From Curt at Flopping Aces comes the news many of us quietly expected: Centcom has confirmed that Capt. Jamil Hussein, the primary source for the recent kerosene mosque murder reports—and for a whole host of reports of Shia massacres recounted by the AP—is neither an employee of Iraq’s Ministry of Interior nor is he a police captain.
In short, the AP has been relying on a bogus source for much of its reporting on Shia violence against Sunnis since at least April.
For those who continue to suggest that the mainstream press has a negligible impact on elections, consider that the majority of Americans who bothered to pay any attention whatsoever to this story will be left with an account of horrific sectarian violence against women and children—and the belief that sectarian strife in Iraq is not only inexorable and savage, but pandemic.
Underlying this reportage, then, is an unseemly subtext: that Arabs in Iraq—and perhaps even Arabs in general—are incapable of working toward a free society, one that, through a series of ratified political documents and elections, has merely pretended to be taking its first tentative steps toward the acceptance of a baby pluralism. Consequently, the blood and treasure spent in Iraq has never been worth the cost, and—our failure now all but imminent thanks to a genetic or systemic flaw in the Arab constitution—we should therefore be looking for a way to retreat with honor. Or perhaps a way to reinstall Saddam Hussein. You know, to stabilize things.
Whether this narrative is the product of willful distortion or merely the laziness that comes with being fed stories that match your preconceptions is, in effect, beside the point—though the former is clearly more despicable, and, should it prove to be the case, has the practical effect of undermining a representative democracy that can only work properly if citizens are being given accurate accountings of events by those purporting to do so.
Leaving aside the elitist and racist underpinnings informing such a subtext, what is important to note here is that the majority of Americans who don’t follow politics closely will remember nothing but the ghastly imagery and the message it is intended to further: that we are dealing with a society of savages who, given the opportunity for freedom, will reject it in favor of bloodsport and retribution.
Why? Because they simply are not ready for freedom, partly because the guiding hand of a caring, ruling elite is not available to bring them into the light. Instead, the proles are actually voting. Which is terribly unseemly.
Of course, this kind of “journalism” has its parallels aimed at understanding our own benighted western savages—from Thomas Franks’ What’s the Matter with Kansas? to the huge overseas headline after the Bush reelection that posed the question (paraphrased from memory), ”how could 58 million people be so stupid?” So is it really any surprise that sanctimonious liberal progressives would find the Other that they champion in theory so perfectly distasteful in fact?—at least, before the savages have been assimilated and incorporated into the landscape of the soft-socialist’s utopian plantation like so many little brown lawn jockeys…?
Journalism is a business that has discovered that out-right lies, (Hurricane Katrina, The Domestic Spying Coverage, The Plame coverage, Fauxtography, etc. etc.) are more benfical to their poltical agenda than simply shading the truth. Therefore we will see more out right lies. It is that simple.
No. Leftist racism is no surprise at all. The Middle East is entirely full of poor, oppressed brown people whose lives would be simply wonderful if not for the meddling hand of the western hegemonic military-industrial complex. And the fact that they’re all filthy savages.
Yep, that’s the morally superior left.
I’ve long suspected that the use of The Other in such politics is simply as a convenient club to hit Us with.
As evidenced, of course, by The Other being unimportant, marginalized, or decried as inauthentic (“westernized”) whenever The Other doesn’t suit the political needs of the moment, and by The Other’s identity being defined, for these purposes, from outside (which would be Imperialism, of course, if anyone but the anointed Few were doing it).
I have yet to see the American Left exhibit one single instance of concern or compassion for those innocents in the Middle East who suffer under extreme oppression. Even the Left in the UK is mystified (see the Euston Manifesto).
Hussein was very much on a par, morally, with Stalin and nary a peep from the Left. Perhaps they believe the bullshit they spew: that those in the Middle East are unprepared for, and ill-suited to, democracy. As a concept, it goes far to salving their consciences for neglecting their fellow man. That’s the only reason I can conceive: dehumanize them so you don’t have to feel any responsibility for them. That, or it’s an extreme manifestation of moral relativism and despair.
