Posted by
84rules on Thursday, November 30, 2006 10:39:29 AM
We should all be giving continuous thanks to God for the Internet. Without it, news outlets like Associated Press
would still be getting away with publishing lies as truth, just like
many news outlets did back in the 70's and 80's because there was no
effective way to check the validity of news stories back then.
Michelle Malkin's latest column deals just with this particular issue. From her column:
| One
of the most sensational news items over the Thanksgiving holiday came
from the Associated Press, which reported on six Sunni civilians burned
alive as they left Friday mosque services. The shocking dispatch
received global coverage. The front cover of the Philadelphia Daily
News blasted: "WORSHIPPERS
BURNED ALIVE: Capping deadliest week of war, 6 Sunnis doused with
kerosene, set afire as Iraqi soldiers reportedly stand idle." The
Chicago Sun-Times blared: "Sunnis burned alive in revenge." The Sydney
Morning Herald in Australia headlined: "Shi'ite militia burn Sunnis
alive in revenge attacks." The Calcutta Telegraph in India echoed:
"Shias burn Sunnis alive." The
Washington Post announced: "New savage twist to violence in Baghdad."
The lead paragraph reported: "Revenge-seeking Shiite militiamen seized
six Sunnis as they left Friday prayers, drenched them with kerosene and
burned them alive, and Iraqi soldiers did nothing to stop the attack,
police and witnesses said." The
story continued: "Police Capt. Jamil Hussein said Iraqi soldiers at a
nearby army post failed to intervene in the burnings of Sunnis carried
out by suspected members of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia, or in
subsequent attacks that torched four Sunni mosques and killed at least
19 other Sunnis, including women and children, in the same northwest
Baghdad area." Just a few small problems with the massively publicized story: 1)
"Police Capt. Jamil Hussein" is an unreliable, unauthorized
spokesperson whom the military has warned the Associated Press about
before. 2) The incident cannot be verified. Newspaper
readers around the world who carried the story have not been informed
of any of this by the Associated Press or any other mainstream media
outlet. But those who follow the blogosphere have been unraveling the
story over the past week at lightning pace. Curt at the Flopping Aces
blog (http://floppingaces.net/) has led the way, first raising
questions on Saturday morning about "police Capt. Jamil Hussein's"
account. He noted an official Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNC-I)
statement in response to the AP report that "neither we nor Baghdad
Police had any reports of such an incident after investigating it and
could find no one to corroborate the story." |
As
I wrote above, if this story had been published back in the 70's or
80's, the general public would have accepted it as truthful and been
outraged. But, since stories like this can now be independently
checked, we now know that it is most likely not true and was fed to AP as an attempt at propaganda.
What is even worse is the arrogance with which AP is standing by a debunked story as if we were under some requirement to believe them without question.
Michelle goes on:
| After
Curt's inquiries, CENTCOM sent a request for retraction to the
Associated Press. Public Affairs Officer Lt. Michael Dean of the MNC-I
Joint Operations Center wrote: 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
employee. We verified this fact with the MOI through the Coalition
Police Assistance Training Team . . . .
. . Also, we definitely know, as we told you several weeks ago through
the MNC-I Media Relations cell, that another AP-popular IP spokesman,
Lt. Maithem Abdul Razzaq, supposedly of the city's Yarmouk police
station, does not work at that police station and is also not
authorized to speak on behalf of the IP. The MOI has supposedly issued
a warrant for his questioning. . . . Unless you have a credible source
to corroborate the story of the people being burned alive, we
respectfully request that AP issue a retraction, or a correction at a
minimum, acknowledging that the source named in the story is not who he
claimed he was. MNC-I and MNF-I are always available and willing to
verify events and provide as much information as possible when asked. The
Associated Press has yet to respond to queries from both Curt and me
regarding its reporting on the incident. As of Tuesday afternoon, I
could find no retraction, correction or reference to the shady
spokesman angle in any Associated Press report. The silence from AP
(and the rest of the media, for that matter) comes as no surprise. This
is, after all, the same organization that sat on the news for five
months that one of its Iraqi-based stringers, Bilal Hussein, had been
and remains in detention after being captured by U.S. military forces
with an alleged al Qaeda operative. |
Yes, that is arrogance. AP should issue a retraction and denounce their "source" as what he really is, a terrorist propaganda tool.
Out
of all the libs who were up in arms claiming that President Bush was a
liar, why are these same libs so silent everytime Old Media is caught
with their pants down? (e.g. Dan Rather, Eason Jordan, Reuters
photographers, etc.)
