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“Grim milestone” hyped

Posted by Richard on December 26, 2006

A couple of weeks ago, I warned you that the 90% of American media outlets that give the rest a bad name were preparing to hype another Iraq death toll milestone — "the momentous occasion when the number of Americans killed by al Qaeda is eclipsed by the number killed because of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Halliburton/oil." Editor and Publisher had predicted it would happen by Dec. 19, and I’m sure many in the MSM were chagrined as Christmas approached, and the toll in Iraq remained short of the 9/11 toll of 2,973.

On Christmas Day, it happened. Within minutes of learning about death number 2,974, AP had a story out, updated several times since as the toll climbed further:

NEW YORK (AP) – In a span of a few hours, 2,973 people were killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In a span of 45 months, the number of American troops killed in Iraq exceeded that grim toll as the war continues.

The milestone in Iraq came on Christmas, nearly four years after the war began, according to a count by The Associated Press.

Based on a quick check with Google News, I’m guessing the story has appeared over a thousand times on media websites alone. The latest AP rewrites have buried the "grim milestone" aspects deeper in the story, maybe in response to criticism. Charles Johnson called the first version "disgusting and ghoulish beyond belief," and suggested:

Write to the Associated Press and tell them what you think about this.

I suspect I was correct in predicting that no one would mention how long it took for the number of combat deaths in World War II to eclipse the number killed at Pearl Harbor (2,403). I actually did a bit of research on this, but with not much success. I found casualty numbers for specific major combat operations, and a Navy document showing casualties by year, but that’s too coarse. My best guess is that U.S. combat deaths in the Pacific theater surpassed the December 7 toll some time between the Battle of the Java Sea in late February and the fall of Bataan in early April — so, roughly 3 or 4 months.

I doubt if anyone noticed at the time. In 1942, American journalists were too busy reporting actual war news. Plus, they were on our side.
 

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Jamil’s world

Posted by Richard on December 1, 2006

I thought everyone who half-way keeps up with the news out of Iraq had heard about the Associated Press’s bogus "six burning Sunnis" story, but it was news to someone I know who’s reasonably well-informed, so maybe not.

People need to know that this stuff is happening, so I’ll do my little bit to spread the word: If you listen to the reports from Iraq on the evening news or read the wire service stories in your newspaper, you’re being manipulated, misled, and flat-out lied to. The evidence to back up that claim has become overwhelming.

A good place to start is with this Austin Bay column (emphasis added):

In 1980, Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke wrote a story titled "Jimmy’s World," the startling tale of an 8-year-old "third-generation heroin addict" living in Washington, D.C.

Cooke’s expose’ captured several volatile issues in one tear-drenched package. "Jimmy’s World" had drugs, race, poverty, "fast money and the good life."

In 1981, Cooke won the coveted Pulitzer Prize for journalism.

Fine and dandy — except she should have won the Pulitzer for fiction.

"Jimmy’s World" was a complete crock. Little Heroin Jimmy didn’t exist. The Washington Post, its publisher, Donald Graham, and Cooke’s editor, Bob Woodward, were all duly embarrassed when Cooke’s fraud was exposed. Her Pulitzer was withdrawn.
…

We now move from Jimmy’s World to Capt. Jamil Hussein.

Now, if I were "writing hot" — writing for sensational effect — I would have led with the alleged Jamil’s blazing claim: that six Iraqi Sunnis were dragged from a mosque in Baghdad last week, doused with kerosene and burned to death by a Shia mob. Four mosques were also (allegedly) burned.

The Associated Press ran the dousing story on Nov. 24, and the story was repeated worldwide. (I read it online in the International Herald Tribune, a publication owned by The New York Times.)

Sensational, "headline-generating" elements absolutely jam the story: gruesome savagery, mob action, chaos in Iraq.

The AP identified "Police Captain Jamil Hussein" as its source for the story, with a second source identified as "a Sunni elder."

On Nov. 25, the press office of Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNCI) published press release No. 20061125-09 (see mnf-iraq.com). The MNCI stated that investigation showed only one mosque had been attacked and found no evidence to support the story of the six immolated Sunnis.