Apparently, there is no degree of human suffering that can interrupt the American Left’s love affair with its own navel.
Well, no.
Because the Democrat Party has been the party of the four S’s: slavery, secession, segregation and socialism.
It’s understood, I think, but we know that any corrections to the narrative will be buried, either late in the newscast or way down deep somewhere in the paper.
“Oh, by the way, that story we reported? Totally wrong. Our bad. And now, waterskiing squirrels!”
This is incredibly serious stuff, and we have a media machine such that the majority of the players are not serious.
If Iraqis are burned alive subsequent to the fake story of Iraqis being burned alive, will it make for a trend and be reported as a “pattern of escalating violence”?
Wonder what these guys would think of all the criticism coming from thousands of miles away.
Good point Umm – dead journalists have the most absolutiest moral authority of all.
Umm . . .
Undoubtedly hazardous work. Almost all of the Western names are by 2004. Some of them fall off of rooftops or crash their cars or suffer blood-clots. Then the stringers . . . .
I don’t know what they’d think, Umm, but presumably many of them had some kind of affinity for the truth and would think the criticism of those who don’t justified.
Heh. Which leads inevitably to the conviction that the best journalist is a dead journalist.
I seem to recollect having read of or heard of a very similar sentiment once upon a time—a little closer to home…?
Umm, They are probably pissed they went all the way to Iraq to find the news, when they could have just sat in their offices back home and made stuff up.
One might posit that they would have the utmost contempt for their “fellow journalists” who’ve decided that the truth is not worth the risk, and have decided simply to report whatever stories are fed to them by their “trusted” local sources.
That is, assuming that they understand that the criticism is levelled not at them, but rather at the craven propagandists who slurp up as much bad news as they can from the safety of their stateside skyscrapers and “local” four-star hotels, and broadcast it far and wide before even pausing to consider whether it’s the whole truth.
Which distinction should be obvious even to somebody killed more than a year ago, however elusive it may be to Jeff’s current crop of trolls.
I excerpted and linked at Centcom says AP’s “Iraqi police source” isn’t Iraqi police. The more I learn about this situation the more clear it is how intertwined it is with the other major issue I’m following at Gee, that was fun. Let’s do it again.
The short and cruel answer: who cares? That’s certainly not to disparrage or minimize the loss of those journalists, but rather to point out the fact that your comment isn’t actually relevant to the discussion. The fact that journalists die in a war zone doesn’t mean that they or their employers have been reporting either honestly or completely. Your point isn’t actually a point at all, and certainly not a refutation of any criticism of the press. It’s merely a lame attempt at dismissing criticism altogether by virtue of the losses some have suffered.
Don’t bother me, now.
I want to know more about Michael Richards—that’s the big news.
From: The Media
Umm is just getting warmed up. There’s a vacuum now that balloon-fence guy is gone, and Umm is here to help fill it.
Howze about:
Heh. Some things never change. Much.
Balloon Fence Boy: Rest in Pieces
What is it with trolls and the love of the one – two sentence snipe, either barely on topic or, as in Um’s case, completely off target. Who gives a hairy flying crap what dead journalists would have thought of the criticism? How about actually engaging in the arena of ideas, challenging assumptions, boldly making an argument! Trolls are the laziest creatutes on God’s green earth, either parsing sound bites or practicing their digital war cries.
While we’re at it; we’ve become entangled in the digital war Bizarro world, where propaganda and outright lies benefit the enemy to accomplish … what? Does anyone on the left realise how infinitly small and despicable they become when they take such righteous glee in creating a maximally negative myth that denigrates our military and our country? This “working against national interest as a noble endeavor” meme is not only tiresome, it’s positively dangerous.
You have the houses of Congress! Now try to be part of the solution rather than the arbiters of critical history.
BJTexs is right, but I still have to comment on how inadvertently funny Ummm was. It appears that the AP has been relying on a bogus source and printing enemy propaganda. Ummm apparently thinks that the dead journalists would be upset that this has come to light. He must be a rabid right-winger to be that cynical about the media, yes?
