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Recent Appearances... Rantburg

Iraq
Baghdadi & Pelosi/Reid agree!
2007-04-18
Yes, it is Eason Jordan's site. However, I have been reading it closely for several weeks and they do a good job of sourcing.
The organization known as the Islamic State of Iraq has apparently issued a recorded statement from its alleged leader, known as Abu ‘Umar al-Baghdadi, on the occasion of the four-year mark since the US invasion. In the statement, the so-called emir of the al-Qa'ida linked group, seems to respond to divisions reportedly emerging in the ranks of armed Sunni groups, calling for the “mujahidin” to preserve their unity. He also mocks US forces' performance on the battlefield, and argues that the Iraq war has not turned out the way its planners had intended.

In the call for unity, the statement reminds the “mujahidin” that: “It was not us, O servants of God, who violated your mothers, and sisters and daughters in Abu Ghraib, and put it out on the television screens, to humiliate you,” adding “It was not us who raped Sabrin in plain daylight,” referring to the Sunni woman who claimed she had been raped by Iraqi Interior Ministry forces.

Highlighting the alliance between the Iraqi government and the American forces, Baghdadi says, “Those who did these things agree on the preservation of the system of the occupation.”

As the IHT has earlier reported, using a translation prepared by the SITE Institute, Baghdadi also says, "We swear to you we don't shed the protected blood of Muslims intentionally. If I hear otherwise, I will set up a council of judges . . . so even the weakest person in Iraq could take his rights, even if from my blood," he said.

On one point, Baghdadi expresses agreement with US officials, saying that he concurs with those who say that Iraq has become a “university for terrorism,” saying “As for the military aspect, believe one of their demons who said, if Afghanistan is a school for terrorism, then Iraq is the university for terrorism.” Building on the theme, Baghdadi announced the graduation of the largest batch in Iraqi history of “officers of jihad for God’s behalf, to the highest global degree. Indeed, the studies are continuous, summer and winter, day and night,” he said.

He added that the fear of the US Marines had faded in the hearts of the “mujahidin,” saying that the fighters had become thousands, after having been very few in number at the fall of the previous Iraqi regime.

Elsewhere, he says, “It was not Bush’s assumption, nor the assumption of those who planed his futile war that the people of Iraq would start to compete, not to offer flowers and obedience . . . hundreds ask for death that they may live with God,” referring to suicide operations including suicide bombings, in a clear counterpoint to the US and Iraqi claims that many of the suicide bombers that have struck in Iraq are foreigners.

“As for the women of Iraq, who have shed tears asking martyrdom operations, we forbid them from implementing the objectives that men can implement, excepting in special circumstances that make it difficult for men,” Baghdadi continues: "the war has emptied the American budget at the expense of social security, health, and education spending, saying that those responsible, naming Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, and John Bolton, will sit in the “defendant’s bench.”

On the military front, Baghdadi announces for the first time that the Islamic State of Iraq has gained the capabilities to produce its own missiles,

As earlier announced by the SITE institute, the recording is Baghdadi’s longest recording yet, at nearly 42 minutes.
Link


Home Front: Culture Wars
Belmont Club: the media and the battlefield
2006-06-03
It would be interesting if someone could write a theoretical guide to counterinsurgency which took into account the effect of the media on operations. One interesting possibility is that the reason small footprints preferred by Boot are more efficient than big footprints is that they prevent a war from being politicized by a media circus. Sometimes the word circus is literally apt. Recently in East Timor, competition between two rival TV networks captured how the ringmasters works. Channel 7 got a film clip of the Channel 9 correspondent setting up an interview and subsequently aired the bombshell. The film clip

shows host Jessica Rowe interviewing East Timor taskforce commanding officer Brigadier Michael Slater. "I'm wondering how you feel about your safety given that you've got armed guards there standing behind you, armed soldiers," Rowe says.

"Jessica, I feel quite safe, yes," Brigadier Slater says. "But not because I've got these armed soldiers behind me that were put there by your stage manager here to make it look good."

