July 07, 2007
AP Responds to DecapiGate
As most CY readers know, I sent a letter to Associated Press Director of Public Relations Jack Stokes and several of the AP Board of Directors on July 5.
I—along with many other bloggers, and a few journalists, it seems—were curious as to why the Associated Press would so willingly run a poorly-sourced and ultimately false story of a sectarian mass beheading, while passing up the freely-offered, well-documented, carefully photographed eyewitness account of an al Qaeda massacre by noted combat correspondent Michael Yon.
Yesterday afternoon, July 6, I was contacted via email by Paul Colford, Director of Media Relations (not Jack Stokes, another AP fact error) for the Associated Press with his response.
Here are the relevant sections:
AP’s initial version of the story about 20 headless bodies in Iraq, reported on June 28, was attributed to two Iraqi police officials who have been consistently reliable sources for AP. They were unnamed because Iraqi police officers often will speak to reporters only if they are guaranteed anonymity, for security reasons.As is our practice, we kept reporting the story and noted that another police officer, also known to be reliable, had heard the same report of decapitated bodies found on the banks of the Tigris River near the city of Salman Pak, but this officer said a police visit was called off because clashes between police commandos and extremists made the area too dangerous.
However, the police in east Baghdad told the AP that the bodies had been recovered and were en route to the Baghdad morgue.
In addition, a U.S. military spokesman said that U.S. aircraft had spotted what appeared to be bodies on the banks of the Tigris north of Salman Pak.
On June 30, the AP, along with other news organizations that had been following the story, reported that the U.S. military had declared the reports of 20 beheaded bodies to be untrue.
With regard to Michael Yon, the Iraqi police and the U.S. military – to our current knowledge – have issued no statements to the AP about 10-14 bodies being found on June 29 in a village outside Baquba, even though the military, according to Mr. Yon’s online account, were involved in the discovery. We have consistently reported on atrocities committed by insurgents in the Baquba area.
In a war that has claimed the lives of five AP journalists, including three since last December, we take seriously our role in reporting the news reliably and fairly despite the dangerous environment.
This is my response, emailed to Mr. Colford.
Mr. Colford,Let's be blunt about what you mean when you claim, "Iraqi police officers often will speak to reporters only if they are guaranteed anonymity, for security reasons."
The fact of the matter is that because so many Iraqi police officers were leaking false information to the media—the Associated Press being the single greatest offender—the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior earlier this year slapped a gag order upon all active duty Iraqi police officers not formally designated as press contacts in an attempt to cut down on inaccurate information and purposefully planted propaganda.
AP's most infamous police source, Jamil XX-XXXXXXX [named redacted for blog publication], known to the world by the pseudonym Jamil Hussein, was one of many police officers told point-blank not to provide stories to the press. XX-XXXXXXX was cited in particular as an example of a particularly bad source, as 38 of 40 stories sourced to him by the Associated Press could not be verified by any other news agency or government source as having actually occurred, and the vast majority of those stories coming form outside of his precinct, where he would have no direct knowledge at all.
When you state that you keep their names hidden for security reasons, you mean nothing more or less than that you are trying to keep their named hidden so that they will not be arrested and thrown in jail for violating their orders and Iraqi law.
You claim that these two anonymous police sources have been reliable in the past.
Sir, I hope that the Associated Press is a little more worldly than to fall for one of the oldest propaganda/intelligence tricks in the books. Dime-store spy novels are full of stories of spies and secret agents that pass along little truths to establish trust, in order to deliver disinformation once they are trusted. Apparently, the Associated Press has not learned that lesson.
In this instance, your two distant sources were quite wrong, as was your source who told you that the decapitated bodies have been recovered.
Further, I'd like for you to provide me the name of the U.S. military source who you claim said bodies were found on the banks of the Tigris, so that I can ask him myself precisely what information he relayed.
Interestingly enough, you seem to be claiming that you need to have some sort of press release from the U.S. military to run with Yon's story.
What an interesting double standard the Associated Press has incorporated.