The U.S.-based Website FloppingAces (floppingaces.net) has published an email from MNCI to the AP that states "no one below the level of chief is authorized to be an Iraqi police spokesperson." The email also addresses the story of the Sunnis being burned alive: "… neither we nor Baghdad Police had any reports of such an incident after investigating it and could find no one to corroborate the story. … We can tell you definitively that the primary source of this story, police Capt. Jamil Hussein, is not a Baghdad police officer or an MOI (Ministry of the Interior) employee." The letter is attributed to U.S. Navy Lt. Michael Dean.

I contacted CENTCOM’s Baghdad press office and received an email confirming that Hussein is not a policeman nor does he work for Iraq’s MOI.

FloppingAces noted that the AP has quoted "Jamil Hussein" in at least eight stories since April 2006.

FloppingAces has tons of stories and updates, so just go check out all the posts of the past week. Michelle Malkin has posted lots of good info and links, too. But if you just want the highlights, Gateway Pundit has your one-stop roundup, with lots of links to more details:

It is now confirmed that:

* Witness Capt. Jamil Hussein is not an Iraqi police officer!
* There were not 4 Sunni mosques torched in the attacks in the Hurriya neighborhood but only one mosque was damaged and not destroyed
* Witness Imad al-Din al-Hashemi is described as a University professor, foreign pediatrician, and a Hurriya elder depending on the article
* Witness Imad al-Din al-Hashemi says the mosque he was attending was attacked by "rocket-propelled grenades" yet there is no such damage to the mosque
* No bodies were discovered by Iraqi or Coalition investigators nor were there any pictures as evidence
* The AP later produced anonymous witnesses from the neighborhood
* The Multinational Forces Iraq and Baghdad Police did not find any reports of such an incident occurred after investigating the Hurriya neighborhood
* Multinational Forces Iraq claim that the AP source, Capt. Jamil Hussein, is not who he claims he is. He is not a Baghdad police officer or an MOI employee!
* The imam at the mosque in question where the "6 Sunni torchings" supposedly took place is accused of being a member of Saddam’s secret police by his own congregation!
* Attempts by Sunnis to smuggle arms into this mosque were foiled by Iraqi security forces back in December 2003

And that’s just the opening. Go read the rest.

If you have some time, read the original FloppingAces post — there are lots and lots of updates, including a long list from CentCom of potentially bogus news sources — mostly AP — whom they’re trying to track down.

Then check out two JunkYardBlog posts — this one first, and then this one (right above the first) — about other AP stories that cited Jamil Hussein as a source. The common thread tying them together seems to be AP Baghdad correspondent Qais al-Bashir. And Qais al-Bashir has quoted a number of suspect sources, including at least two other "Iraqi policemen" whom CentCom and the Iraqi Ministry of Interior categorically insist aren’t policemen.

Gateway Pundit posted nice roundups (here and here) of news stories quoting two of these bogus policemen, and the stories have something in common: they all describe Shi’ite atrocities committed against poor innocent Sunnis.

The next time you see an al-AP news story about violence in Iraq, remember that it was probably written by a Wahhabi Sunni propagandist quoting Baathist insurgent "witnesses."
 

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Hanson’s questions

Posted by Richard on November 21, 2006

Victor Davis Hanson’s November 17 column is a must read. He asked the kind of questions and raised the issues that ought to be at the heart of the public debate about Iraq, but that are being largely ignored. Regarding the suggestion that we need more troops in Iraq, Hanson countered that first someone needs to explain exactly how they would help the situation. He doubted that they would unless the rules of engagement were changed — and if those rules were changed, Hanson argued, more troops wouldn’t be needed. He noted that in Vietnam, the U.S. military successfully fought a force well over twice it’s size, and in Iraq:

Even generous estimates of the number of insurgents in Iraq conclude there are about 10,000 active killers — a fraction of just the irregulars in the south of Vietnam alone. Why then, when the numerical disparities are so much more favorable to our cause than during the Vietnam War, are we, rather than our vastly outnumbered enemies, lamenting the paucity of troops? That we have not secured the country may be due to the limitations put on our soldiers rather than their number; and to our preference for conventional rather than counter-insurgency fighting.

Hanson had some tough questions for the proponents of "redeploying" troops, too:

Are Americans ready to accept tens of thousands of refugees into the United States when those reformers who believed we’d stay and protect them are targeted for death? And what would we do if Turkey threatens Kurdistan with invasion once its patron has abandoned it?