That ought to be in a episode of a prime time drama, after all, they include enough Republican swipes.
Yeah, right.
The quote by Sherman was great too O’Brian, you’re on a roll!
More of the MSM’s nuanced reporting, while I listened to ABC interrupt the coach’s radio show for the 1:00pm update:
“DOW DOWN OVER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FIVE, ANOTHER SIGN OF A DANGEROUS ECONOMY, AND A HOUSING BUBBLE READY TO….”
Oh, wait…that was last months screed. What the guy said today was:
“The dow was down 155 at the close today, investors say a drop of a hundred and a half is a natural pullback. Now, here’s more on…”
There’s other ways to lie, besides actually telling lies. The MSM has been lying the nuanced way for so long, and now under pressure from all the information on the internet, they are becoming ever more aggressive in persuing their agenda.
It’s kinda scary when you think about it. At the same time more and more information is available, the sources get more and more unreliable. As the major news sources,with their questionable “reporters”, and photoshopped pictures, resemble the gossip rags more and more, reality becomes who you choose to believe. In the digital age, it sounds like a presciption for anarchy.
Keep in mind too that IBC uses these media reports for their death count.
And we keep being told their number must be too low, because they must be missing a large percentage of deaths that go unreported.
Grinning over my keyboard, Karl!
I believe the point (no matter how pointless) that Ummm was trying to make is that some journalists did not rely on stringers but actually got out into the morass and did their jobs. Beyond the fact that many of those journalists listed died from accidents or unrelated health issueshis snipe still doesn’t deal with the topic at large. The vast majority of journalists have been cowed into hanging on to their hotel rooms. This has worked to the advantage of the terrorists as their propaganda campaign can continue with the barest oversight. The MSM (especially NYT, AP and Reuters) is more interested in the story than in the source. Our little Islamonazis, with their eagar little Goebbels internet wonks, continue to frame the issue in human misery (of their own doing) with the tacit approval of the MSM, to the hoots and hollars of the left. Those people wring their hands of civilian casualties so much that they all must have Corpes-sal Tunnel Syndrome.
Gee, remember when the U.S. used to control the message? The times, they are a changin’…
“Wonder what these guys would think of all the criticism coming from thousands of miles away. “
Umm,
Well lets see….Oh I guess not much huh? Probably pissed they showed up in the first place…Nice drive by hit though…..
I, for one, want to know what the hell the first journalist to die was thinking when he embedded with an Iraqi armored brigade.
Didn’t the first gulf war show that Iraqi armored vehicle survivability rates were slim?
At least the guy had the courage to go out and try to get a different perspective on the war… I mean after all, everyone has seen the pentagon videos taken from the perspective eye in the sky, but never have we seen footage from the opposite side of the massive explosion that comes outta nowhere
What is sad, is that his courage will be rewarded with skepticism, because of Capt. Jamil Hessein, and some really twisted editors.
I didn’t think today’s reporters had it in them to pull off another “Tet”, but damn, those boys are doing me proud, aren’t they?
Uncle Walter
Tet, Watergate, JFK Beatification. Rinse, lather, repeat.
Well, maybe lather first.
I don’t know lee, it’s hardly a new thing. You’ll never find a war in history that didn’t have exaggerations and rumors reported as fact on all sides. Who really knows if the Carthaginians actually tortured Regulus to death or not? Things were still rotten (sorry about the link: best research I could do on a moment’s notice).
I’m not sure we’ve established that the AP’s deceptive reporting is a feature unique to its war coverage…
Look, a friend of mine–a liberal journalist for the WSJ–was shot down and killed in a Russian chopper in Chechnya about 10 years ago, so I have the greatest respect for journalists who risk their lives for the sake of the truth. Many are the unsung heros in the world of journalism; they are worth their weight in gold.
But the raw fact of the matter is that the current MSM is rapidly becoming a rabbit hole down which facts disappear forever. If we don’t wake up right now and start making a concerted and active effort to challenge them on every single lie, the day will soon arrive when no variety whatever exists in American political discourse and our democracy will be effectively doomed. I am as serious as a heart beat.