The Jessca Rowe-Slater incident was enlightening because it suggests that since the media is part of the battlefield, the coverage of the media must be a vital part of the entire picture. The curious over-reaction by the MSM to embedded bloggers -- questioning their legitimacy, their "objectivity", their professionalism, etc -- recollects nothing so much as the effect of garlic or a Cross on a vampire. Reflecting on it, I think the reason is that bloggers often do what the Channel 7 did to Channel 9 in the incident above. One unnoticed fact -- you can check it out -- is that blogger Stephen Vincent was the only Western media person killed in Iraq in 2005. The statistical unlikeliness of that fact has always bothered me. But from the viewpoint of the Ba'athist insurgency it would make sense to target the anyone who could cover the media. After all, the regular media works through stringers and must maintain "access"; it's got to sell stories, etc. As Eason Jordan reminded us, the regular media has long had relationships with the Ba'ath. If the media is a weapon then it makes sense to eliminate threats to that weapon. Just hypothetically.
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Fifth Column
The Media's Ancien Régime
2006-01-21
Long and interesting...
To enter Columbia University's graduate school of journalism is to enter the highest temple of a religion in decline. A statue of Thomas Jefferson guards the plaza outside the doors, and the entry room is suitably grand. Two raised platforms proclaim the missions in bold gold letters: "To Uphold Standards of Excellence in Journalism" and "To Educate the Next Generation of Journalists." The marble floor tells you that the school was endowed by Joseph Pulitzer and erected in 1912 in memory of his daughter Lucille. A bronze quotation from Pulitzer's 1904 cri de coeur in the North American Review is on the wall:

Our republic and its press will rise or fall together. An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve the public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. . . .


There is a new high priest in the dean's office on the seventh floor--Nicholas Lemann, veteran writer for the New Yorker, and before that the national correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly, where he spent 15 years after stints at the Texas Monthly, the Washington Post, and the Washington Monthly. Lemann began his scribbling for a New Orleans alternative weekly, the Vieux Carré Courier, while still a high school student, covering everything from boxing to city hall to the private school network of the region. Upon entering Harvard in 1972, he immediately "comped" for the Crimson, only to be rejected in his application to join the editorial board of the greatest brand in undergraduate newspapers. "Harvard is filled with this sort of humiliation," Lemann told me in a conversation last fall that capped a two-day visit to the school. He reapplied for a position as a reporter, and the second time was successful, rising through the ranks to become the paper's president in the 1975-76 academic year. Now 51 and two years into a new career, Lemann will need the same persistence if his legacy as dean is to be something other than a footnote in the history of the decline of American media power.

On my first day at Columbia's graduate school of journalism (CSJ), the poster boy for all that has come to plague elite American media--former CBS anchor Dan Rather--took to the podium at Fordham Law School to denounce the "new journalism order." On day two, the New York Times Company announced a cut of 500 employees from its already pared down workforce of 12,300. (The company employed 13,750 as recently as 2001.) On that same day Knight-Ridder slashed its Philadelphia papers' editorial staff by 75 positions at the Inquirer and 25 at the Daily News. "I get 50 calls a day about the crisis in journalism," Lemann deadpanned when I posed the "crisis" question. "Only 50?" I thought.

The story of what is going on at CSJ cannot be separated from the collapse of credibility of the mainstream media, also known as "elite media" and "old media" among its detractors. The fortunes of the big five papers--the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and the Wall Street Journal, as well as the old TV networks and big weekly newsmagazines--are visibly in decline. The upstart blogosphere is ever at the ready to "deconstruct" the work product of the old media's old guard. The very best investigative reporting is being done not by big names at the big papers, but by people like the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies' journalist in residence Claudia Rosett, who almost singlehandedly unraveled the U.N.-Saddam Oil-for-Food scandal, with much of her work published online. Dan Rather's CBS, eager to impugn George W. Bush's service in the Texas National Guard, got duped by fraudulent documents it took months to obtain and only hours for bloggers and readers to shred.

