December 13, 2006

Good, But Not Safe

Months ago, many liberals got bent out of shape over a Christian-themed video game called Left Behind: Eternal Forces. The game is based upon the very successful Left Behind fiction series, which is based upon the seven-year post-Rapture period described in Revelations.

Amazon.com provides a brief synopsis of book one, from Library Journal:


On a flight from Chicago to London, several passengers aboard Capt. Rayford Steele's plane suddenly and mysteriously disappear. When Steele radios to London to report the situation, he discovers that the incident on his plane is not an isolated phenomenon but a worldwide occurrence. As Steele begins his search for answers, he learns that the Christ has come to take the faithful with Him in preparation for the coming apocalyptic battle between good and evil and that those who have been left behind must face seven dark and chaotic years in which they must decide to join the forces of Christ or the forces of Anti-Christ.

While I've neither played the game nor read the series of books, it doesn't seem to be something worth getting upset about. The general plot seems to reflect a basic good vs. evil storyline, so why all the fuss?

Cue the latest round of liberal outrage from Ilene Lelchuck of SFGATE.com:


Clark Stevens, co-director of the Campaign to Defend the Constitution, said the game is not peaceful or diplomatic.

"It's an incredibly violent video game," said Stevens. "Sure, there is no blood. (The dead just fade off the screen.) But you are mowing down your enemy with a gun. It pushes a message of religious intolerance. You can either play for the 'good side' by trying to convert nonbelievers to your side or join the Antichrist."

The Rev. Tim Simpson, a Jacksonville, Fla., Presbyterian minister and president of the Christian Alliance for Progress, added: "So, under the Christmas tree this year for little Johnny is this allegedly Christian video game teaching Johnny to hate and kill?"

Both groups formed in 2005 to protest what their 130,000 or so members feel is the growing political influence and hypocrisy of the religious right.

In Left Behind, set in perfectly apocalyptic New York City, the Antichrist is personified by fictional Romanian Nicolae Carpathia, secretary-general of the United Nations and a People magazine "Sexiest Man Alive."

Players can choose to join the Antichrist's team, but of course they can never win on Carpathia's side. The enemy team includes fictional rock stars and folks with Muslim-sounding names, while the righteous include gospel singers, missionaries, healers and medics. Every character comes with a life story.

When asked about the Arab and Muslim-sounding names, Frichner said the game does not endorse prejudice. But "Muslims are not believers in Jesus Christ" -- and thus can't be on Christ's side in the game.

"That is so obvious," he said.

The game is based on a series of fiction books, which is in turn based upon the Pretribulationist variant of the futurist view of the biblical prophecy interpretation of the Book of Revelations. Put bluntly, it's fiction based upon fiction, based upon one of many interpretations of the most difficult to understand book in the Bible.

So why are liberals so upset? Aravosis complains that the game promotes mows down people based upon religious differences. Pandagon gripes that:


The object of the game is to convert heathens, Muslims or Jews; if they don’t come over to your side, you can kill them. – God Gameth, God Bloweth Away.

But the simple fact of the matter is that the gameplay is far, far more benign than many of the more popular video games on the market. In most games, you either kill your enemy, or they kill you. This game allows you the option of at least talking to your opponents, and trying to persuade them to convert to your point of view. Shouldn't that be commended? Not if youÂ’re a liberal, apparently.

I strongly suspect that the real problem of the liberal left with this game are far more visceral than even they realize.

They've grown up somewhat convinced that true Christians are all "turn the other cheek" pacifists, and as such, liberals feel free to mock, revile, and persecute Christian beliefs, Christian symbols, and Christians themselves without penalty of threat of danger—things they would never do to far more outrage-prone Muslims. This game, featuring both non-pacifist Christians and the clear refutation of the secular, "devil may care" way of life, scares them.

This game is a reminder for some, and a wake-up call to others, that the God of Christianity, as C.S. Lewis once alluded, is good, but not safe. No wonder they are terrified.

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December 12, 2006

Surreallaw

Must have been a butterfly indictment (my bold):


A day after authorities announced that a former New Hanover County deputy had been indicted in the shooting death of a Durham teen during a raid on a Wilmington home, members of the grand jury now say the indictment was a mistake.

The grand jury never intended to charge Cpl. Christopher Long with second-degree murder, but the foreman checked the wrong box on the indictment, authorities said Tuesday.

Peyton Strickland, 18, a Cape Fear Community College student from Durham, was shot to death Dec. 1 at his Wilmington home by deputies serving arrest and search warrants. Strickland and two friends were charged with assaulting a University of North Carolina at Wilmington student last month and stealing two PlayStation 3 consoles from him.

UNC-W police asked for support from the New Hanover County Sheriff's Office during the arrests of the suspects in the case because of the potential that they were armed and dangerous, authorities said. Strickland had an earlier arrest on a felony assault charge.

Was Theresa LePore the jury foreman by any chance?

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Newsiness

When is news not news?

How about when the subject matter is a decades old story that just happens to be the subject of a new Hollywood blockbuster produced by a sister media company?

The article on CNN is called Blood diamonds: Miners risk lives for chance at riches.