The Right is currently on the matt, and the Leftist media is determined to keep us there. Unless we start resisting them now, there is no guarantee we will ever rise again.
Whether the AP’s reporting is unique to the history of warfare coverage is entirely beside the point. Which is this: people are noticing; the behavior is lazy, dangerous, and potentially reprehensible, given questions of intent; and now that it’s being pointed out constantly in real-time, the behavior should change.
Or are you taking the conservative stance here, Ummm, and arguing for the status quo?
No Jeff, I agree bad reporting should be weeded out and exposed. Where I differ with you is I don’t automatically draw general conclusions from this anecdotal evidence. In the same way I don’t believe there are a million Abu Ghraibs out there.
The preponderance of the evidence shows a country in dire straights. What I was getting at in mentioning the dead journos is this–don’t take my word on the Iraq situation, your word, Hewitt’s, or Cindy Sheehan’s: look at the preponderance of the evidence from those who are living, writing and often dying with the tale. A little thought experiment never hurt, a conversation–who better to bring verisimilitude to the story than them?
—
btw I’m changing my name to Themistocles–want to be clear I’m not sockpuppeting. Only reason I used Umm.. was I figured it might make BJTexs’ comments look more thoughtful if he referred to me by name in them.
Didn’t work.
I’m not sure if I entirely agree with your analysis of the “unseemly” underlying subtext. I’ve never said that Arabs in Iraq are incapable of building a democratic free society. But I would argue that Arabs in Iraq have little to no interest in building a democratic free society. And without it, then we are wasting resources.
When I look at Iraq right now I do not see a group of people fighting for an equitable system of governance and justice. I see disparate groups fighting for power and resources. In other words, I don’t see a diverse country coming together to build a democratic free society for all citizens. And we are paying too high a price waiting for that to happen.
“Willful distortion” would suggest an institutional failing: Most likely, the reporter is given a frame and seeks “facts” to suit that frame. Alternatively, an oddly unidirectional failure in factchecking.
“Laziness that comes with being fed stories that match your preconceptions” suggests that the individual reporter shoulders the responsibility.
What I hear ahem saying is that we can safely take the latter off the table. I tend to agree – what we are seeing is corruption, and while calling attention to this corruption *should* change behavior, I think the success that they have had with Katrina, with Iraq, and with ensconcing Nancy in the Speakership amounts to an unshakable validation of the effectiveness and rightness of their reportage, and they’re not about to unilaterally disarm themselves of their heady new power.
tuna – I too have been appalled at how frightfully unaesthetic the war has been.
Having just read post after post about how the “mainstream” media is a bunch of liars, I am interested in knowing where the rational conservative obtains his news. The BBC must be out. NPR? The NY Times? Is it all Michelle Malkin and World Net Daily? How many reporter do these people have in Iraq?
My cousin just returned from Haditha and, even though he continues to support the mission, he said the portion of the country of where he served was a wreck. Is this Marine Lt wrong?
Neo – let me know when you find out.
But they have elections and relatively representative governments in lebanon and the palestinean athority. And though not arabs, they also have some elections in Iran—the more wingnutty candidate there winning. there’s plenty of data points for those who want to see middle eastern countries
There’s really no need to see a subtext of impossibility. The place is chaos. Has been for awhile. And its not because they’re Arabs. Though you might run into that perception amongst those pranked in Borat’s movie.
I keep getting told, sometimes by our sensibly hawkish elites, sometimes by our plain old hawkish internet correspondents, that we have to take out Sadr. This despite him being in charge of the largest bloc of the ruling coaltion, thanks to those proles loving him so.
Its not so much that they are incapable of democracy. Its that I’m not so sure the sort of regime that Iraqis want is the sort of regime that people here imagine would be good for their interest in the region. The evidence I have for that is the aforementioned Sadr.
As far as Iraq goes, there are a lot of milbloggers and folks like Bill Roggio.
Strangely enough, we often do listen to NPR, the BBC World Service, read the NYT, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, read the AP wire stories, TNR, NRO and a host of other sources. As I don’t use television, MSM broadcast journalism doesn’t affect me very much.