This story in its small way partakes of the seismic shift underway. Its origin is an email request from Lemann last spring: Would I be willing to be the subject of a New Yorker profile? I agreed, on the condition that I could have reciprocal access to Lemann and the Columbia Journalism School for this piece. Hedged with some qualifiers--he could not commit any of his faculty to talk to me or guarantee access to classrooms, though everyone proved to be very welcoming--Lemann agreed. Reactions to his profile of me varied among family and friends, but I thought it complete and fair. Before I sat down with Lemann I had read everything he'd written for the New Yorker and was impressed with his profiles of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. (The Cheney profile earned Lemann some animosity among colleagues, who thought him too gentle with the only man the left fears as much as Rove.) The scorn on the center-right for the "objectivity" and "professionalism" of the mainstream media is deep and sincere. I went to Columbia to see if Lemann was the exception that proves the rule, and to test the rule itself.

What's the rule? That the elite media are hopelessly biased to the left and so blind to their own deficiencies, or so in denial, that they cannot save themselves from irrelevance. They're like the cheater in the clubhouse, whose every mention of a great round of golf is met with rolling eyes and knowing nods.

Pulitzer's acolytes at Columbia undoubtedly believe that they are members of an "able, disinterested, public-spirited press," and not a "cynical, mercenary, demagogic" one. But the widespread perception in the country is that the prestige newsrooms are filled with the latter pretending to be the former. "Public attitudes toward the press, which have been on a downward track for years, have become more negative in several key areas," the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press reports. It is beyond argument that Pulitzer's dream of the press preserving public virtue has been abandoned, but Lemann is on a mission to help restore credibility to a "profession" without licensing or standards or governing bodies of any sort.

The first person I met on campus, Bruce Wallace, is a student enrolled in the school's traditional program, intended to result in a Master of Science degree after an intensive year of studies. Lemann has also instituted an ambitious new Master of Arts course of study, which has provoked deep suspicion in many of the school's alums and among the faculty. But with 205 students in the M.S. program and 27 in the M.A. division, there is no doubt that the training of front-line reporters is still the core mission. "How to cover a fire in Brooklyn on deadline" is one catchphrase I hear repeated. It is difficult to picture Pat Buchanan, Newsweek's Rick Smith, CBS's Susan Spencer, or writers Mitch Albom and James McBride--CSJ grads, all--covering fires in Brooklyn on or off deadline. But the M.S. program is in essence a 10-month education in the details and practice of that craft.

Wallace is a native of Baltimore who left his job as the manager of the classifieds at the San Francisco Guardian, an alternative weekly, to hone the skills that he hopes will take him to a daily to do local political reporting. The 1999 graduate of Kenyon College had done a little campus radio before heading off to tend bar in Alaska. In San Francisco he got hooked on city hall gossip, and though he was no fan of Mayor Willie Brown, or of "corporate power allied with politicians" generally, he's certain he'll be able to bring fairness to his future job as a political reporter. When I trot out my list of "parameter" questions I use to test for basic ideological disposition--Wallace doesn't own a gun; he favors same-sex marriage--there are no surprises.

Soon Mike Hoyt, executive editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, arrives. With Michael Shapiro, Hoyt team-teaches the class "Advanced Reporting," into which Wallace and 15 other students are headed, and introduces me to Shapiro, who quickly welcomes me to observe the hour. Shapiro is a gifted teacher who, three weeks into the term, already knows all of his students' names and engages them with ease and good humor. The first half of this hour is given over to outlining a large assignment--a profile of some recently deceased person or the reconstruction of a crime. Shapiro is clearly hoping the students will go for the profile, and spends considerable time instructing his charges on how they might go about selecting their subject. He fences his instructions with cautions about engaging the bereaved ("You need to know, but you can't be a vampire") and tips on tracing the details of the life to be profiled. Hoyt contributes key bits of experience, and the students are curious and attentive to these practical lessons. "You need to make your first phone call today," Shapiro insists. "Tomorrow becomes the next day, which becomes next week. Good reporters make the first call on the first day."