You'll run a false sectarian massacre based upon hearsay evidence from anonymous police officers that are violating their own orders, as absolute, unequivocal fact, without any official comment or support whatsoever,
-BUT-
When you are offered—free of charge—a story citing named U.S. and Iraq officers and named U.S. and Iraqi units, taking party in the discovery and recovery of bodies from an al Qaeda massacre by perhaps the most well-regarded and highly respected combat correspondent of the entire war, with copious photo evidence, you suddenly need an official military press release before even considering it?
Perhaps I'm not a professional journalist, but I do know that if a journalist hears something interesting--say, an account of a massacre just a little more than three miles way--than he shouldn't wait on a press release before springing into action. He should immediately start asking questions. If he's going to merely rely on press releases, he isn't a journalist, he's a transcriptionist.
Your reporter Sinan Salaheddin was merely a transcriptionist for a pair of anonymous sources that the U.S. military seems to regard as insurgent propagandists. I would like your assurances that these sources will never be used again, and that Salaheddin, who has used disreputable sources such as XX-XXXXXXX in the past, will have his work more thoroughly vetted before publication, and that AP's Baghdad editor, Kim Gamel, who has also been know to publish stories from questionable sources, be more thoroughly supervised as well. Quite franky, I think their continued pattern of behavior in publishing poorly-sourced and ultimately false stories should warrant their termination, but I am not in the position to make that call.
I do know, Mr. Colford, that AP Special Correspondent Robert H. Reid is presently no more than a few miles for the site of the massacre that Yon reported.
Perhaps Reid will be viewed with more credibility than Yon and his multiple eyewitnesses and photographs, and perhaps as much as the insurgent propagandists with whom the Associated Press continues to place so much trust.
As noted above, Michael Yon told me via email this morning that AP Special Correspondent Robert H Reid is in Baquba, and I think he has pretty good evidence supporting that claim:
That's Reid (right) in the back of a Stryker armored vehicle just 3.5 miles from the scene of the ambush Michael Yon documented in Bless the Beasts and Children. Hopefully, he'll get the story out about the massacre at al Hamira, even though al Qaeda is suspected, and this doesn't fit the sectarian violence storyline AP seems to prefer.
Update: AP's/Mr. Colford's response to my rebuttal:
We have nothing further beyond yesterday's response.
We have nothing further beyond yesterday's response and please stop pointing out our lies and evasions, it makes us upset. Furthermore, please stop contradicting our general storyline with facts, that also makes us upset.
Posted by: Michael at July 7, 2007 11:25 PMIn this day and age, with digital cameras and internet access, is it not asking too much for AP editors to require photo proof of outrageous stories such as this? AP knows they were burned by the Jamil Hussein story, but they keep repeating it.
Seems the only way to get AP's attention is to CC their Board members. Keep it up.
Posted by: Corky Boyd at July 7, 2007 11:31 PMHi, Jack. We see you.
Posted by: Miss Orange at July 8, 2007 12:44 AMAP's agenda is clearly to help induce a US capitulation so that the Democrats' heavy investment in an American defeat [preferably a humiliating one, judging by the tenor of the story lines these Bolshie correspondents file] will be rewarded with four years in the WH. As a bonus, this would be a further capture of the press by the international left, and eventual destruction of Israel & diminishment of US resistance to the multiple insanities an aggressive Islam promotes.
And finally, Castro's wettest dream would come true.
Posted by: daveinboca at July 8, 2007 01:13 AMThis "response" from AP is little more then the fist class fools rearranging the deck chairs on the MSM Titanic.
Any claim that these soon to be Starbucks barristas had to the title "journalist" is long gone. The mask has dropped revealing the ugly face of pompous, arrogant idiots claiming to be "journalists" but are really little more then the propaganda spewing whores of the Islamofascists.
Memo to Jack Stokes:
Enjoy that fat paycheck while you are still getting it, boy. You will be unemployed soon. The simple fact of the matter is that your organization along with the rest of the MSM are no longer the gatekeepers of information. With every lie you tell, every story you refuse to report truthfully, every story you spin you reveal your true face to more and more people.
Posted by: Ennis at July 8, 2007 01:49 AMTo paraphrase that propaganda poster popular in San Francisco...
Support our troops-frag a MSM "journalist".