Deep into the body of the article, we see this:


Sierra Leone is the setting for the new movie "Blood Diamond." Leonardo DiCaprio plays a crooked Zimbabwean ex-mercenary who searches for a rare pink diamond. (The film was produced by Warner Bros. Pictures, which like CNN.com is owned by Time Warner.)

It's a movie that should stir controversy about just how careful the precious gem industry has been in making sure diamonds are bought and sold legally.

SFGate.com, CBS News (check the sidebars), and many other newsie stories just happen to be coming out in conjunction with Le Dicaprio's new movie.

Using the news to promote fiction.

Shocking, I know.

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Neck Deep

In a column published last night, Eric Boehlert does an excellent job of showing why David Brock's Media Matters should be regarded as the alimentary canal of punditry; on one end it's good at regurgitation, and on the other, the finalized product is consistently something better flushed.

In Michelle Malkin fiddles while Baghdad burns, Boehlert dishonestly addresses the continuing Associated Press scandal surrounding the "Burning Six" story that emerged from the Sunni enclave of Hurriyah in Baghdad on November 24.

By the next day, even more details had emerged in the AP's story along with a description of why the alleged attacks finally ended.

Synthesize the various versions of the story, and you will have a horrific story of how Shia gunmen attacked while the Iraqi police and military stood by, without interfering, as four mosques were destroyed and as many as 18 people were killed, including six Sunni men pulled from a mosque and burned alive after being doused with kerosene. Only the arrival of American military units brought an end to the carnage.

But here's the problem... there is little to no evidence that any of these events took place.

Contrary to the AP's reporting, the Ahbab al-Mustafa, Nidaa Allah, al-Muhaimin and al-Qaqaqa mosques were never blown up. There is no evidence uncovered that a single soul, much less 18, were burned in an "inferno" at the al-Muhaimin mosque. In fact, soldiers from the 6th Iraqi Army Division found al-Muhaimin completely undamaged.

There is no evidence whatsoever that six men were pulled from a mosque under attack, doused in kerosene, set on fire, and then only shot once they quit moving.

Only the Nidaa Allah suffered minor fire damage from a Molotov cocktail, and no injuries were reported. The Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Defense were apparently unable to discover any other physical evidence of any attacks in Hurriyah as the Associated Press, and only the Associated Press, claimed. Further, U.S. soldiers never intervened in Hurriyah on November 24.

The entirety of the Associated PressÂ’ reporting on these alleged events relies on the testimony of two named sources and a handful of anonymous sources. Of those two sources, Sunni Imad al-Hashimi recanted his story after being interviewed by the Defense Ministry, leaving just one named source upon which the Associated Press was hanging its credibility, Iraqi Police Captain Jamil Hussein.

As we now know, the Iraqi Interior Ministry has now gone on the record, declaring that they have no record of anyone by the name of Jamil Hussein employed as an Iraqi policeman, at any rank. They also disputed the records of more than a dozen other AP sources that claimed to be part of the Iraqi police for which they had no records.

Further research indicated that Jamil Hussein was often on hand to report Shia on Sunni violence, and that Hussein had been used as a source for the Associated Press and no other news outlet, 61 times since April 24.

Boehlert, of course, is unsurprisingly disinterested as to why the Associated Press runs a story claiming the destruction of four mosques, the deaths of 18 people (six of them by immolation), or the allegations that Shiite military and police units allowed the attacks to take place. He quite purposefully leaves out the fact that all of the AP's sources were anonymous, other than the one that recanted, and the other that was exposed as long-running fraud.

Like the AP, Eric Boehlert seems far more interested in protecting a narrative and attacking the messengers, than seeking to discover how the AP's reporting could have been so horribly compromised.

He attacks "warbloggers," explicitly (and falsely) stating that those citizen journalists interested in getting to the bottom of this and other questionable instance of reporting blame the press "squarely" for the state of the war, a preposterous claim he does not even attempt to prove.

Few, if any, highly-regarded bloggers hold that opinion. Bad pre-war planning and post-invasion implementation of the same are widely acknowledged for much of the problems on the ground in Iraq, as are undisputed facts that al Qaeda, Syria, and Iran have contributed to the violence.

What Boehlert would like to gloss over (as it suits his narrative and that of the organization he writes for) are the very real structural problems with the stringer-based systems of reporting in Iraq.

In Iraq, the overwhelming majority of foreign journalists never leave the relative safety of Baghdad's Green Zone. Most newsgathering done in Iraq is compiled by Iraqi journalists, which in and of itself is to be expected. Iraqis know their country, their communities their language and their politics far more intimately than any Western reporter is ever likely to achieve. From that perspective, it would make little sense to rely primarily on Borat-like foreign reporters to cover what is going on inside the country.

But even though Iraqi reporters are the logical best choice to cover Iraqi events, the Associated Press and other wire services must be cognizant of the fact that just like the fellow Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds in their fractious society, reporters and their sources will also have regional, sectarian and tribal biases.

