We Told You So (Again)

Ken AshfordIraqLeave a Comment

And yet again:

The insurgency in Iraq continues to baffle the U.S. military and intelligence communities, and the U.S. occupation has become a potent recruiting tool for al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, top U.S. national security officials told Congress yesterday.

"Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-U.S. jihadists," CIA Director Porter J. Goss told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

****

Meanwhile, new CIA Director Porter Goss told the Senate Intelligence Committee the Iraq war was giving terrorists experience and contacts for future attacks, and FBI Director Robert Mueller expressed worry that a sleeper operative in the U.S. may have been in place for years, awaiting orders for an attack.

Sleep tight, kiddies.

Mmmmmm. What will the winger response be:

  1. "You aren’t going to trust U.S. intelligence, are you?"
  2. "What are you saying? Are you saying that you love Islamofascists? Well, the why don’t you go join them since you obviously love them so much?" (followed by the K-I-S-S-I-N-G "up in a tree" song)
  3. "WaPo lies. The truth resides at Powerline and Free Republic."
  4. "Look! Over there! A professor I never heard of said something really BAD! And Oliver Willis is fat!"
  5. "It’s Clinton’s fault."

Bat Boy the Musical the Movie

Ken AshfordPopular Culture1 Comment

Word comes from our dear friend Miss Emily Mark — who apparently doesn’t have a website yet (*ahem!*) — that they are making Bat Boy into a movie.  She don’t lie.  We have a special affinity for that show.

John Landis is slated to direct.  No word on casting yet.  But if you are out there Mr Landis, may I recommend Ms. Mark?   She’s really good, and not doing much at the moment . . .

Kill the Wabbit, kill the wabbit . . .

Ken AshfordCrimeLeave a Comment

Somebody asked me if this — a guy threatening to kill a bunny unless he receives $50,000 — is legal. It sounds like it oughta be illegal, doesn’t it? But I racked my legal brain and, off the top of my head, I couldn’t find any reason why it is against the law. Unless of course, he doesn’t meet his goal and doesn’t kill the rabbit . . . in which case he may have committed fraud.

Life Imitates Python

Ken AshfordRandom MusingsLeave a Comment

An indignant Israeli is suing a pet shop that he says sold him a dying parrot, reports the Ma’ariv newspaper. Itzik Simowitz of the southern city of Beersheba contends the shop cheated him because the Galerita-type cockatoo not only failed to utter a word when he got it home, but was also extremely ill. Mr. Simowitz adds that the shop owner assured him the parrot was not ill but merely needed time to adjust to its new environment.

(Source) Or pinin’ for the fjords, perhaps.

Recycled Nuclear Photos

Ken AshfordForeign AffairsLeave a Comment

This might be tough to follow. But here goes . . .

Yesterday, an eagle-eyed blogger realized that CNN was using the same photo in two different stories. One story, from February 9, was about Iran‘s purported nuclear program; the other story, from February 12, was about North Korea‘s purported nuclear program. But . . . both stories carried the same satellite photo of the same nuclear plant, although one was supposedly in North Korea and the other was supposedly in Iran.

A few hours later, CNN corrected the error by changing the photo in the North Korea story (with no explanation of how it happened). No biggie.

Now, someone discovered that it has happened BEFORE.

This time, it is not on the CNN website, but on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty website, in a story from March 2004.

Keep in mind, RFE/RL is a United States government sponsored service and website.

Once again, the story was about a North Korea nuclear program, but it had the same photo of the nuclear plant in Iran. And, to make things worse, the photo was titled Iraq.jpg.

Now, sloppy journalism is one thing. But the same mistake committed by two different news organizations 11 months apart?

Get the details here, and you too might be asking, "WTF"?

No Empirical Reality

Ken AshfordBush & Co., Right Wing and Inept Media, Right Wing Punditry/IdiocyLeave a Comment

Paid-off pundits to fake newsmen — where does it end? Frank Rich says it goes deeper:

When the Bush administration isn’t using taxpayers’ money to buy its own fake news, it does everything it can to shut out and pillory real reporters who might tell Americans what is happening in what is, at least in theory, their own government. Paul Farhi of The Washington Post discovered that even at an inaugural ball he was assigned "minders" – attractive women who wouldn’t give him their full names – to let the revelers know that Big Brother was watching should they be tempted to say anything remotely off message.

Then, the final nail . . .

Conservatives, who supposedly deplore post-modernism, are now welcoming in a brave new world in which it’s a given that there can be no empirical reality in news, only the reality you want to hear (or they want you to hear).

Yeah, I’ve noticed.

More Iraqi Civilian Abuses

Ken AshfordIraqLeave a Comment

From MSNBC:

There are new allegations that heavily armed private security contractors in Iraq are brutalizing Iraqi civilians. In an exclusive interview, four former security contractors told NBC News that they watched as innocent Iraqi civilians were fired upon, and one crushed by a truck. The contractors worked for an American company paid by U.S. taxpayers. The Army is looking into the allegations.