Posted by: Ennis at July 8, 2007 01:51 AMQuestion the questioners, and you'll see the American press corps crumble before your very eyes.
They never can answer our questions, can they?
The AP can't explain why they're running phony massacre stories, while studiously avoiding well-documented massacres committed by al-Qaeda....
The alphabet networks can't explain why they're clamoring for prison time for Scooter Libby, while actively covering up Sandy Berger's deliberate theft and destruction of classified terrorism reports from the National Archives....
The New York Times can't explain why they're running bogus allegations by phony Iraq War veterans on the front page, while burying news of the foiled JFK terrorism plot back on page 37A....
Shouldn't we be getting answers to some of these questions on videotape?
Isn't it time to start questioning the questioners?
Wouldn't you love to see a documentary comprised of nothing but ambush interviews with the luminaries of our inherently dishonest American press?
Posted by: flatwater at July 8, 2007 01:53 AM..."you are trying to keep their named hidden so that they will not be arrested and thrown in jail for violating their orders and Iraqi law."
It's called a free press. Of course they protect their sources: why would you want it otherwise? Would you object to AP reporters protecting say, Cuban sources that would otherwise be sent to jail because of the information they provide? Your neo-fascist views on the supression of a free press are unbecoming in a democracy.
Posted by: Joe Cypherpunk at July 8, 2007 03:15 AMDear Mr Owens,
Please rest assured that the story of the 20 headless men is %100 true.
Let me explain.
You see, I was one of the 2 Iraqi police officials who reported the beheadings to the AP. Unfortunately, the other police official is nothing but a heartless coward and wishes to remain anonymous, so I am left on my own to recount this gruesome story to you.
Although the AP reported that we had learned of the beheadings from the Iraqi Interior Ministry, who sent troops to the village to investigate the incident - nothing could be further from the truth.The reality of the matter is, that me and police officer No. 2 (heartless coward) saw the gruesome massacre up front, with our very own eyes.
You see, that morning, June 28, had turned out to be a real dreary morning for us - no massacres, no alleged massacres - nothing, nado, zilch! Just a real depressing morning! So, me and my buddy decided to stroll off to the village of Um al-Abeed, near the city of Salman Pak. You see, I like pizza, and Um al-Abeed is the only village around these parts where you can actually find genuine American-style pizza. Well, anyway, as we entered the village, we heard this loud commotion - screaming, yelling, you name it! My buddy pleaded with me, "let's get the hell out of here, before we both get skinned alive!" But I refused to turn back. We were policemen after all, and besides, I was dying for that mouth-watering delicacy you Americans call, "Pizza". There was no turning back now - not at least until I had my slice of pizza!
So we ventured on, and lo and behold what did we see? 20 men with their hands and legs bound, about to be shot to death!
Suddenly a guy with a gun - who was ordered to shoot these poor fellows - realizes he doesn't have enough bullets in his gun to knock off all 20 of his hapless victims. So he tells his pals, "Guys, it's time to activate plan B".
Suddenly, these despicable vermin drew these ghastly looking swords from their scabbards. I ran over to them and tried to stop them. "Please!" I pleaded with them. "Why must you behead all 20 of these people? Just behead one of them and let the rest go home!"
"No, we will not do that," one of the men replied.
"Why not?" I asked him.
"Because 2 heads are better than 1, and 20 heads are better than 2," he replied defiantly.
I thought his answer made sense at the time, but when I got home I realized he had cleverly pulled the wool over my head - and over the victims' heads too.
And that's about it, Mr. Owens. No need to burden you with the rest of the gory details.
And yes, I did manage to get my slice of pizza... It was okay, I guess, but it's kind of hard to savor a delicious slice of pizza when you've just witnessed 20 people getting their heads sliced off.
And Mr. Owens,If you're really interseted in hearing more about the beheadings, I would be more than happy to conjure up.... I mean.... to fill you in on the rest of the story. I've also got lots of other fables.... I mean ... atrocities ... to tell you.
Please feel free to contact me.
My name is Jamil. And I'm captain of the Iraqi police dept.
Just call the AP headquarters in Iraq and ask to speak with Captain Jamil XX-XXXXXXX
Everybody knows me over there.