The 16 students are not evenly split--there are 14 women and just two men. Two-thirds of the M.S. class this year are women, a reflection of what Lemann calls the "feminization" of journalism programs across the country. Robert Mac Donald, the assistant dean for admissions and financial aid, ran down the demographics for me: The average age of an M.S. student is just shy of 28, the mean is 26, the youngest is 20, and the oldest is 63. Whites make up 69 percent of the new class; 11 percent are African American, 7 percent Hispanic, 6 percent Asian, 3 percent Middle Eastern, and 4 percent South Asian. The school doesn't yet keep stats on religious background, though Mac Donald believes there has been a significant increase in Muslim students post 9/11. A fifth of the students are from the New York area, and between 37 to 40 percent are from "the corridor"--from Boston to Washington. Another fifth are from the west coast, and 10 percent are foreign. It is a pretty "blue" student body, and willing to pay handsomely for the privilege of their credentials. A year at CSJ--tuition, living expenses, incidentals--comes to $59,404 according to Mac Donald, though 85 percent of the students receive some financial aid, with packages ranging from $1,000 to $50,000. The average scholarship is $5,200, which means that these students are putting a lot of money into the program.

The "blue" nature of the student body is further confirmed by my polling of the class I attended, done with the permission of Shapiro. Six of the 16 were English majors, two studied history, and the balance spread across the humanities. No one had a background in the physical sciences. No one owned a gun. All supported same-sex marriage. Three had been in a house of worship the previous week. Six read blogs. None of them recognized the phrase "Christmas Eve in Cambodia"--though Shapiro not only got the allusion but knew the date of the John Kerry Senate speech in which he made the false claim about his Vietnam war experience. Three quarters of them hope to make more than $100,000 as a journalist, 11 had voted for John Kerry, and one for George Bush (three are from abroad and not eligible, and one didn't vote for either candidate). I concluded by asking them if they "think George Bush is something of a dolt." There was unanimous agreement with this proposition, one of the widely shared views within elite media and elsewhere on the left. The president's Harvard MBA and four consecutive victories over Democrats judged "smarter" than him haven't made even a dent in that prejudice.

The intake valve at the elite media's equivalent of the Army's war college isn't pulling in many conservatives. In fact, it isn't pulling in many moderates. After the class, a few students linger. Their backgrounds are interesting. Rachel Templeton is from Alaska, graduated from the University of Washington, and has spent a few years at the Henry Jackson Foundation. She's moving to Israel after this year, where she hopes to pick up freelance work. Bree Nordenson is from Freeport, Maine, a graduate of Minnesota's Carleton College, and is transitioning from her work as a psychiatric counselor in Boston. Andreea Plesea is from Rumania and her Facebook entry announces her goal is to "become a top notch investigative reporter" and to "pursue a degree in law." Stina Lunden is from Sweden, and spent her last year as a Washington Post intern in France working for Keith B. Richburg. Lanie Shapiro was in PR for Simon & Schuster and Random House. Sophia Chang, originally from Texas, has been a reporter for the past four years.

These six want to pursue the idea of "objectivity," and most had read Lemann's profile of me, which included my very skeptical assessment of the objectivity of the mainstream media. Lunden is particularly animated. "You can't draw conclusions that our opinions will influence our reporting," she says, launching into a familiar defense of the ability of journalists to put aside their points of view. Shapiro stresses that all of her professors have been teaching "the value of objectivity," but Nordenson isn't buying it. "It is dangerous to think you are objective." Plesea is cynical: "You don't get truth in political reporting," an opinion she didn't confine to the countries of the former Soviet Union, with which she is familiar.