The four men are all retired military veterans: Capt. Bill Craun, Army Rangers; Sgt. Jim Errante, military police; Cpl. Ernest Colling, U.S. Army; and Will Hough, U.S. Marines. All went to Iraq months ago as private security contractors

The story describes three separate incidents involving brutalization of civilians, and the reactions from the contractors who witnessed those incidents.

Two of the men — Craun and Colling — say they quit immediately.

Craun, in an e-mail two days later to a friend at the Pentagon, wrote: "I didn’t want any part of an organization that deliberately murders children and innocent civilians."

Errante says he also quit after witnessing wild, indiscriminate shootings on two other missions.

"I said I didn’t want to be a witness to any of these, what could be classified as a war crime," says Errante.

Once back in the U.S., Craun — recipient of the Bronze Star — took the allegations to Army criminal investigators.

But, on the positive side, maybe some of those brutalized Iraqi civilians got to vote a few weeks ago, so it was probably worth it.

By the way, one wonders if these incidents would have ever come to light if it wasn’t for these four men with a conscience.

All Together Now . . . “WHAT Liberal Media?!?”

Ken AshfordRight Wing and Inept MediaLeave a Comment

Joe Conason raises a good, and retrospectively obvious, point in this column: If the mainstream media is "liberal" and loves stories about sex, then why isn’t it jumping all over the Gannon-as-male-prostitute story?

Imagine the media explosion if a male escort had been discovered operating as a correspondent in the Clinton White House. Imagine that he was paid by an outfit owned by Arkansas Democrats and had been trained in journalism by James Carville. Imagine that this gentleman had been cultivated and called upon by Mike McCurry or Joe Lockhart—or by President Clinton himself. Imagine that this "journalist" had smeared a Republican Presidential candidate and had previously claimed access to classified documents in a national-security scandal.

Then imagine the constant screaming on radio, on television, on Capitol Hill, in the Washington press corps—and listen to the placid mumbling of the "liberal" media now.

Yup. Exactly.

P.S. Conason adds a little trivia into the mix, too. You remember those little "purple heart" bandaids passed out and worn at the Republican National Convention? That was done by a Republican dirty trickster named Morton Blackwell. Morton Blackwell also founded the "Leadership Institute" where Gannon/Guckert received his "training" as a "journalist".

P.P.S. If Talon News was formed in April 2003, and Gannon/Guckert claims to have had his first White House press conference just a few weeks after (Source), then how come he was boasting on this site about asking a question in a news conference that occured on February 28, 2003?? Who is his White House benefactor?

Who Is This Man?

Ken AshfordPopular CultureLeave a Comment

Borlaug

This American won the Nobel Peace Prize and saved billions — not millions, but billions — of lives. Yet . . .

…take a quick poll among your friends and see how many people can tell you who Norman Borlaug is and then see if the same people know who Ashlee Simpson is.

Then come back and try to convince me why society isn’t doomed.

— Quote from Chris at Cynical-C. Well said, Chris.

So that’s your assignment: give a nod to Norman Borlaug.

Bush To Churches and the Poor: Fuck You!

Ken AshfordBush & Co., GodstuffLeave a Comment

Remember all those times when Bush was eager to show what a compassionate conservative he was? You know, with all his faith-based initiatives to help churches and others assist the poor and needy?

Turns out it was . . . (imagine my surprise) . . . a bunch of PR bullshit.

In fact, one guy says that the Bush White House "never really wanted the ‘poor people stuff.’"

Who is saying that? David Kuo, deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives for Bush’s first term, that’s who.

Who Told The Truth: Clarke or Condi?

Ken AshfordWar on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

"The unraveling of Richard Clarke is proceeding nicely," boasted a winger blogger with whom I sometimes lock horns on group blog known as Freespeech.com.  That was in March 2004.

At that time, the right-wing blogosphere journalistic community was seeking to destroy the credibility give a fair and objective assessment of Richard Clarke, who was appearing before the committee looking into 9/11 and intelligence failures.

Some other quotes typical of the right-wing blogosphere at the time:

"… Clarke seemed to be oblivious to the gathering threat of al Qaeda…"

"…all evidence suggests that [Clarke] was busy chasing the windmill of cyber-terrorism at the time he claimed he was promoting the al Qaeda threat…"

"…it is not like as if he recommended any action that would have prevented 9-11, seeing that the Bush administration had enacted all his recommendations prior to 9-11…"

Oblivious to the gathering threat of al Qaeda? Chasing the windmill of cyber-terrorism?

Nope.  Read the truth here. Or just read Clarke’s now-declassified memo (PDF format) for yourself.

Was Clarke "oblivious to the gathering threat of al Qaeda?"  Hardly.

More importantly, as you read the Clarke memo to Condi Rice, keep in mind this quote from Condi Rice from March 22, 2004: "No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration." (Source) and see for yourself how it is an out-an-out lie.