Thank you for your time.
wow, you guys are really awesomely insane
especially loved the "pshaw, 'protecting sources' - here's the real story!" bit, that's some tinfoil-hat stuff right there
Posted by: cbmc at July 8, 2007 05:59 AMAt what point in time do we organize an effort to economically punish the AP for being a willing propaganda source for Radical Islam?
Think how hard it would be to boycott any media production which utilized AP services! hey are everywhere.
Posted by: Quilly Mammoth at July 8, 2007 07:00 AMWhy are they protecting "sources" that feed them false stories? I thought part of the ethics of reporting was that anonymity was void if the source lied.
And more importantly, why won't they pick up a well-documented story?
Posted by: Rob Crawford at July 8, 2007 09:04 AMAP is now pretty much on my "killfile" list. I check the originator of every story I read and ignore anything by AP.
Needless to say alot and MMM stories now go unread.
Heh... of course I read the blogs though and with every other AP story being challenged I sill seem to get stuck reading them. Go figure.
Posted by: atadOFF at July 8, 2007 09:40 AMNames, places, dates, photographs, evidence - we aren't fooled by your stinkin baubles and trinckets meant to distract us from our mission - a journalism caliphate.
Okay, okay, an Islamist-Journalist caliphate.
Posted by: IamAP at July 8, 2007 10:04 AMTrackbacked by The Thunder Run - Web Reconnaissance for 07/08/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention updated throughout the day…so check back often. This is a weekend edition so updates are as time and family permits.
the AP wants America to LOSE
they want al qaida to WIN
they want us to withdraw our troops so as to deny them VICTORY
AP also likes CASTRO,,, not sure whats up with that maybe there COMMUNISTS as well as terrorist sympathizers
Posted by: Karl at July 8, 2007 11:44 AMKarl:
What motive can you name for the AP wanting al Qaeda to "win?"
While you're at it, what motive can you name for the oft-repeated "Liberals want al Qaeda to win?"
Difficulty: the motives you come up with cannot be insane.
Dear Mr Owens: Note the third paragraph in the excerpt you gave us of Mr. Colford's response to you:
"However, the police in east Baghdad told the AP that the bodies had been recovered and were en route to the Baghdad morgue."
Couldn't that be easily checked? Granting that Iraq is a violent place, I should think that the arrival of 20 headless bodies wouldn't be a business-as-usual event. Further, since "the police" told AP that the bodies had been recovered, it should not be hard to confirm this.
For Doc Washboard: I don't agree with Karl that AP wants al-Qaeda to win. But I think it beyond doubt that they want Bush to lose. Time and again, the AP hasn't even followed its own procedures in investigating and reporting stories. I should like to hear your take on why the AP could not send a reporter to confirm Michael Yon's article on the massacre. Mr. Yon wrote an article, complete with pictures. Yet the AP hasn't heard anything from the American military about Mr. Yon's article, ergo nothing to report. How far would such an approach have gotten the AP on its investigation into the massacre of Korean civilians by American soldiers in 1950 if they had followed that attitude?
Why do "liberals want al-Qaeda to win?" Again, it is more wanting Bush to lose. The liberals may get their wish, and force a situation where "Bush" does lose. If so, the events following will be a headache and a half for the world. Not just Bush. If this is too hard for you to understand, look what happened to the Congressional Republicans who had Billyboy in their impeachment sights in the fall of 1998, ran their midterm campaign on it, got nowhere, impeached Billyboy, got nowhere, and now have to face the boomerang spinning back at them. Multiply the consequences by a billion, and you will have a taste---no more---of what will happen when "Bush" loses.
Is the momentary exultation when "Bush" loses worth it? Any more than Bush's idiotic "Mission Accomplished" in the spring of 2003 was justified?
Sincerely yours,
Gregory Koster
Mr. Koster,
The headless bodies were never picked up or delivered... shocking, I know, considering the anonymous police source that supplied this story.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at July 8, 2007 06:41 PM"...the Iraqi police and the U.S. military – to our current knowledge – have issued no statements to the AP about 10-14 bodies being found on June 29 in a village outside Baquba, even though the military, according to Mr. Yon’s online account, were involved in the discovery."