I am not here to debate the proposition, but find it interesting that the three-week wonders are already committed to the defense of their new profession's reputation for objectivity. With a faculty that does not appear to count among its number even one prominent name from the center-right, but does include respected voices of the left such as Todd Gitlin and Victor Navasky, it is difficult to see where they will acquire any useful skepticism about their own craft's motives and abilities.

The worst moments in recent history for the mainstream media--Rathergate, Jayson Blair's fabrications at the New York Times, the slander by CNN executive Eason Jordan that the U.S. military in Iraq was targeting journalists for assassination--were all still in the future when Columbia president Lee Bollinger was presented with an opening in the deanship by the retirement of Lemann's predecessor, Tom Goldstein. Bollinger, a First Amendment expert, former president of the University of Michigan, and former dean of its law school (I took media law from him in the spring of 1983, and the quiet, brooding, and even moody Bollinger hasn't changed much in 22 years, according to reports) seized the moment. He launched a controversial top-to-bottom look at the journalism school, empaneling a committee that met a dozen or so times to debate the future of the school. Lemann was among the panel's members, and delivered a paper to the group in the spring of 2003 that urged the one-year M.S. degree be replaced by a two-year Master of Arts program. Bollinger obviously warmed to some part of the Lemann pitch, and offered him the deanship.

Lemann quickly realized that alumni and faculty would unite to kill any idea of a uniform two-year degree at CSJ. "Of 24 or 25 faculty," he told me, "I'd have had maybe two votes." But there are other ways to pursue change and reform. After another year of meetings with industry types, he launched a second degree track: a year-long Masters of Arts program open only to practicing journalists, aiming to enhance and deepen their skills. Lemann is clearly hoping that the best and brightest of the M.S. grads will be willing to stay a second year and also go for the M.A. This year a pool of 70 applicants yielded a class of 27. The goal is a class of 60 drawn from 250 applicants.

...more...
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Israel-Palestine
Palestinian journalist Al-Rantissi murdered in Ramallah
2005-05-31
Slightly EFClarity.
Linda Foley, Eason Jordan, call your offices.
Palestinian Public Prosecution sources said Monday that Samir Al-Rantissi was killed last night in his house. He was a journalist and media consultant of Yassir Abd Rabbou, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Al-Rantissi was killed when an armed man broke into his house and shot him in front of his family, the sources said. The murder of Al-Rantissi follows a criminal case where the murderer's identity is known and security forces seek his arrest. Al-Rantissi is one of the main Palestinian figures who drafted the controversial Geneva agreement between Israeli and Palestinian figures including Abd Rabbou.
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Fifth Column
Iraqi Insurgent Sniper Training
2005-05-23
Calling Eason Jordan and Linda Foley (Newspaper Guild). The suspects targeting journalists have been found. Hello? Anybody on the phone?

Via Jihadwatch

The first one is the Soldier (second from right) because he has a MG, heavy machine gun. Then is the stupid Soldier on the left. He is a very easy target (look how he is elevated from the ground), then the Soldier or the reporter carrying the camera. First, because the camera can be used as binoculars; second, it is the most difficult thing to hide the death of a reporter in Iraq.
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Home Front: WoT
At this point, is Newsweek really journalism?
2005-05-20
Jim Geraghty, National Review Online A touch of EFL; links in original.

. . . Does it still really count as a 'news' magazine? I mean, for an opinion mag, doesn't National Review or the Weekly Standard do a better job of offering a full picture of Iraq and other issues? Heck, if you don't want a conservative example, how about the New Republic or the Atlantic? . . .

. . . I've worked a lot of places, and written for a lot of publications and newspapers with reputations and outlooks far from National Review. I think highly of a lot of people in a lot of places that aren't perceived as "conservative" — the Boston Globe, the Denver Post, Congressional Quarterly. Reporters are like any other field — they come good, bad and indifferent.