Because of this, all news organizations, especially the largest news organizations such as the Associated Press and Reuters, have an obligation to their readers to provide a robust set of editorial checks and balances to verify that the reporters they use and the sources they quote are supported by factual evidence.

As we now know, at least the final stories of the almost certainly fictitious Captain Jamil Hussein have no supporting physical evidence. Even repeated trips to the Hurriyah neighborhood have been unable to extricate the Associated Press from this mess of their own making. There are no destroyed mosques. There are no bodies.

Nothing.

Characteristically dishonest in his claims, Boehlert claims that bloggers are engaging in "wide-ranging conspiracy theories and silencing skeptical voices."

The truth of the matter is precisely the opposite; we're asking for more skeptical voices, more layers of fact-checking and editorial professionalism that seemingly have disappeared once wire service reporters join what Michael Fumento and other combat journalists from all sides of the political spectrum have derided as the "Baghdad Brigade."

If the Associated Press had a working system of checks and balances to do background checks on their reporters, they might not be in the embarrassing position of having one of their Iraqi stringers in prison after he was captured in a weapons cache with a terrorist commander, coated in explosives.

If the Associated Press had a working system of checks and balances to verify their sources, they might not have been listening to a false Iraqi policeman for two years, and more than a dozen other "policemen" that the Iraqi Interior Ministry says does not work for them (NOTE: The AP still uses these same named suspect policemen as sources to this very day).

If the Associated Press had a working system of editorial fact-checking, the lack of physical evidence alone should have precluded the burning mosques/burning men claims from ever having run. Hunkered down for in the Green Zone, the isolated fortress mindset infecting the media has led to reporting where allegations, not facts, are enough reason to run a story written by men and women who have never seen the subject matter on which they report.

Pure and simple, it is "faith-based" reporting.

It is because of this kind of absentee journalism that wave after wave of combat veterans return home from Iraq and Afghanistan claiming that the media is consistently misrepresenting what is going on in Iraq. Not necessarily better or worse, but just plain wrong. It's hardly surprising. You wouldn't expect a reporter in Boise to effectively cover a bank robbery in Raleigh, so why would you expect a reporter in a Baghdad hotel to accurately reporter events in Ramadi?

The problems of reporting in Iraq are based on flawed news-gathering processes and methodologies, questionable vetting of reporters and sources, and continued poor editorial oversight. The Associated Press responds to these problems exposed by Jamilgate by promoting those involved.

Boehlert shows he is far more interested in choking down typical Media Matters talking points and excreting arrogance mixed with contempt than engaging in any honest attempt to identify and fix obvious flaws in a broken system of reporting that lead to false reporting such as that evidence in Jamilgate. Apparently, "truthiness" is close enough for his purposes.

His mentor must be proud.

Update: Michelle piles on. Apparently Boelhert got even more wrong than I realized:


He is such an idiot that he doesn't even read the link that he includes to bolster his ridiculous charge.

I am the one who called a fellow conservative blogger to task for irresponsibly reporting that anonymous Republican sources had accused a Democrat staffer in Harry Reid's office of being the source. If he had bothered to follow his own links, this clown would know that. Or maybe he did and it doesn't matter. He's got a narrative to protect.

Boehlert charges that "[W]arbloggers aren't interested in an honest, factual debate about a single instance of journalistic accountability."

Like he would know anything about honest, factual debates and journalistic accountability?

Ouch. That's gonna leave a mark.

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December 11, 2006

Fading Like Britney's Tan Lines

Fourth?

Where's the love? ;-)

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Olmert Admits Words Worst-Kept Secret

Apple is now planning to sue, claiming a copyright infringment on "I-Bomb."

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Perception or Deception?

According to AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll, Iraqi Police Captain Jamil Hussein is a well-known source that they have had a relationship with for two years.

According to Curt at Flopping Aces, Hussein was cited in Associated Press reports by name 61 times between April 24th and November 26th of this year. No other news organization other than the Associated Press seems to have evern been in contact with Jamil Hussein. It is not known if Hussein may have been cited as an anonymous source, if at all, in addition to the 61 times he was cited as an official source by AP.

During the first months (April and May) he was used as a source, Hussein was cited 24 times in stories by no fewer than 7 different AP reporters (Thomas Wagner, Lee Keath, Robert H. Reid, Sinan Salaheddin, Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Tarek El-Tablawy, and Patrick Quinn).

In June and July, Hussein was cited as a source 19 times by at least 9 AP reporters (Sinan Salaheddin, Ryan Lenz, Steven R. Hurst, Bassem Mroue, Qais al-Bashir, Sameer N. Yacoub, Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Bushra Juhi, and Kim Gamel), eight of which had not written using Hussein in the months before (only Sinan Salaheddin carried over from the previous months).

In August and September Hussein was uncharacteristically quiet, being used as a source just nine times in total, and five of those stories coming on a single day (September 20). Sinan Salaheddin, Robert H. Reid, Bushra Juhi, and Qais al-Bashir used Hussein again, Rawya Rageh used him for the first time, and David Rising used him as a source for four stories on the first and only day he cited Hussein.

In October Hussein was only cited twice, in a Sinan Salaheddin story and in another by Sameer N. Yacoub.