What a bunch of journalism lusers! Back in the day, while in university, I used to be a photo stringer for the local UPI bureau. (hey, it was beer money.) Back then, we would get "attaboys" from higher-ups when we beat AP by five minutes. Or if the Washington Post used a UPI picture instead of an AP one. That sort of competition kept AP honest. It kept us hustling for news.
Now, with that level of competition history, it's obvious to me AP's people are a bunch of journalism wimps and lusers. In those days I just talked about, when the other guys got something, the immediate response was to check out things, so we could either play catch-up, or to knock the story down. We didn't hold press releases or official statements in much regard -- we went and saw what was happening. AP apparently doesn't do that today very well.
For an AP higher-up to assert "no statements... about bodies being found" is a reason for not pursuing the story only demonstrates their lack of ability at the journalism trade. They're intellectually bankrupt, and utterly incompetent as journalists.
One has to wonder what stories Michael Yon would be cranking out if he had the resources AP's throwing away.
Posted by: Sam Damon at July 8, 2007 10:00 PM"Doc Wastrel":::
What motive can you name for the AP wanting al Qaeda to "win?" While you're at it, what motive can you name for the oft-repeated "Liberals want al Qaeda to win?"
dont I wish i knew!!!
why dont you tell me after you emerge from your hot oil massage
Posted by: Karl at July 9, 2007 12:58 AM"I should think that the arrival of 20 headless bodies wouldn't be a business-as-usual event."
As has been pointed out repeatedly, in Bagdhad, the arrival of 20 or so tortured, beheaded, shot or otherwise murdered bodies a day is routine. At times it drops to 15 or so, at other times it rises to 60 or so.
Posted by: Rafar at July 9, 2007 04:06 AMWhat motive can you name for the AP wanting al Qaeda to "win?"
The media is vested in the "Iraq is an unwinnable civil war" story. This is the Cronkite legacy of Vietnam. Not only does the media tell us what's going on now, they are required to correctly 'analyze' the situation and tell us what is going to happen in the future. If they can't tell us what is going to happen, then they aren't living up to their Vietnam heritage of predicting the future. The media can no longer just report what happens, they have to tell us what it means. Now that they have told us what is GOING to happen in Iraq, they have an interest to print stories that back up their claims, and ignore those that go against what they have fortold.
Posted by: BohicaTwentyTwo at July 9, 2007 08:40 AMWhat motive can you name for the AP wanting al Qaeda to "win?"While you're at it, what motive can you name for the oft-repeated "Liberals want al Qaeda to win?"
Doc, isn't it obvious?
First, let's face the fact that journalists are overwhelmingly Democrats, with many of the country's largest news organizations and wire services coming from strongly self-reinforcing liberal enclaves such as New York and Washington D.C. There is nothing wrong with journalists having political opinions--they are only human--but as one opinion is so widely shared, it makes seeing multiple sides of an issue very difficult, and balance impossible.
Second, as reading many Democratic politicians, liberal blogs, and liberal op-eds in this nation's newspapers readily show, Democrats don't feel that the outcome of the war in Iraq will have any direct bearing upon us here, doubts that al Qaeda has the ability to strike us again (many on the truther fringe doubt they struck us at all), and feels (and self-reinforces) that President Bush is a greater threat to America than terrorism (If you feel that, you've proven my point).
It isn't that liberals or the media want al Qaeda to win, it's just that they so thoroughly hate George Bush , Dick Cheney, etc, that they are willing to do or say almost anything to see that these men lose, and “their war” is something that they an be beaten in.
Further, many liberals think that the war is already over; a lost cause, with no chance of success. They have bought 100% into this mindset, which is why they typically cannot address the ups and downs common in conflict, and focus exclusively on the downs. They view our soldiers as little better than murderers when they aren't trying to portray them as victim/children/cannonfodder, while they simultaneously try to paint a picture of Iraqis as innocent pastorals victimized for oil, while also trying to paint them as blood-lusting primitives hell-bent on mindless slaughter.