And where, in a new region of jihadist ascendancy, are troops to be redeployed to? Other Middle East countries? What Middle Eastern illegitimate autocrat would want to host a retreating and defeated American army, a sort of modern version of Xenophon’s orphaned Ten Thousand? Indeed, the problem would not be redeployment to a nearby host kingdom, but just maintaining Centcom forces where they are now, once the Arab Street smells blood and adjusts to an Islamic victory. If IEDs worked in Iraq, why not also in Kuwait and Qatar?

But perhaps most importantly, Hanson thought we should consider the nature of and reasons for the "unbalanced reporting" of this war. He wondered if it was just the American media’s desire to hurt Republicans and the Europeans’ desire to take the U.S. down a notch, or if there was something deeper:

Or is the bias a more general result of a Western elite so deeply conflicted about its own culture, and so fundamentally unable to define its own civilization, that it either doesn’t care whether it wins, or in fact wishes that the West lose in Iraq?

One can grasp that generic hypocrisy by reviewing all the journalists’ charges leveled against Gulf War I — too much realpolitik; too much pay-as-you-go war thinking; too much Colin Powell and James Baker and not enough Paul Wolfowitz; too much worry about stability and not enough about millions of poor Kurds and Shiites; too much worry about empowering Iran. Then compare those charges to those leveled against Gulf War II — too much naïve idealism; too much expense in lives and treasure; not enough Colin Powell and James Baker and too much Paul Wolfowitz; too little worry about regional stability and too much given to ungovernable Iraqis; and too little thought about empowering Iran.

Whatever the U.S. does, Hanson observed, it’s going to be deemed wrong by the liberal media elites. He had some interesting thoughts about the reasons for that, but it’s something that should be discussed and explored further. As should all the issues and questions Hanson raised.
 

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The dinosaurs are still powerful

Posted by Richard on November 13, 2006

There’s been no shortage of analyses and finger-pointing to explain the GOP’s "thumpin’" this year. It was Iraq. No, it was corruption. They were too extreme. No, they abandoned their conservative principles. Immigrant-bashing hurt. No, failure to close the borders hurt. And on and on… I think one of the primary causes is something almost no one’s discussed — and some, like Dean Barnett, explicitly rejected. 

Hugh Hewitt, lots of bloggers, and other voices of the "new media" like to disparage the "dinosaur media" and point to declining ratings for network news, falling readership and revenue for the big liberal papers, and other signs of the declining influence of the mainstream media. They exaggerate the truth. The dinosaurs may be in decline, but they’re still immensely powerful and can crush you when they make the effort. And, boy, did they make the effort this time!

Yes, it’s the same media as in 2002 and 2004, as Barnett noted. But, (a) they really pulled out all the stops this time, and (b) their relentless propaganda campaign against Bush and the Republicans had a cumulative effect.

Lenin said, "A lie told often enough becomes the truth." After hearing it repeated as fact a bazillion times, most Americans believe that Bush lied about Iraq’s WMD threat and Saddam’s support of terrorists. After three years of negative stories from Iraq outnumbering positive ones by approximately ten thousand to one, most Americans believe the situation is hopeless.

Story after story about DeLay, Cunningham, Foley, and Ney hammered into the American consciousness the Democratic talking points about the "Republican culture of corruption." But there’s nary a media mention of more than 70 Democrats with ethical or legal problems, including Reps. Jefferson, Murtha, Rangel, Mollohan, Conyers, and Schakowsky, Sens. Boxer and Reid, and Govs. Blagojevich and Corzine.

For sure, the Republicans’ wounds were largely self-inflicted. After 2002, Hastert dismantled the Contract with America’s ethics and accountability rules, and the Republicans became arrogant, fat, and lazy. They governed like Democrats, and the American people rejected that, as they usually do. Meanwhile, the Democrats recruited a bunch of candidates who sounded like Republicans, and the American people elected them.

If they’re going to turn things around in 2008, the Republicans need to clean house. They need new leaders like Reps. Pence and Shadegg, and Sens. Kyle and DeMint. They need to embrace the primary candidates backed by the Club for Growth — 7out of 8 were elected this year.

But they need one more thing: an effective strategy for countering the power of those media dinosaurs, because they’re not dead yet.
 

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Pelosi puff piece reveals danger of Dems

Posted by Richard on October 23, 2006

Thank goodness I didn’t watch 60 Minutes last night. I couldn’t have taken Leslie Stahl’s fawning interview with Nancy Pelosi. I’ve heard and read enough of it this morning to conclude that CBS should be charged with an "in kind" campaign contribution. All the emphasis on what a wonderful wife, mother, and grandmother Pelosi is ought to make feminists gag — but of course, they like her politics, so you won’t hear a peep of protest.