Personally, I read online La Repubblica and Brussels Journal, the Telegraph, London Times and thesuperficial.com, Commentary Magazine, and the Guardian–which makes me laugh with appalled astonishment. I often read Slate. I get The Atlantic and New York Review of Books. I used to get Harper’s, but I got sick of Lapham about 5 years ago. I will read it when I visit friends, occasionally.
And I also jettisoned my subscription to SciAm a couple of years ago, though that journal had been losing it bit by bit for a long, long time.
Happyfeet is right, I think. They have disocvered that out right untruth suits their purposes. There will be more untruth.
Umm, I’m sorry but you are simply misguided. The CNN sniper video, the Katrina nonsense (dead folks in freezer, raped babies, etc.) the reporting on domestic spying, the fauxtograpy (new expample at Hot Air btw), the Mary Mapes nonsense, the Koran in the toilet stuff, the Eason Jordan thing, the NYT photographs of insurgent snipers, etc. etc. refute you completely. This stuff stopped being isolated long ago.
actus, where did you get the idea that the place was “chaos”? Please provide links to the relevant AP story.
If you could make that aguement without spewing BUSHHITLER LIED, it would make a good arguement. Maybe even a debate. step on in son…
For myself, I’ll hedge my bets and say some Arabs hate the idea of a democratic free society, and their point of view has been conveyed extensively in the media.
Oh, look. We are back where we started!
Meh, Actus is back. Monkyboy was much better. He could support a psychotic killer like no one’s buiness. Actus is just sort of flaccid and uselss…like Chuck Hagel.
Thank you, thank you I’ll be promoting my dinner theater tour on Olberman over the weekend. Alu Akbar, etc., etc.
From the car bombs that go off killing somewhere between one and two hundred last week. 6 may not have died while getting burned. But loads more did die. And other ‘chaotic’ things happen.
“chaotic things happen” …. ya know … someone really should get to the bottom of these things… sometime soon…..maybe.. I …think…
Yes, yes, listen to the flaccid one. Something bad most certainly happened somewhere in Iraq, or foar that matter, the world. Therefore any thing said about Iraq no matter its truth or untruth is completely justifiable.
It is the same sort of infallible reasoning that brought us God is love. Love is blind Ray Charles is blind. Ray Charles is God.
“something bad”? Thats the car bombs in Sadr city? “Something bad”? You’re going to lose the care contest dude.
Lets looks at the numbers, how many other democracies with a nice election and ratified political documents survive this sort of thing going on? It might not be enough ‘chaos’ for you—mr something bad— but it looks to me like enough to make democracy rather difficult, if not impossible.
Actus … democracy is impossible?
Here’s a thought Actus: Insurgents and terrorists attack ‘order’ to create the appearance of ‘chaos.’ Look at the targets they choose: marketplaces, recruiting lines, social gatherings: what you are seeing is a society going about the business of a society, otherwise, one would imagine the targets would be rather different.
With respect to creating the appearance of chaos, the terrorists and the media share the same goal, and rely on a willing suspension of disbelief such as you have evinced.
Bill–
Without lots and lots of lawyers.
There’s the United States of America, for one.
Dan ,
One more reason to hate lawyers ,I ‘spose.
Pardon me, but, ummm, anecdotal evidence? I think we’ve gone far behind the anecdotal at this point, and for those of us who have been reading and debunking this stuff daily for 4 years, we are tempted, I dare say, to characterize the problem as verging on systemic.
And of course, there is nothing about my analysis that is “automatic”; to attempt to view this post in a vacuum—and to bracket out the hundreds of other posts I’ve found myself impelled to write along similar lines thanks either to media laziness or perfidy—is to do me a great disservice.
I don’t happen to agree that the preponderance of evidence shows a country in dire straits—though I’ll concede that the proponderance of mainstream western reportage would suggest that is indeed the case.
But even were we to allow that Iraq is a hopeless quagmire, that fact simply wouldn’t justify the kind of “fake but accurate” journalism that believes it more important to get across the “story” (which of course it helpfully defines and shapes) than to relate the facts in a manner that aims at being disinterested.
actus refutation in a single word…”India”.