When you look at it from the liberal perspective that our own executive branch is a greater threat to our nation's present liberty, that al Qaeda and Islamic terrorism really isn't that great of a threat, and that Iraq is a lost bloodbath that will descend into mindless violence not matter if we are there or not, the you can readily understand why liberals in general support a defeat of "Bush's war," and why those liberals in the media also come at their reporting from this mindset.
AP runs a poorly-sourced claim of 20 beheaded bodies as fact because it fits with what they expect to be happening. It's just more sectarian violence that results from Bushitler's illegal war, right? Reporting the al Qaeda atrocity chronicled by Yon is a bit more problematic: it shows al Qaeda not to be an illusion, and provides a reason why we should still be in Iraq. It harms the narrative and the "established truth." therefore, they'll ignore it if at all possible, and come up with news an interesting excuses to avoid publishing it, such as the sudden new requirement for a press release.
So yes, Doc, liberals and the Associated Press are hoping that al Qaeda wins, they just aren't introspective or intellectually honest enough to admit that, and have constructed all sorts of interesting arguments and defense mechanisms to avoid facing the fact that they are championing an al Qaeda victory, an abandoning of democracy, and rooting for an American defeat.
That’s the interesting thing about evil: few people who serve it actually think they are doing anything wrong, and typically think they are doing right and are working for the betterment of mankind. Emotion, divorced from logic and attached to a narrative, gives them that delusion.
But it is a delusion to think that an American President is the greatest threat to our democracy. It is a delusion to think that a terrorist group that has killed thousands of Americans in America is not still plotting to carry out more attacks. It is delusional to think that the Iraq War was about stealing their oil. It is delusional to think that al Qaeda would consider a U.S. withdrawal as anything other than a victory, and delusional to think that any nation in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world would have any respect for our nation if we quit and turn Iraq over to become a genocide.
Well, CY, I was hoping Karl would take a stab at that one, because he's frankly such a fool that I was looking forward to his flubbering about with his exclamation marks and his urgent capitals. When you do it, the outcome is relatively reasonable and, thus, no fun at all.
At least you didn't go so far as many on the Right have gone--people like the shrieking harpy Atlas Pam, who seriously suggest that Liberals are a fifth column who want to establish a Muslim theocracy in the U.S., where we can submit to our new ayatollah overlords.
I'm going to focus on one weak link in your chain of reasoning.
Democrats...[doubt] that al Qaeda has the ability to strike us again (many on the truther fringe doubt they struck us at all)
The Lefties I know and read don't think that at all. We've been struck before, and we'll be struck again. It's the "we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" meme that has us shaking our heads. After the London tube bombing, Madrid, Fort Dix, JFK, the London car bombs and Glasgow, it has become abundantly clear that they can fight us over here and over there, simply by sending a few guys over here while the rest fight over there. I've lost count of the times Righty posters on this site have assured me that the war in Iraq made it impossible (and that's what many of them said: "impossible") for terrorists to fight in Iraq and elsewhere simultaneously.
Every time I've mentioned the need to protect our points of entry and to inspects ships, planes and so on, I've been called a liar, the idea being, I suppose, that, since I'm a Lefty, any concern I profess about homeland security must be a clever, evil ruse. There has also been ample use of the specious argument that our military cannot possibly be used for security in the homeland.
Finally: I do think that the GWOT has allowed the President to do things that I don't like. A short list includes the following: inventing the "enemy combatant" designation solely for the purpose of avoiding international standards of POW treatment; "extraordinary rendition"; pursuing the use of warrantless wiretaps when the FISA courts exist precisely to deal with the "ticking bomb" scenario; et cetera.
Again, it would have been more fun to hear how Karl dealt with this.
Posted by: Doc Washboard at July 9, 2007 10:05 AM"It's just more sectarian violence that results from Bushitler's illegal war, right? Reporting the al Qaeda atrocity chronicled by Yon is a bit more problematic: it shows al Qaeda not to be an illusion, and provides a reason why we should still be in Iraq."
See, this is what I wonder about. Yon's piece strikes me as a tale of utter barbarity in Iraq, unleashed by the invasion of 2003 and the subsequent failure to achieve security and stability.
The story about the 20 beheadings strikes me as a tale of utter barbarity in Iraq, unleashed by...oh you can see where I am going with this.
