s desire to break al-Qaeda in Iraq, chiefly by clearing Ramadi in the same manner as Fallujah was successfully cleared and al-Qaeda’s base of operations there destroyed. He is quoted as saying in conclusion that, while he largely agrees with Devlin’s assessment of the situation in Anbar, “We argue that it (al-Qaeda) is a major element in Anbar, but it is not the largest or most dominant group.” He did not offer his view of precisely who is the “largest or most dominant group” if not al-Qaeda, nor did he offer a manner in which to defeat them.
It is interesting that Steve notes that civilians who are leaving Bahgdad for safety reasons are headed to Fallujah. Because it’s safe. Once the Marines kicked al-Qaeda out, they haven’t come back. The Marines want to do the same in Ramadi, unquestionably the most dangerous city in Iraq, despite the news from Bahgdad.
Schippert has painted a true picture of what the Antique Media can do when responsibility is not an issue. Sometimes I think that the whole “blogosphere” event is the only salvation for getting it right - despite the fact that the left enjoys the same freedom. Of particular note is that we didn’t have an “oversight committee” of blogs during Vietnam. Perhaps it will help that so many writers are pointing out the Antique Media failures in this war.
Give this one a read at Threatswatch. It’s a classic “misfit media” espose’ and well worth the read.
December 1st, 2006
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The Associated Press is pushing back on the story they claim is true regarding the 6 Sunni’s being dragged from a mosque and burned alive last week. Michelle Malkin, Power Line, and LGF are all carrying the AP reaction to the accusations developed by Flopping Aces that the story is false, that 6 Sunni’s were not burned alive, and that 4 mosques were not burned to the ground. From Power Line, an AP comment:
The attempt to question the existence of the known police officer who spoke to the AP is frankly ludicrous and hints at a certain level of desperation to dispute or suppress the facts of the incident in question.
It sounds like the AP is the one who is desparate - and their facts are still substantiated by unamed and unknown sources. So, how’s that “facts”? I’d have to agree with John at Power Line that if a choice is to be made between who’s telling the truth, I’d pick the military. And in the end, someone is going to have egg on their face.
Lgf is carrying an email from CENTCOM indicating the Iraqi’s are also challenging the AP and flatly stating that the source of the AP story, someone who is supposed to be a police Captain Jamail Hussein, does not exist. Nor has any evidence for the crime been offered up. The AP is now claiming to have several “eyewitnesses”.
Michelle Malkin summed up the confusion pretty well:
…the AP’s new story raises more questions than it answers. To sum up so far:
Two unnamed Associated Press reporters get new acounts from three unnamed witnesses (who, of course, refuse to be identified by name–although the AP has no problem describing some weirdly specific details about their ages, occupations, ethnicity, and religions) about six burned-alive Sunnis, five of whom no one can name and whose bodies can’t be disinterred in an investigation because it would violate Islamic law. And of the two original sources who claim the incident happened, one has recanted and the other is someone whom the military and Iraqi officials maintain is not who he says he is.
Next move: CENTCOM’s.
Push hard guys. AP’s gonna wind up puking over this - despite what the huff and puff airheads would like it to be.
Diggs at 4 Mile Creek says it succintly - “Sooooo, if you are enough of a (political) child to believe the fairytales of Joe Wilson, are you enough of a (political) child to believe in the AP fairytales of Iraqi Police Capt Hussein?”
Heh heh. Of course they are.
November 29th, 2006
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Powerline is carrying the squashing of another made up story by the Associated Press. The headlines recently rang out over six Sunni’s who “were dragged from a Mosque, doused with kerosene, and set on fire.” Sounds like a nice horror bite to an otherwise typical violent day in Bahgdad.
Except it didn’t happen. From Powerline:
“Police Capt. Jamil Hussein said Iraqi soldiers at a nearby army post failed to intervene in the burnings of Sunnis by suspected members of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia, or in subsequent attacks that torched four Sunni mosques and killed at least 19 other Sunnis, including women and children, in the same northwest Baghdad area.”
The story was reported world-wide. The only official source for the account, however, was “Police Capt. Jammil Hussein.” CENTCOM initially said that it had not been able to confirm the account of the burned-alive Sunnis. Upon further investigation, it appears that the incident probably never occurred at all. In addition, “Police Capt. Jamil Hussein” appears to be non-existent. Earlier this afternoon, CENTCOM put out the following press release (via Flopping Aces, who has done a tremendous job on this story, and NewsBusters):
Classification: UNCLASSIFIEDDear Associated Press:
On Nov. 24, 2006, your organization published an article by Qais Al-Bashir about six Sunnis being burned alive in the presence of Iraqi Police officers. This news item, which is below, received an enormous amount of coverage internationally.
We at Multi-National Corps - Iraq made it known through MNC-I Press Release Number 20061125-09 and our conversations with your reporters that neither we nor Baghdad Police had any reports of such an incident after investigating it and could find no one to corroborate the story. A couple of hours ago, we learned something else very important. We can tell you definitively that the primary source of this story, police Capt. Jamil Hussein, is not a Baghdad police officer or an MOI employee. We verified this fact with the MOI through the Coalition Police Assistance Training Team.
Also, we definitely know, as we told you several weeks ago through the MNC-I Media Relations cell, that another AP-popular IP spokesman, Lt. Maithem Abdul Razzaq, supposedly of the city’s Yarmouk police station, does not work at that police station and is also not authorized to speak on behalf of the IP. The MOI has supposedly issued a warrant for his questioning.
I know we have informed you that there exists an MOI edict that no one below the level of chief is authorized to be an Iraqi Police spokesperson. An unauthorized IP spokesperson will get fired for talking to the media. While I understand the importance of a news agency to use anonymous and unauthorized sources, it is still incumbent upon them to make sure their facts are straight. Was this information verified by anyone else? If the source providing the information is lying about his name, then he ought not to be represented as an official IP spokesperson and should be listed as an anonymous source.
Unless you have a credible source to corroborate the story of the people being burned alive, we respectfully request that AP issue a retraction, or a correction at a minimum, acknowledging that the source named in the story is not who he claimed he was. MNC-I and MNF-I are always available and willing to verify events and provide as much information as possible when asked.
Very respectfully,
LT XXXXXX
XXXX X XXXXXXXX
Lieutenant, U.S. Navy
MNC-I Joint Operations Center
Public Affairs Officer
Hussein and Razzaq are stringers for the AP and don’t exist as real names or real police personnel.
Note the beginning of this story - four mosques were burned. That didn’t happen either. There was a small fire - quickly extinguished - in one mosque. The Advisor this week is reporting that the claim of four mosques burning is untrue. And US Forces were there. But is sounds good for the al-Qaeda American news vultures. We played right into their hands. Another PR win for the terrorists.
This must have made the dhimmi dumocrats smile - especially after a good day of insulting the American military.
November 27th, 2006
Posted by
bit |
Jihadists, Misfit Media, GWOT |
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