You can access the complete column on-line here:
The Rumor-Mongering Media
Michelle Malkin
JewishWorldReview.com
November 29, 2006
In a November 26, 2006 column, Ann Coulter wrote the following:
| Six
imams removed from a US Airways flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix are
calling on Muslims to boycott the airline. If only we could get Muslims
to boycott all airlines, we could dispense with airport security
altogether. Witnesses
said the imams stood to do their evening prayers in the terminal before
boarding, chanting "Allah, Allah, Allah" - coincidentally, the last
words heard by hundreds of airline passengers on 9/11 before they died. Witnesses
also said that the imams were talking about Saddam Hussein, and
denouncing America and the war in Iraq. About the only scary preflight
ritual the imams didn't perform was the signing of last wills and
testaments. After
boarding, the imams did not sit together and some asked for seat-belt
extensions, although none were morbidly obese. Three of the men had
one-way tickets and no checked baggage. Also they were Muslims. The
idea that a Muslim boycott against US Airways would hurt the airline
proves that Arabs are utterly tone-deaf. This is roughly the equivalent
of Cindy Sheehan taking a vow of silence. How can we hope to deal with
people with no sense of irony? The next thing you know, New York City
cab drivers will be threatening to bathe. Come to think of it, the whole affair may have been a madcap advertising scheme cooked up by US Airways. It
worked with me. US Airways is my official airline now. Northwest, which
eventually flew the Allah-spouting Muslims to their destinations, is
off my list. You want to really hurt a U.S. air carrier's business?
Have Muslims announce that it's their favorite airline. |
You can access this column on-line here:
What Can I Do To Make Your Flight More Uncomfortable?
Ann Coulter
WorldNetDaily.com
November 26, 2006
And then her latest column, dated November 29, 2006, contains the following:
| The
six imams removed from a US Airways flight last week have apparently
adopted my suggestion that if they really want to protest the airline,
instead of boycotting US Airways, they should start flying it
frequently. The
spokesman for the imams – or as I believe it's phrased in their
culture, "designated liar" – Omar Shahin, staged a protest at Reagan
Washington National Airport on Monday, after which, according to the
Associated Press, "he and other religious leaders boarded a US Airways
flight to demonstrate their determination to continue praying and
flying." The
original six imams removed from the flight last week first attracted
attention when they said prayers to Allah on traditional Muslim prayer
rugs in the boarding area. After boarding, they changed seats,
spreading themselves throughout the plane. They were also overheard
spouting anti-American rhetoric. Witnesses said the six men appeared to
be either Islamic fanatics or U.S. Army chaplains on leave from
Guantanamo. |
The
silliness of these imams would be a laughing matter were it not for the
conduct of 19 other Muslims during the 9/11 attacks. In fact, one of
the six imams ejected from the US Airways flight, Omar Shahin, a
self-proclaimed "scholar" who denies any Muslim involvement in 9/11 at
all despite the fact the Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda claimed
responsibility for the attacks has been instrumental in coming up with
fake crimes against American-Muslims. In short, he is a liar.
Ann continues:
| Instead
of aggressively distinguishing himself from his terrorist predecessor,
judging by news reports, Shahin spent the five years after 9-11 denying
that Muslims were behind the attacks and complaining of phony
anti-Islamic "hate crimes" – as opposed to the pro-Islamic hate crimes
he presumably endorses. In 2003, for example, Shahin alleged that a woman in Arizona had thrown shoes at children at the mosque. This
is the most transparent hoax I've heard since, "If I did it, here's how
I would have done it." This is like the joke about a speaker at an
American communist rally opening with: "Workers and peasants of
Brooklyn!" Shahin has so little insight into this country, he can't
even invent a believable hate crime. It's
Arabs who have a thing about shoes being a sign of disrespect, not
Americans. When Iraqis toppled the statue of Saddam Hussein, the crowd
immediately pelted it with shoes. Shahin
himself couldn't get away from this pan-Arabic shoe fetish, adding:
"The incidents of Muslims being attacked kind of shocked me in my
shoes." Note to imams trying to fabricate hate crimes against Muslims:
Americans don't share your shoe neurosis. |
These
imams need to understand that one the reasons we Americans regard them
with such suspicion is a prayer from the Hadith that Ann notes: "And
the Jews will hide behind the rock and tree, and the rock and tree will
say: 'O Muslim, O servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and
kill him!'"
Too
many unenlightened Muslims take this literally and too many enlightened
Muslims are standing by in shameful silence on the matter.
You can access Ann's latest column on-line here:
Coulter Gets Results
Ann Coulter
WorldNetDaily.com
November 29, 2006