Police Captain Jamil Hussein was then silent for 28 days until November 24, when he was cited five times describing the now familiar series of claims that Shia militamen immolated six Sunni men. Those claims have been disputed by the Iraqi Police, Interior Ministry, Iraqi Army, and even the responding unit of the Baghdad Fire Department which put out the one minor mosque fire that actually existed of the four that the Associated Press claimed were attacked.

According to the document compiled by Flopping Aces and cited above, AP provided no bylines for four of these reports, but the fifth was sourced to Qais al-Bashir. Hussein was cited twice more, on November 25 (including once in a story by Steven R. Hurst).

Hussein was cited for a final time on November 26 by the man who first used his name on April 24, Thomas Wagner.

In just eight months, Iraqi Police Captain Jamil Hussein was cited as a source in stories by 17 named AP reporters, and also appeared in several stories where no byline was given. To the best we can determine, he has never been cited by another news organization, at any time.

Since his authenticity was thrown in doubt, the fabled Iraqi Police Captain has completely disappeared from AP reporting, except for the AP's denials that he is the fraud that the Iraqi interior ministry says he is. The captain, if he is real, would have likely come forward by now to clear his name. He has not.

At the current level of controversy, it might be prudent for these 17 Associated Press reporters, AP international editor John Daniszewski, and AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll to each go on the record and establish the details, dates and locations of their relationship with alleged Iraqi Police Captain Jamil Hussein that they have so vigorously defended.

Daniszewski and Carroll should also explain why, when there is so much suspicion that the Associated Press has been duped by a series of false witnesses tied to a flawed stringer-based news gathering methodology, that the AP promoted two of the reporters involved in this controversy.

Kim Gamel, who issued stories using Hussein as a source on June 1, June 5 and twice on June 6, has now been promoted to the newly-created position of Baghdad News Editor.

gamel

Patrick Quinn, who wrote a story using Hussein as a source on May 30, has been promoted to the newly-created position of Assistant Chief of Middle East News.

quinn

In most any line of work, discovering that two actors were promoted after it was revealed they were in some way involved in a scandal, would create a scandal of its own. Many people might assume that their superiors might be trying to buy their silence. That suspicion would only grow if those people were promoted to positions that didn't previously exist.

At the very best, the Associated Press is guilty of creating the perception that their reporters' silence in the Jamil Hussein affair may have been bought. While there is no evidence that such a thing did occur, I shudder to think what it may mean to the future of the Associated Press if it is more than just a perception.

Update: fixed a glitch above, where I meant "stringer-based" reporting, not "string-based," which is reputedly how AP handles telecommunications. Sorry for the confusion.

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Torture? Who Cares?

As much as the fringe left seem to be able to manufacture spittle-flecked outrage over the interrogation of suspected al Qaeda terrorists, they seem curiously quiet over the treatment of a captured homicide bomber that said the following of his incarceration:


"It is a closed-off world designed to isolate inmates from social and environmental stimuli, with the ultimate purpose of causing mental illness and chronic physical conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and arthritis."

Where is the ACLU? Amnesty International? Dick Durbin?

You would think that sockpuppet (Who answers "How would a Patriot Act?" by moving to Brazil) and his ideological fellow travelers would be all over this story, wouldn't you? And yet they are curiously silent.

It must have something to do with the fact that the man who said this is Eric Robert Rudolph.

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December 10, 2006

Proof?

I just a received an email that claims to show photographic proof of the Jamil Hussein/Burning Six story of the Associated Press. Make of it what you will.


Sir,



I must take issue with your attempt to discredit Mr. Jamil Hussein, nonexistent though he may be, regarding his story about six Sunni worshippers who were burned alive outside a bombed mosque. I submit for your review the attached photograph, which clearly shows a Shiite insurgent wielding a gas pump from which spouts fuel that feeds the flames engulfing his Sunni victim. The other five victims, already aflame, are visible in foreground and background amid the rubble of the mosque.

My objection to your criticism of Mr. Hussein, however, arises not from your skepticism over his claim that the men in question were actually Sunnis, or were actually burned, or were actually alive once, or were dead later, or that the attackers who did or did not do the burning were or were not Shiites, or that they did or did not burn the Sunnis who were or were not burned; indeed, I recognize all of these to be points over which reasonable people can in good faith disagree.

sixsunnis2
(click to enlarge)

Rather, I find it alarming that you fail to fail to reveal the truth that underlies this incident, if it happened: clearly, Mr. Hussein was coerced by U.S. and Israeli agents into suppressing his knowledge that the supposed Shiite incendiary insurgent in the photograph is actually a Mossad operative. In light of this fact, Mr. Hussein's pretended existence is obviously a cover designed to disguise his non-identity and avoid reprisals from the Vast Right Wing Conspirators who blew up the World Trade Center in the mistaken belief that it was actually the United Nations building.