But some of the biggest names in the industry are now in the business of confirming their own viewpoint, regardless of the facts. After a bunch of young guys were caught making stuff up — Stephen Glass at the New Republic and Jayson Blair at the New York Times — a slew of big-names have been exposed as touting, murmuring, or breathlessly reporting stories that didn't turn out to be true or verifiable — Dan Rather, Eason Jordan, and now Michael Iskoff and the editors at Newsweek.

In every one of these cases, stories that were fake, unsubstantiated, or unreliable got through the highly-touted editing and fact-checking processes because the editors wanted them to be true. They 'rang true' to editors' ears. Of course, they thought, Bush's service record was 'sugarcoated.' Of course, U.S. troops would deliberately target and murder journalists whose coverage they didn't like. Of course, U.S. interrogators would flush the Koran. You read the coverage of some corners of the media world, from the New York Times, to the American Journalism Review to the Nation to the Huffington thing and elsewhere, the reaction in the face of retraction is the argument that, "well, this story could still possibly be true — it hasn't been disproven 110 percent." They surmise that the retractions are the result of Bush administration pressure and vast sinister conspiracies.

Those of us who don't espouse the mainstream media conventional wisdom have a responsibility to set a better standard. . . . We're writing for the audience that actually wants to know what's going on, that doesn't always assume that Pentagon officials are lying, that has a healthy skepticism of the word of a captured al-Qaeda terrorist, and that gives our guys in uniform the benefit of the doubt. (They've earned it.) When some of our guys foul up big-time, like Abu Ghraib, we want to know. But we don't want the gruesome abuse photos hyped into endlessly displayed news porn. We know it's a horrible sight, but it's not quite as horrible as what we saw on an autumn Tuesday morning a few years ago.

We want to know more about Iraq than the endlessly repeated quote from the grumpy cab driver that "things were better under Saddam." We want to know how their population is striding, bit by bit, to a genuine Arab democracy — even when it stumbles. We have faith they'll get there eventually.

When the Schiavo memo turns out to be actually written by a Republican, we have to say, 'Well, the Post and ABC botched it by saying it was 'distributed by GOP leadership', but they got a lot of key facts right, and our hunch that this was a Democratic dirty trick was off base.' Of course some Media Matters folks will hype it. Let them.

We know what's going on. What was the one moment that things looked darkest for the Bush presidency in the last three and a half years? During the endless all-Abu-Ghraib, all-the-time abuse coverage festival from last spring. When references to the prison abuse scandal were cropping up on the Washington Post's Sports, Arts, and Metro sections.

The Isikoff story — and the inevitable coming deluge of in-depth investigative journalism of additional tales of abuse from those utterly trustworthy al-Qaeda prisoners — are a return to the "good old days" of last spring. When Teddy Kennedy could compare the U.S. military's handling of prisoners to Saddam's torture chambers with a gleeful, hearty grin. When our guys on the front lines could be portrayed as sadistic, black-hearted villains. When the face of our guys wasn't the stoic loyalty of a Pat Tillman, the pride and dedication of a Jeffrey Adams, or any other one of our heroes but the nauseating sneer of Lynndie England.

Boy, did those days feel good to the media.

Call that whatever you like. But don't call it journalism.