The questions weren’t just softballs — most of them were whiffle balls. Stahl sounded tough one time — when she challenged Pelosi on the civility issue, pointing out that Pelosi has used terms like "immoral," "corrupt," and "criminal enterprise" to refer to the congressional Republicans and has called President Bush practically every name in the book:

"It sounds personal," Stahl remarks.

"This isn’t personal," Pelosi says.

"He’s "incompetent", he’s…," Stahl continues.

"Well, I think he is," Pelosi states.

"Well, that’s personal," Stahl points out.

"Well, I’m sorry, that’s his problem," Pelosi replies.

"How does this raise the level of civility?" Stahl asks.

"Well, this is a – well – we’re in a political debate here. We didn’t come here to have a tea party together, and toss a coin to see who would win on an issue," Pelosi says. "I have very thick skin, I don’t care what they say about me."

Note: I heard the audio clip of this exchange, and Stahl sounded less tough than you’d think from reading it. I suppose her inability to suppress giggles — for instance, when referring to Bush as incompetent — had something to do with that.

Nevertheless, Pelosi comes off rather mean-spirited and hateful, doesn’t she? Well, 60 Minutes can’t have that — time for some "moral equivalence":

And she needs that thick skin. She’s being used for target practice.

GOP ads have labeled her "liberal Democrat Nancy Pelosi." One Republican ad says "she’ll reward illegal aliens with welfare, food-stamps, and free education. How do we stop her?"

Republicans including the president go after her saying if she’s Speaker, it’ll mean a weaker military, pampering of terrorists, and higher taxes.

Sure, Pelosi calls her opponents criminals, bigots, morons, and incompetents, and says they’re corrupt and evil. But just look — they call her liberal and say she wants to raise taxes and give food stamps to illegals. Same thing, right? Both sides are doing it. They’re just debating the issues — whether the Dems would raise taxes on the one hand, and whether Republicans are the spawn of Satan on the other. No difference at all. Let’s just move on.

Let’s get really serious and talk about the war. Here comes the slow pitch right over the plate — Stahl noted that Pelosi wants to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq this year, and asked (emphasis added):

"Does that not open you up then to that charge of cutting and running? This is just what they’re saying," Stahl asks.

"The issue is them. The issue is the war they got us into," Pelosi replies. "If the president wants to say the war in Iraq is part of the war on terror, he’s not right."

"Do you not think that the war in Iraq now, today, is the war on terror?" Stahl asks.

"No. The war on terror is the war in Afghanistan," Pelosi says.

Well. By my reckoning, that’s not a home run, it’s a foul ball. Pelosi succinctly articulated the mindset that makes her and her fellow anti-war Democrats so dangerous. They believe that if we just captured Osama and his buddies, we could declare victory, go home, and return to the way things were on September 10, 2001.

If they have their way, a lot more of us are going to die.

I suppose 60 Minutes would just characterize my statement as another example of name-calling and incivility.
 

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Jews don’t matter to mainstream media

Posted by Richard on September 21, 2006

There was a rally in New York on Tuesday protesting the Iraq war. About 2,000 people attended. Apparently, nobody of any significance spoke (well, Jesse Jackson). But Reuters, AP, NBC, and other mainstream media organizations all covered the rally. The wire service stories were widely picked up throughout the world. AP and Reuters did mention that at the same time, about 200 Iranian-Americans protested against Ahmadinejad.

On Wednesday, there was another rally in New York. Across the street from the UN headquarters, 35,000 people rallied in support of Israel and to protest the man who wants to "wipe Israel from the map." Speakers included Gov. George Pataki, Nobel laureate Eli Wiesel, Ambassador John Bolton, and Professor Alan Dershowitz. Did you see anything about it on the TV news or in your morning paper? Me neither. Meryl Yourish searched widely for coverage:

Can you find a news source for the rally against Ahmadinejad at the UN yesterday? Correction: Can you find a non-Jewish media source, or a non-blogger source, for the rally?

I can’t. Except for the New York Sun.