By revealing that Mr. Hussein is not truly Jamil Hussein, but is another non-existent person of a different name, you have "outed" him, making him vulnerable to attack by the same American Jewish interests that used Valerie Plame to attack Karl Rove in order to punish Bush for his too-tepid support for the establishment of a Hebrew-only language policy in the Jew-occupied territories stretching from Brooklyn to Ethiopia. As you know, the Hasidim of Flatbush* oppose the use of Hebrew, instead preferring to use Yiddish in order to hasten the arrival of the Messiah. As this extremist party sees the outbreak of Total War between Jews and Muslims as a precursor to the divine visitation, they surely will not take kindly to Mr. Hussein's deceptions on behalf of liberal Israeli accommodationists. The accommodationists - including the aggressor in the photograph - pose as apostate Jews (though many are actually Christian Phalangist moles), and are known to be inflaming sectarian violence in Iraq. They hope that if things get nasty enough, the U.N. will step in and resolve the conflict before Iran gains dominance. They calculate that an ascendant, nuclear capable Iran would need to surrender unconditionally to Israel in order to restrain itself from launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Jerusalem and Tel Aviv that would, in fact, hasten the arrival of the Messiah.

In sum, you, sir, have made it impossible for the person who Mr. Hussein is not to do his work with impunity. By revealing that Mr. Hussein does not exist, you have placed him in mortal danger at the hands of deathmongering moderate Jewish Israelis and Americans whose counterespionage protocols call for the death or subjugation of all non-existent persons.

I hope you're happy.

Cordially,
Jamal Hussein (no relation)
Sandy, Utah, USA

P.S., Should you find yourself needing legal representation over this matter, I kindly refer you to my esteemed associate Ramzi al-Clarkstein Baker'sman McCarterGates. He's not Jewish, but he's still a decent lawyer.

*Note: "FlatBUSH" - mere coincidence?

I'm not certain if Mr. Hussein's claims are accurate, but his explanation sounds every bit as credible as what the Associated Press has offered up as evidence so far.

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Weblog Awards Continue

Despite some minor server-related glitches, the Weblog Awards are online and waiting you to vote in 45 categories. I'm quite flattered to be in second third right now, especially considering the blogs I'm up against.

Make sure you vote for your favorites every day; voting ends on December 15.

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December 09, 2006

Just the Facts, Ma'am

Kathleen Carroll, the Executive Editor and Senior Vice President of the Associated Press, just can't seem to do the required legwork necessary to resolve the questions surrounding six immolations and four mosque burnings alleged in news reports by anonymous reporters working for her organization. She does, however, try her best to deflect criticism in her latest response to the emerging scandal this afternoon.

She begins:


In recent days, a handful of people have stridently criticized The Associated Press' coverage of a terrible attack on Iraqi citizens last month in Baghdad. Some of those critics question whether the incident happened at all and declare that they don't believe our reporting.

Indeed, a small number of them have whipped themselves into an indignant lather over the AP's reporting.

What concerns Carroll is that her "handful" includes Jules Crittenden of the Boston Herald, Mark Tapscott of the Washington Examiner, Tom Zeller of the New York Times, and Robert Batemen in the New York Post, and this handful is steadily getting larger by the day thanks to a diligent army of citizen-journalists.


Their assertions that the AP has been duped or worse are unfounded and just plain wrong.

No organization has done more to try to shed light on what happened Nov. 24 in the Hurriyah neighborhood of Baghdad than The Associated Press.

Well, thanks for clearing that up. I can sleep comfortably now that you've confirmed what is in your self-interest to reinforce.


We have sent journalists to the neighborhood three different times to talk with people there about what happened. And those residents have repeatedly told us, in some detail, that Shiite militiamen dragged six Sunni worshippers from a mosque, drenched them with kerosene and burned them alive.

And yet in all of those trips to this intimate Sunni enclave, there are a few things the largest news organization in the world hasn't been able to discover... for instance, how the militiamen "burned and blew up" four mosques in the initial report, only to see that number dwindle to one mosque partially burned, without a retraction being issued. For that matter, which mosque were these six men dragged out of? Basic reporting, Editor Carroll. Eighth-grade school-paper who-what-when-where-why.

While we're on the subject of basic journalism, it would seem simple to find names for the six victims in such a tight-knit community. So why, after AP journalists went to this neighborhood three different times to investigate a story under a cloud of suspicion, has the Associated Press been unwilling or unable to provide that basic information?


No one else has said they have actually gone to the neighborhood. Particularly not the individuals who have criticized our journalism with such barbed certitude.

This isn't exactly the truth, Editor Carroll, and if you read your own reporting, you are well aware of that fact. An Iraqi fire company was called into the neighborhood to extinguish the one (not four) minor mosque fire. There does not seem to be any reports from the fire company concerning something as noticeable as six humans combusting in the street.

In addition, we know from your own reporting that legitimate Iraqi police and interior ministry officers dispatched to Hurriyah were unable to verify any of the claims made by AP reporters. They were able to interview the one named source, Imad al-Hasimi, at which time al-Hasimi told a different story than the one reported by the Associated Press. From what little you've given us, it seems he has retracted his story entirely.

I'm sorry that those of us thousands of miles away from the situation are having to criticize AP reporting with such "barbed certitude," but when your senior reporters five miles away don't seek answers to obvious and pressing questions, those of us further away must.