How many democracies don’t survive this sort of thing Actus?
Actus, you grow less flaccid. Yes, I see your point now. Those who attack innocents, those who murder and maim randomly to promote facism are not to be blamed for their actios at all. The United States is. Therefore the only recourse for rational people all over the world is to punish the United States and reward those who seek facism… with facism, facism of the most virutlent, hateful and deadly sort…based not only on a lust for power but on racism, religious intolerance and mysigonism as well.
You make a fine start at returing to my good graces. Soon perhaps you will be entitled to the Monkyboy medal of Honor, with Oakleaf clusters.
I am also much enjoying you defense of media lies, and wonder; Do you justify bald faced lying among your own family members and friends with such zeal and good humor?
What would be swaying to me, is the opinions of the Iraqis that don’t live in Bagdad (the battlefront), or the Kurdish north (probably about ready to descend into decadense, they have it so good).
The Iraqis that live in the other provinces that we never hear about. What do they think?
That may be a naive, maybe there’s only three of them. But still, their opinion my give a fresh prospective I agree with! ~wink~
To the point , Actus just might be on to something….Democracy is difficult….maybe even worth fighting for…..nah , all the good shit in life’s free…let’s all just look the other way…
If it weren’t, it’d be called expensivedom.
Beat me to the punch yet again….damn.
I would imagine the Globe negotiates with the AP on a per-subscriber basis.
I’m confused – which is subversive – cancelling a subscription or renewing one?
Translation: fake but accurate. And in fact, the media is to be commended, because the fake stuff actually underplayed the amount of carnage. And though the AP made up for that a teensy bit by the describing in detail the particularly barbaric and medievalist method of execution, burning victims alive, all in all, I think they are to be applauded.
FOR SHOWING SUCH RESTRAINT, BABY!
Where’s the pictures dammit!
Just a note; I have to agree that the media in its entirety has been sloppy. Here’s what I want to know: What exactly is in the Green Zone? Is it really green? The new ginormous U.S. Embassy is located there. It’s part mine; I helped pay. Can any American safely go there? Which journalists are actually out in the field? Any more embedded?
I lost faith a while back with this breathless over-the-fence gossiping. With the exception of reporters who are actually first-hand sources, and therefore might get blown up, I have to discount but verify. I am a brutally practical person, and I am beginning to regard all these accounts as apocryphal. The only option is to go and see for myself.
I’d make a lousy soldier; you do NOT want to reinstate the draft.
You mock their restraint Jeff, but how much have you heard about the Foley investigation in the last 3 weeks or so?
cynn,
where do we send the money for the plane ticket? Fed-ex ships overnight so I’m told…
I’d like to say I’m stunned at the ability of the leftists to defend the open manufacturing of propaganda by the press, but, sadly, I’m not.
I’m a Renaissance scholar, but I know lots of medievalists who aren’t like this at all. I think it must be radical fundamentalist medievalism you’re talking about.
Infidel Crawford,
I just wish they were better at it.
Ahhhh, cynn. Not really. Some of the uniforms, maybe.
(btw: the sky really is blue.)
OK, Bill D. Cat, what do you think I’ll find when I get there? Just subjectively, of course, because you have no clear frame of reference, just like me.
medieval method, Dan.
I’ll vet my comments more carefully now that I know a Renaissance scholar is poking around through them, looking for errors.
If I can find it, I’d love to let you look over a copy of my paper on The Prince. I was told to submit it to Renaissance Quarterly, but I never got around to it. I used Linda Hutcheon’s theory of parody and a narratological perspective to break down the book.
One of the few things I miss about the academy is doing those kinds of narratological analyses.
cynn is being nice, so let’s play nice:
No, in fact, bloggers trying to get embedded there get the brush off from the military. Almost no western journos go out into the field; recently, there were 8 or 9 embeds around the country, half of which were for military pubs like Stars & Stripes. So the western media there relies heavily on stringers.