The ultimate storyline is pretty much the same isn't it?
"it shows al Qaeda not to be an illusion, and provides a reason why we should still be in Iraq."
Well, with all respect, no-one claims that there aren't Jihadis blowing up innocent women and children in Iraqi market places, nor that they are enforcing a viscious brand of Islam of populations that are unreceptive to say the least.
When you hear of people criticising the "Al-Quaeda in Iraq" narrative it is usually a pretty nuanced criticism based on careful use of terms. If you take Al-Q to be the group based around Bin Laden then it is a much more complex question than if you take Al-Q to be a generic name for Islamist Jihadi mass-murdering bombers who hate Americans.
Still, that is splitting hairs in many ways. The main point is that no-one claims that Al-Q (in the more general sense) aren't active in Iraq right now. If you disagree, please present me with an example of this argument. Not a link to someone splitting the hairs, but to someone who disagrees the the broader definition.
"So yes, Doc, liberals and the Associated Press are hoping that al Qaeda wins, they just aren't introspective or intellectually honest enough to admit that, and have constructed all sorts of interesting arguments and defense mechanisms to avoid facing the fact that they are championing an al Qaeda victory, an abandoning of democracy, and rooting for an American defeat."
And this is just silly. Al-Q couldn't win in Iraq in a million years. At best they are a minor faction in a complex inter-group scramble for power. As the Sheiks in Anbar have shown, they would kill the Al-Q types when they found it convinient to do so. Even if they managed to deal with the obvious fact that their more powerful Sunni protectors were just waiting to turn on them, how are they supposed to wrest control of Bagdhad from the Shiite Army and Police force?
Unless you mean that Al-Q winning in Iraq is just a matter of them being able to point to the running US forces and saying "You see, we defeated the Great Satan" in which case I'd suggest that they are also winning by being able to tie you down in Iraq and watching your country becoming less and less co-operative and more divided than ever.
As for the delusions;
"But it is a delusion to think that an American President is the greatest threat to our democracy."
He is in the position to do the most damage, you must admit that. That's why governments have to be held to account in democracies.
"It is a delusion to think that a terrorist group that has killed thousands of Americans in America is not still plotting to carry out more attacks."
It is. It is also delusional to think that occupying Iraq is going to affect that planning in any meaningful way.
"It is delusional to think that the Iraq War was about stealing their oil."
Yes, it certainly is. Stealing the oil is absurd. What were US soldiers going to put it into barrels and sneak it into Texas? Ha!
Of course, if you argued that it wasn't about controlling Iraq, and the oil there, then it would be you who was delusional. To imagine that Great Powers don't think of oil as a strategic asset to be protected and controlled is just a joke. Sticking a massive military force in the oil hearlands of the planet was just a co-incidence, yes?
Why do people still try to point to one reason or another for the Iraq war. It was obviously a confluence of reasons, oil being one of them.
"It is delusional to think that al Qaeda would consider a U.S. withdrawal as anything other than a victory, and delusional to think that any nation in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world would have any respect for our nation if we quit and turn Iraq over to become a genocide."
And the war in Iraq has done what for your standing in the Middle East (or anywhere else for that matter)? Do you think that hanging on in a pointless manner because you are concerned that a bunch of bearded gits might crow about it is making you look good.
Such an argument is like a kid crashing his car in a race and defending himself by saying "The Jocks called me a chicken and were making cluck cluck noises"
Posted by: Rafar at July 9, 2007 10:13 AMIt is a great pity that journalists are not willing to investigate one another. It seems clear to me that, if a representative of ANY OTHER INDUSTRY gave a cock-and-bull story like this one, he'd be investigated and reported endlessly.
Mr. Colford writes like someone with something to hide... which should be the equivalent, for journalists, of waving a red cape in front of a bull. But it isn't.
Should journalists ever wake up -- and realize that a lot of red meat is just waiting to be picked up, at the price of betraying some of their own -- the feeding frenzy could go on for years.
Bring it on.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
Powers-that-be are doing a fine job of making themselve look bad in ALL their dealings, domestic and abroad. No conspiracy required.
Posted by: John at July 9, 2007 07:06 PM