The AP has been transparent and fair since the first day of our reporting on this issue.
We have not ignored the questions about our work raised by the U.S. military and later, by the Iraqi Interior Ministry. Indeed, we published those questions while also sending AP journalists back out to the scene to dig further into what happened and why others might be questioning the initial accounts.

The AP mission was to get at the facts, wherever those facts took us.

Transparent? The AP will not tell us who their reporters are (citing safety concerns, of course). We have no names for alleged witnesses for precisely the same reason. We don't know the name of the mosque from which these men were abducted. We don't seem to have the names of the dead, and contrary to initial AP reports, we don't seem to have any named employees of the Kazamiyah Hospital who will claim to have seen these bodies. Of the two named sources in the initial story, one now disavows the story originally attributed to him, and the other, primary witness seems all but certain of being a long-run, deeply embedded fraud.

And what about the things that Carroll would rather not address?

Such an example is the fact that the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, which would rarely miss a chance to cite an example of Shia brutality, has been curiously silent about these alleged immolations. Al Jazeera, the preeminent Arab news outlet, also did not report on this atrocity, despite how easily they could sell this story to their primary media market. For that matter, neither Reuters, nor UPI, nor any other news organization has been able to confirm the Associated Press story. AP, it seems, has an exclusive that no one else can or will substantiate, even two weeks later. If AP has the facts, they are very stingy sharing them.


What we found were more witnesses who described the attack in particular detail as well as describing the fear that runs through the neighborhood. We ran a lengthy story on those additional findings, as well as the questions, on Nov. 28.

Some of AP's critics question the existence of police Capt. Jamil Hussein, who was one (but not the only) source to tell us about the burning.

These critics cite a U.S. military officer and an Iraqi official who first said Hussein is not an authorized spokesman and later said he is not on their list of Interior Ministry employees. It's worth noting that such lists are relatively recent creations of the fledgling Iraqi government.

By contrast, Hussein is well known to AP. We first met him, in uniform, in a police station, some two years ago. We have talked with him a number of times since then and he has been a reliable source of accurate information on a variety of events in Baghdad.

No one – not a single person – raised questions about Hussein’s accuracy or his very existence in all that time. Those questions were raised only after he was quoted by name describing a terrible attack in a neighborhood that U.S. and Iraqi forces have struggled to make safe.

And now, we get to what concerns Editor Carroll most of all.

Jamil Hussein isn't just a one-off source, but an on-going, continual source for the Associated Press over the past two years, being used as a named source no fewer than 61 times in the past year. If Captain Hussein is a legitimate Iraqi police officer as Carroll insists, then inviting him to meet with his own superiors and representatives of U.S Central Command in front of Associated Press cameras would not only be uneventful for Captain Hussein, who could clear charges that he is an insurgent operative, but it would vindicate the Associated Press completely. The Associated Press can end this controversy by merely producing Captain Jamil Hussein.

And yet, we know that if the Associated Press could produce Captain Hussein to vindicate it's reporters, it would have done so by now. The fact that the Executive Editor of the Associated Press has been reduced to spending the bulk of her response attacking the messengers tells you just how dire the situation of the Associated Press in Iraq truly is.

Jamil Hussein is one false source that immediately calls into question all 61 AP stories in which he was a source. Jamil Hussein is just one of at least 14 sources that the Associated Press has claimed as Iraqi policemen, that have provided "proof" in perhaps dozens to hundreds of stories, that the Iraqi police simply have no record of.

The Associated Press is standing behind their story, perhaps because at this point, acknowledging how deeply they've been compromised is far too difficult to contemplate.

We don't need anymore bluster, accusations, or denials, Kathleen Carroll.

Simple facts will suffice.

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December 08, 2006

Derrick Shareef, Trash Can Grenadier

What. A. Moron.

The Smoking Gun has the affidavit. Ace got it right when he described Shareef's plan as "more aspirational than operational."

Even if the no-so-bright Shareef had managed to obtain a quartet of fragmentation grenades as he intended, he seems to forget that the average mall trash can (at least many I've seen) are made of pretty stern stuff. I'm sure they vary, but many I've seen are made of concrete or steel outer can bodies, with strong, lightweight plastic or aluminum can liners that hold the actual trash.

As your typical frag only weighs about a pound and the kind of cans described would tend to both constrain fragments and force the explosive blast towards the path of least resistance (straight up, away from people), it seems only one guy would be in severe mortal danger in such an attack.


ocscar

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The AP Goes Truthy. Will the Left Stay Silent?

Looking back from the future, we may one day determine that a macabre but seemingly straightforward story of Iraqi sectarian violence was the beginning of the end of credibility for the world's largest news organization.


Six burned alive in Iraq
The Associated Press

BAGHDAD, IRAQ -Revenge-seeking militiamen seized six Sunnis as they left Friday prayers and burned them alive with kerosene in a savage new twist to the brutality shaking the Iraqi capital a day after suspected Sunni insurgents killed 215 people in Baghdad's main Shiite district.

