Commentary’s Abe Greenwald notes that the New York Times has a habit of referring to “Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown Sunni insurgent group that American intelligence officials say has foreign leadership.” Greenwald notes that al Qaeda in Iraq’s leaders have in fact been Jordanian, Egyptian and Saudi Arabian.
Greenwald could have added that referring to AQI as “Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia” is one way to divert the casual reader from the fact that al Qaeda has been active in Iraq. Moreover, AQI is the result of a merger between al Qaeda and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Tawhid, or “Unity,” which was initially funded by the Afghan Taliban government. Al-Zarqawi (the Jordanian) was wounded in the US-led bombing of Afghanistan, sought medical treatment in Iran but was deported and fled to Baghdad. Thereafter, he travelled to northern Iraq, possibly through Iran, where he joined up with Ansar al-Islam, a group that was once part of a long-term al Qaeda dream to spread Islamic rule from Afghanistan to Kurdistan and beyond. After the inavsion, the group was stocked with Kurdish and Arab terrorists from Iran. So even the “homegrown” tag is not entirely accurate.
One might think that the New York Times, which published the Stalinist propaganda of Walter Duranty (even suspecting so at the time) might try to avoid misleading its readers as to the nature of today’s totalitarians-in-waiting. One would be wrong about that, apparently.
(h/t HotAir headlines.)
Update: Insta-lanche!
Their brand does not stand for what they think it stands for. Starbucks and hotels really need to wake up to that. It tarnishes Starbucks with its phony and trite appeal to a stereotypical latte-sipper, and Starbucks can’t afford that right now.
Al Gore and Rigoberta Menchu better hope that the Norwegian Nobel Committee doesn’t start reviewing facts to determine if their awards were legitimate.
One might think that the New York Times, which published the Stalinist propaganda of Walter Duranty (even suspecting so at the time) might try to avoid misleading its readers as to the nature of today’s totalitarians-in-waiting.
No, as Bruce Bawer amply documents <a href=”http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-times-it-ain%E2%80%99t-a-changin%E2%80%99/#comment-64805″The Times, It Ain’t a-Changin’.
Damn!
second try
– It might be true at this point that there are very few AQ in Iraq, now that we’ve sent most of them on a one way trip to meet their virgins, and local sentiment has turned on them, its just that Pravda on the Hudson was a couple of years pre-mature in its Op-ed pieces it regularly passes off as news.
For real, Starbucks, appealing to the progressive aesthetic isn’t working. They hate you. Deal.
I got two words for Starbucks, Juan Valdez.
Hey. Mr. Reynolds I think read this.
“The answer: The Times wants to prove that the American invasion of Iraq–a New York Times’-supported effort that Times officials now claim was a mistake–created violent enemies among the native population of Iraq, and that American aggression, not regional Islamism, is to blame for the majority of the resultant carnage.”
A lot of people were hoodwinked by the control freaks who populate our Executive Branch, including the NYT. Although I don’t object to harsh critiques of the lap dog press and their adherence of maintaining the Status Quo of the current social order, at least a few
persons and organizations recognized the wrong-headedness of their initial cheer leading, and repented accordingly.
The reason given above is laughably self-serving for the Idiocrats, who will gladly fight to the last man/woman of YOUR family, rather than succumb to the dreaded disease of admitting error.
The relentless grasping at straws of justification for invading Iraq seems to be running on the pure adrenalin produced by anxiety over the onset of the above disease.
Saddam was not the imminent threat, for ANY reason, no matter how fertile your dementia.
cleo,
Speaking of dementia, you must have missed the part where Bush rejected the argument that Saddam was an imminent threat. Indeed, had he been an imminent threat, we wouldn’t have had that debate about preemptive war.
Jay Rockefeller was the one calling Saddam an imminent threat. Take it up with him.
And since cleo won’t look it up, here’s the 2003 SOTU speech:
Bush never leads ith his chin. He lets others go to the mat for him.
“”The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”
Condi Rice
Uh, so, cleo? What Rice said is that there is of course uncertainty, particularly when the country in question is frustrating inspections — and when that same country at one point was further along than our intelligence thought.
Precedent, you see.
There is nothing in Rice’s statement that suggests the threat IS imminent. It potentially COULD BE, sure. But the point was, we can’t wait to find out if it is. Hence, preemption. Hence, “imminence” is not the deciding factor.
Hence, you’re still a moron.
Don’t you folks see ? Logic is patriarchy. If you FEEL that Bush is a moron, it must be true. The fact that he outwitted all those brilliant Democrats, like Joe Biden, must be some mistake.
Fantastic post.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/jul/05/ap-exclusive-us-removes-uranium-from-iraq/ (more InstaFundit)
Waitasec… Saddam had a nucular program? And Yellowcake? I can just hear Jon Stewart: Whaaa???
Or maybe that’d be Jon Stewart, if he really _was_ independent, instead of yet another water-carrier for Barry O…
Jeff;
Just because Bush has a brilliant lawyer (addington) parsing his public statements to carefully avoid legal entanglements, does not mean the pace lacked urgency. The inspections were getting at the truth, but then, there was a schedule to keep; Like the 2004 election……….>idiot>
Yes, dear cleo, keep it up.