Even with the ones who are first hand sources, these days, it’s a good idea to verify.
Oh look, back at the start again.
cynn —
Bill Ardolino of INDC Journal is heading over in a few weeks. He’ll be writing for the Washington Examiner and also blogging.
My guess is he’ll be very measured in his analysis, because he’s aware that part of what can cause hysteria and hyperbole is actually being in a war zone. As opposed to sitting behind a laptop at a coffee shop pumping out column inches after making a half dozen phone calls.
Thats why i say that there is chaos: because of these things. Its more than just appearances when people are actually dying.
There’s a lot of bloodshed during Indian elections. But I don’t think its of the proportion that it is in Iraq. I also don’t think that elections are all that are needed for democracy.
Not accurate at all, for the reasons you state: The actuall accuracy is a car bomb and various reprisals. Not 6 dead in a mosque. But 100+ in the streets. I’m sorry. But I guess its just appearances.
Can they go on their own? you know, since there is only the apperance of chaos?
Headline: Six Sunnis Not Burned to Death in Baghdad
Today six Sunni worshippers in Baghdad’s holiest mosque were not hauled away from prayers by Shiite militia, doused with a flammable liquid, and burned to death, in what appeared not to be a revenge killing.
Karl, you answered my question. Now, for your provenance? Why should I believe you?
Anti-war activists seemed demoralized by the news.
cynn,
Look around , the only clear frame of reference I have , is my own two eyes . Tell me honestly cynn , are things getting better , or worse. Be specific , be honest . I have two young children …..I will do what it takes.
Bill Roggio is also headed over in a couple weeks. this bit at the link is interesting:
“It is simply irresponsible to report bad things not happening,” said Jonathan Chait, “when everyone against the war knows that this kind of thing must be happening.”
Dan – did anyone check if they were “bearing signs of torture”? Sloppy…
Bravo, Actus, Bravo your justifications for murder and deceit, though sloppy and poorly thought out, are at least enthusiastic. Your lack of morality and ethics are duly noted. Perhps you might do after all. If only you weren’t a complete simpleton. But if we can strap the nail bombs to people who suffer with Down Syndome…
Now to make certina we understand, a lie, so long as it promotes the cause of facism is a good thing, but a truth if it benefits Democracy is black hearted evil and vile, correct?
Leftists have reason to cheer, though, as well. NBC has called the war for Tehran based on early returns. A triumphant Ahmadinejad took the podium before his campaign supporters and thanked them for helping him create civil war in the neighboring state of Iraq.
“The acknowledgment by NBC of civil war in Iraq is a tremendous victory for the peace-loving people of the Middle East,” he stated to vociferous applause. “Now we can go about the important business of driving the Zionists into the sea.”
Jeff: My specialty as a rhetorician was propaganda. It’s been dormant many, many years, and I abandonned teaching, but this latest blatent crap has awakened something in me. On every level, it’s tacky, obvious and offensive. Someone needs to take these lazy snots out to the alley.
sorry, happyfeet . . . it’s not in my press packet . . .
Jews drowing in the sea!!! I am so happy!! Quick Actus, a few choruses of “Throw the Jew Down the Well.” We both know you have memorized the words.
Not so fast Dan:
The very cusp of civil war [sorry – link removed to prevent formatting error – ed]
Green Helmet Man was unavailable for photo ops in Palestine today, to the disappointment of AP and Reuters photographers, who had to make do with Flat Fatima. According to his agent, Green Helmet Man has travelled to Turkey to direct videos of the human costs of the Pope’s visit.
rhetorical propogandist? we’re all fucking doomed……
sorry – should have previewed that…
http://tinyurl.com/yardot
Oops, I forgot to follow up on a comment wayyyy upthread…
If the NYTs were reporting in 1776.
Jeff–
I’d love to read your Prince paper. I just thought I’d highlight that for all my medievalist friends, who were always complaining about the propaganda tag “Renaissance,” and how it masked the continuities and the cultural achievements of the so-called Middle Ages, & etc.
And after you’ve heard that argument 50 or 60 times, you realize that there is such a thing as medievalist torture after all.