Iraqi soldiers at a nearby army post failed to intervene in Friday's assault by suspected members of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia or subsequent attacks that killed at least 19 other Sunnis, including women and children, in the same neighborhood, the volatile Hurriyah district in northwest Baghdad, said police Capt. Jamil Hussein.

Most of the thousands of dead bodies that have been found dumped across Baghdad and other cities in central Iraq in recent months have been of victims who were tortured and then shot to death, according to police. The suspected militia killers often have used electric drills on their captives' bodies before killing them. The bodies are frequently decapitated.

But burning victims alive introduced a new method of brutality that was likely to be reciprocated by the other sect as the Shiites and Sunnis continue killing one another in unprecedented numbers. The gruesome attack, which came despite a curfew in Baghdad, capped a day in which at least 87 people were killed or found dead in sectarian violence across Iraq.

In Hurriyah, the rampaging militiamen also burned and blew up four mosques and torched several homes in the district, Hussein said.

Residents of the troubled district claim the Mahdi Army has begun kidnapping and holding Sunni hostages to use in ritual slaughter at the funerals of Shiite victims of Baghdad's raging sectarian war.

Such claims cannot be verified but speak to the deep fear that grips Baghdad, where retaliation has become a part of daily life.

President Jalal Talabani emerged from lengthy meetings with other Iraqi leaders late Friday and said the defense minister, Abdul-Qader al-Obaidi, indicated that the Hurriyah neighborhood had been quiet throughout the day.

But Imad al-Hasimi, a Sunni elder in Hurriyah, confirmed Hussein's account of the immolations. He told Al-Arabiya television he saw people who were drenched in kerosene and then set afire, burning to death before his eyes.

Two workers at Kazamiyah Hospital also confirmed that bodies from the clashes and immolation had been taken to the morgue at their facility.

They refused to be identified by name, saying they feared retribution.

And the Association of Muslim Scholars, the most influential Sunni organization in Iraq, said even more victims were burned to death in attacks on the four mosques. It claimed a total of 18 people had died in an inferno at the al-Muhaimin mosque.

This story first began emerging late on November 24, with the version of the story printed above being published on November 25.

Thanks to some investigative started by Curt of Flopping Aces into the many apparent discrepancies in the story, we now know for a fact that significant portions of this story are categorically false, and that other details are highly suspect.

We know that four mosques were not burned nor blown up as the AP story alleges. We know that only one mosque was burned, and the extent of that damage was relatively minor. We know that Imad al-Hasimi, the Sunni leader cited in the original story, has recanted his earlier statements. We also know there is no record of burned bodies being taken the Kazamiyah Hospital, or anywhere else, for that matter. They've simply never been produced.
more...

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December 07, 2006

Steyn Rips AP Over Bias

On the first segment of O'Reilly. As always, Allah's got the video.

A taste:


"...I believe that the majority of American newpapers, which are full of Associated Press content, on the central issue of our time, they're either dupes, at best, or semi-treasonous and colluding with the enemy and demoralizing America on the home front, including having agents of the enemy on their payroll. This is a disgraceful organization."

He goes on to mention Bilal Hussein (by deed, not name) the Pulitzer-winning AP photographer arrested with an al Qaeda commander, in a weapons cache, coated in explosive residue.

The Associated Press, of course, is quite angry that Hussein is being detained. They seem far less concerned that he may be tied to terrorism and the murder of Iraqi civilians, or that he could be feeding the AP propaganda instead of legitimate news.

Dupes, or semi-treasonous? You make the call.

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Weblog Awards Voting Now Open

The 2006 Weblog Awards

10 days, 45 categories, 450 of your favorite blogs. Go forth and vote.

(Especially here. I'm getting smoked.)

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Researcher Quits Over the Dumbest Book Ever Written About the Bush Administration

Protesting Frank J. Fleming's controversial new book on the President—with the provocative title, "The Chronicles of Dubya Volume 1: The Defeat of Saddam" —Dr. Frank Stein resigned this week from the Fleming Center. Stein had co-authored a previous book on the Middle East with Fleming, had been affiliated with the Center for 3 years, and in many ways was Fleming's "brain" on Dubya for years.

Stein writes in a letter explaining his resignation that Fleming's new book is "replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions, and simply invented segments. Aside from the one-sided nature of the book, meant to provoke, there are recollections cited from meetings where I was the third person in the room, and my notes of those meetings show little similarity to points claimed in the book. In due course, I shall detail these points and reflect on their origins." *

When contacted to respond, Fleming's office stated he was attempting to arrange a meeting between former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former President Jimmy Carter, and that he was presently unavailable for comment.

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Edited for Recreancy


editor

Update: An opinion on the Baker Commissions findings from Sgt. T.F. Boggs, in Mosul, Iraq:


After watching the Iraq Survey Group press conference today I am a firm believer that all politicians are idiots. Okay well not all of them but they all have a problem understanding reality. If any politician is reading this now feel free to email me and weÂ’ll go out for coffee and IÂ’ll further explain. But I digress.