“No terrorists in Iraq before WE got there!” – except for all the ones that were there already (see; Zarqawi, Al-Ansar, Abu Nidal, etc.)
“Saddam was well contained and wasn’t pursuing nukes!” -except for the 550 METRIC TONS of yellowcake Saddam had hidden that finally reached a Canadian port Saturday for proper burial.
Nope! Nothing to see here!
One might think that the New York Times, … might try to avoid misleading its readers as to the nature of today’s totalitarians-in-waiting.
Why?
Oh, it was the ’04 elections that were the urgent part.
And here I was thinking those towers coming down was the thing that’d put the pep in our step.
Hence, you’re still a moron.
I’m probably worse. I thought you meant Jimmy Durante, who I was mixing up with Walter Brennan. Thank goodness for wikipedia, font of all knowledge. OK fine! Good at least for some things.
[…] AN ARMY OF Durantys? […]
[…] the Victories in Iraq stories, will you? What? Well, it’s gotta be printed somewhere, and we have a political campaign to win over here! Nah, don’t worry about the yellowcake story. The AP has an exclusive, so no one reading the […]
“Just because Bush has a brilliant lawyer (addington) parsing his public statements to carefully avoid legal entanglements, does not mean the pace lacked urgency.”
“A lot of people were hoodwinked by the control freaks who populate our Executive Branch…Saddam was not the imminent threat….”
Either the President’s case for the war in Iraq was secretly based on urgency, as the first quote claims, or it was openly based on urgency, as in the second quote. If it was secretly urgent, then the notion that Americans were hoodwinked into supporting it based on a false sense of urgency is invalidated.
Suggested revision to the title of your post:
A Confederacy of Durantys
Either the President’s case for the war in Iraq was secretly based on urgency, as the first quote claims, or it was openly based on urgency, as in the second quote. If it was secretly urgent, then the notion that Americans were hoodwinked into supporting it based on a false sense of urgency is invalidated.
I don’t feel the logic of your statement.
I just heard someone at the Democratic booth at a 4th of July fair defend this silly statement. Very frustrating. Not to be inconsistent, this aged hippie then went on say that America had actually caused the rise of Nazism as well. The whole time he was glowering at me from behind the safety of a life-size cut out photo manikin of Obama.
The inspections were getting at the truth
That’s hilarious. Seriously, flipping hilarious.
Al Qaeda in Iraq, Nearly Crushed, Recruits Women B…
Al Qaeda’s female suicide bombers spreading death and disaster in Iraq? I’m sure Newshoggers will be cheering at that (Juan Cole certainly is)….
How does Cleo live with just constantly lying like that? You’d think that would take a toll.
I mean, how, precisely, do you think you can get away with “contrasting” two people who are making the same argument, and convince people that one is somehow taking the fall for the other?
Maybe Cleo isn’t really as dishonest as I thought, just bottomlessly stupid.
behind the safety of a life-size cut out photo manikin of Obama
Probably safer than standing behind the real thing…
Comment by ThomasD on 7/6 @ 1:03 pm #
behind the safety of a life-size cut out photo manikin of Obama
Probably safer than standing behind the real thing…
Thanks Thomas, now I have to change shirts! Racist!
At least the cardboard Obama won’t throw you under the bus.
The NYT lead the cheering section in the “urgent” 9 month “run”-up to the invasion. But because the price was higher than they expected, they changed their minds. And since there is no possible way THEY were wrong, then the intelligence must have been manipulated and a President who has to wear velcro shoes because he’s too stoopid to tie laces has hoodwinked them.
Because Iraq was such a winning issue for Bush in 2004, right Cleo?
Probably safer than standing behind the real thing…
Especially when the bus starts making that “backing up” beepy noise.
Oh for a billboard across the road from the New York Times?
“The New York Times: An Army of Durantys”
Or as an alternative, how about a “Who was Walter Duranty” campaign throughout the internet. The media just might pick up on the mystery.
That was only when they weren’t leaking every battle plan (Jordanian border approach, Persian Gulf approach, Saudi border crossing) like that WOPR at the last ten minutes of “WarGames”
“Greenwald could have added that referring to AQI as “Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia†is one way to divert the casual reader from the fact that al Qaeda has been active in Iraq.”
He could also have noted that the very name, “Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia” is, itself, a New York Times fabrication, designed to avoid the heinous juxtatposition “Al Qaeda” and “Iraq” altogether. They. just. made. it. up. On the other hand, we knew all that. What we didn’t know, and what Greenwald deserves real kudos for exposing was the extent of editorial meddling on the newsfront. When your stylebook goes from standardizing punctuation and caps to formulating content like ““Al Qaeda in Mesopotamiaâ„¢, the homegrown Sunni insurgent group that American intelligence officials say has foreign leadership†across bylines, you have indisputably jumped the professional shark.