I checked AP. Nothing. Reuters. Nada. I checked Google News. Nothing. 1010WINS. Nothing. I checked WABC, NY1, all the New York media sites. Gridlock alerts are the only thing you can find about the march. After all, it’s not newsworthy. The fact that 2,000 people marched a day earlier to protest the Iraq war? Oh, yeah, that made the news.
…

If you want to read about the rally, it appears that you have to go to the bloggers who were there, or whose readers sent in pictures. Or the Israeli press. Or the Jewish media. But nowhere else can you find any evidence that 35,000 people protested the Iranian president’s message of hate.

I think some in the media ignored this rally for political reasons — calling attention to it might benefit Bush and the Republicans. But I think there’s something else going on as well.

The mainstream media and the left (but I repeat myself) don’t see Jews as victims anymore they way they used to. Jews aren’t excluded from jobs, schools, and clubs anymore. As a group, they tend to be highly educated and successful. The Holocaust was long ago. Israel is a dynamic, vibrant, successful nation whose very existence is a reproach to its dysfunctional neighbors.

The mainstream media and the left love victims, underdogs, failures, fools, and incompetents — anyone who exhibits the highly desirable (to them) characteristics of dependency and dysfunctionality. But they are at best indifferent — and frequently hate-filled, contemptuous, and resentful — toward those who are competent, successful, high-achieving, and independent.

You know how folks on the left are always reminding us that they — the whole world, in fact — were united behind America immediately after 9/11? True, most of them were — but it only lasted until U.S. troops headed for Afghanistan. While smoke was still rising from Lower Manhattan and the nation was still on its knees and dazed, leftists throughout the world were brimming with sympathy. As soon as we got back on our feet and acted with strength and determination against the scum who attacked us, the sympathy began draining away and the criticism and denunciations began.

Most leftists feel the same way about the U.S. and Israel that they feel about rich and successful individuals — they despise them for their virtues.
 

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Biased reporting

Posted by Richard on July 13, 2006

Thomas Sowell:

The same newspapers and television news programs that are constantly reminding us that some people under indictment "are innocent until proven guilty" are nevertheless hyping the story of American troops accused of rape in Iraq, day in and day out, even though these troops have yet to be proven guilty of anything.
…

We all need to understand the fraudulence of the claim that these media liberals who have been against the military for decades and who have missed no opportunity to smear the military in Iraq are now in the forefront of "honoring" our troops by rubbing our noses in their deaths, day in and day out.

Troops who have won medals for bravery in battle — including one soldier who won a Congressional Medal of Honor at the cost of his life — go unmentioned in most of the mainstream media that is focused on our troops as casualties that they can exploit.

A recent study by the Media Research Center found that the three big broadcast news networks — CBS, ABC, and NBC — ran 99 stories in 3 and 1/2 hours about the investigation of charges against Marines in the death of Iraqi civilians in Haditha last November.

These remain unproven charges in a country where people on the side of the terrorists include civilian women and children who set off bombs to kill American troops and who can set off lies to discredit those that they do not kill.

But the same networks that lavished 3 and 1/2 hours of coverage of these unproven charges gave less than one hour of coverage of all the American troops who have won medals for bravery under fire.

Every newspaper and every television commentator has a right to criticize any aspect of the war in Iraq or anywhere else. But when they claim to be reporting the news, that does not mean filtering out whatever goes against their editorial views and hyping unsubstantiated claims that discredit the troops.

Those troops deserve the presumption of innocence at least as much as anyone else.

You think Sowell exaggerates about the bias? Look at how little media coverage there was of Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester. She was the first woman ever awarded the Silver Star for actual combat (previous female Silver Star recipients, in WWII, were battlefield nurses) and a genuine hero.

You’d think the gripping story of the battle, the heroism and skill of Hester and her comrades, and the historic nature of her achievement would make this a compelling "man bites dog" news story, wouldn’t you? Well, you’d be wrong. As a commenter at the QandO post about Hester observed:

By the way, notice where in the WaPo the story appeared:

PAGE A21.

Now, if SGT Hester had put her panties on the head of a terrorist detainee, this would be on page A1 for the next several days. Instead, she gets A21.

Compare the number of stories, column inches, and broadcast minutes devoted to the heroic Hester with the coverage afforded to Jessica Lynch — a victim — and Lynndie England — a villain.

Google results (quotes included in search strings):

"Lynndie England" — 364,000 (plus 37,700 for the misspelling, "Lyndie England")
"Jessica Lynch" — 578,000
"Leigh Ann Hester" — 18,400
 

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