The Iraq Survey Group’s findings or rather, recommendations are a joke and could have only come from a group of old people who have been stuck in Washington for too long. The brainpower of the ISG has come up with a new direction for our country and that includes negotiating with countries whose people chant “Death to America” and whose leaders deny the Holocaust and call for Israel to be wiped from the face of the earth. Baker and Hamilton want us to get terrorists supporting countries involved in fighting terrorism!

...What the group desperately needed was at least one their members to have been in the military and had recent experience in Iraq. The problem with having an entire panel with no one under the age of 67 is that none of them could possibly know what the situation is actually like on the ground in Iraq. Now I concede that it is possible to have a good understanding of things as they stand in Iraq but unless you interact with the people of Iraq and spend a year or years of your life on ground you cannot possibly have a complete picture of the situation.

We cannot appease our enemies and we cannot continue to cut and run when the going gets tough. As it stands in the world right now our enemies view America as a country full of queasy people who are inclined to cut and run when things take a turn for the worse. Just as the Tet Offensive was the victory that led to our failure in Vietnam our victories in Iraq now are leading to our failure in the Middle East. How many more times must we fight to fail? I feel like all of my efforts (30 months of deployment time) and the efforts of all my brothers in arms are all for naught. I thought old people were supposed to be more patient than a 24 year old but apparently I have more patience for our victory to unfold in Iraq than 99.9 percent of Americans.

Sgt. Boggs understands that there are only two ways to deal with terrorists: you either kill them, or you appease them.

Jules Crittenden worries that short-sighted Americans, bored with this war (that is rightfully our responsibility to win), will pass down a much more dangerous world to future generations if we refuse to complete our mission now:


My son, 10 years old, has grown up in a world of war more intense than I grew up in. He was five and watching TV when he saw the Twin Towers on fire. His uncle was a soldier, helping to keep us safe, we told him. Then his dad went away to war. He met people who had been in war, even people who had been horribly wounded in war.

And he has said things to me like, "When I grow up, if I don't get killed in battle, I want to be a Major League pitcher."

I'm proud of a boy who talks like that, and heartbroken that he has to. I know the day may come when my boy has to go, and I'll learn things about war that hundreds of thousands of American parents have learned in the past few years.

Will my son then also have to learn all these gut-wrenching things?

What about the betrayal? Will he have to learn about that as I fear we might be about to?

Far too many people have deluded themselves into thinking that if we withdraw our military from Iraq, that Iraqis will somehow have peace. Far too many people have deluded themselves into thinking that if we withdraw from Iraq, that we will have peace.

We were not in Iraq on September 11, 2001. We were not in Japan on December 7, 1941, and in both instances, fanatics loyal to would-be tyrants attacked us.


pearl_harbor_oil

65 years later, BB-39 U.S.S. Arizona still bleeds, but we finished the job. The United States destroyed the enemy and the ideology that sent her to the bottom. We fought a far more capable enemy that was armed with far greater resources and weaponry, and we sustained far more casualties in individual battles than we might loose in ten years in Iraq... Yet we prevailed.

If we refuse to finish the job of destroying Islamist terrorism where it lives in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Gaza, Sudan, and elsewhere, it will not slink away in the night. Terror will smolder like a peat fire in corners of the world both far and near, until once again one day, we look up to see burning building and burning people falling from the sky.

Then it will be our children—yours, mine and Jules'—sent off to fight what will then be a more widespread and entrenched enemy. This future war will requiring more men, more resources, and more terrible weaponry, and yet, this future war never needs to be... if we have the fortitude to finish this war that they started, now, in our time.

Iraq is but one battleground in a wider war that one day must include every nation that harbors, equips, or sustains Islamic terrorism.

"Cowboy" Bush was right on September 20, 2001.

You either honor the ideas, ideals and sacrifices required to maintain free and democratic civilization, or you allow barbarism, fanaticism, and oppression to reign.

The choice is yours.

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December 06, 2006

Harsh Nature

CNET.com senior editor James Kim, who went missing in Oregon while trying to get help for his stranded family, is dead:


"At 12:03 hours, the body of James Kim was located at the bottom of Big Windy Creek," Oregon State Police Lt. Gregg Hastings said at a press conference.

My heart goes out for the Kim family. James Kim left behind a wife and two small children, all of which were rescued in good condition on Saturday.

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Iraq Study Group Report

The Iraq Study Group Report is posted here (PDF).

I've only had time to skim through the executive summary up through the assessment thus far, but don't see anything inconsistent with the findings of the report that were leaked previously. Baker & Co. are not offering any radically new ideas. I think an argument can be made that much of what is said in this report is merely the dusting off of the same failed realist diplomacy that helped create a Middle East where extremism was allowed to rise unchallenged.

In many ways, the Baker Commission ignores the lessons of the last five years (or 35, depending on your viewpoint) and advocates plastering over modern problems with outdated applications of policies that have systematically failed over three decades.

Baker and his contemporaries obviously exhuasted their best ideas Presidents ago.

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Fact-Challenged Superficial Jew-Hating Fabulist


cartergollum

"Precious!"

But other than that, I'm sure he's a pretty nice guy.

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