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Fifth Column
President of the Newspaper Guild asserts U.S. troops deliberately killing journalists in Iraq
2005-05-19
Echoing a claim that led to CNN executive Eason Jordan's resignation, the president of the 35,000-member Newspaper Guild asserted U.S. troops deliberately are killing journalists in Iraq.
Linda Foley, speaking Friday in St. Louis, said the American attacks are focused particularly on Arab journalists, according to a tape aired by Sinclair Broadcasting's "The Point," a commentary segment by Mark Hyman...
According to a tape of her remarks, Foley said: "Journalists, by the way, are not just being targeted verbally or 
 ah, or 
 ah, politically. They are also being targeted for real, um 
 in places like Iraq. What outrages me as a representative of journalists is that there's not more outrage about the number, and the brutality, and the cavalier nature of the U.S. military toward the killing of journalists in Iraq."
Foley continued, "They target and kill journalists 
 uh, from other countries, particularly Arab countries like Al -, like Arab news services like al-Jazeera, for example. They actually target them and blow up their studios with impunity. ..."
Hyman called on Foley to immediately present evidence to support her claims or resign.
"Unfortunately, the damage may have already been done," he said. "Her remarks could lead to further bloodshed, including against Americans."
Hyman concluded: "The question is whether Newspaper Guild members will hold Foley accountable or will they give her a free pass in endangering American lives with inflammatory remarks without any proof?"
The Newspaper Guild posted an April 15 article on its website that blames the U.S. for the deaths of journalists José Couso and Taras Protsyuk, April 8, 2003, at the Palestine Hotel. They were on a balcony watching the Third Infantry tank division exchange fire with Iraqi forces, the report said. After a lull in the battle, a U.S. tank fired an incendiary shell at the hotel. U.S. officials say the troops believed they were taking fire from the hotel.
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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Kojo Annan needs your help!
2005-03-15
Tales from the inbox . . .
Dear Sir,

I am aware that this mail is coming to you surprisingly, but first all; I will like to introduce myself to you. I am Kojo Annan the first son of Kofi Annan the sec-general of United Nation and a citizen of Federal Republic of Ghana, currently residing in Lagos Nigeria.
"Not Egypt. My father is an Egyptian, but I'm not."
Currently, the chairman of KOJO AND SONS LTD. Also the vice president of Anan Empire Ghana.
". . . not to be confused with my father's company, Anan Empire Turtle Bay LLC."
I am mailing you to seek for your co-operation in an on-going investigation that involves me and my company in the distribution of food and oil in Iraq.

My father and I have been alleged to be involved in the toxic supply of food and oil product to Iraq, this allegation has been move by the US senate committee against my father and I.
"It was not toxic, I tell you! It was perfectly good, edible money Saddam paid us! All lies!"
This issue is currently in news with the CNN London.
"You can ask Eason Jordan if you don't believe me!"
I will want you to know that this contract of food and oil with contract number KJA/NIG/UN-58565/0, was done through Nigerian government, under United Nations Agency and they are yet to pay me.
"Filthy cheapskate Nigerians! I send Mrs. Abacha my bank account number like she asks, but does she call? Does she write? She takes me for granted, she does! How can a woman treat her man like that? I have bought all this herbal Viagra at the online pharmacy, just for her."
But due to the on-going problem I will like you to accept my partnership offer and put in claim for the money as a sister company to KOJO AND SONS LTD, the amount involve is US$450 million.

All arrangement to secure a lawyer who will work with you for the claim has been concluded, I will provide you with the lawyer's full information as soon as I receive a positive response from you, the lawyer will assist you procure all the necessary documents you need for this claim and he will be your local representative to make sure he monitor the tr ansactions to positive conclusion.
"You can trust him. He is a lawyer."
As soon as the money is paid to you by the United Nation Agency in Nigeria I will forward my bank account in London where you will transfer my share. The sharing ratio is 60% for me, 25% for you and 15% for any expenses which you may incure during the claim.

Please i will want you to keep this very secrete
Eeeeewww! Keep your secretions to yourself, thank you!
and confidential. If you do not have interest in this or find it uncomfortable for you, please do away with it and keep you lips close.
I never leave home without my lips.
As the United Nation Agency here in Nigeria is ready to release the fund the claimer, through Nigerian Apex Bank.

Thank you and God bless you.

KOJO ANNAN
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Iraq-Jordan
Italy Rejects U.S. Version of Iraq Shooting
2005-03-06
ROME (Reuters) - Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena, shot and wounded after being freed in Iraq, said Sunday U.S. forces may have deliberately targeted her because Washington opposed Italy's policy of dealing with kidnappers.
you mean paying large ransoms that allow the kidnappers to expand their ops?
She offered no evidence for her claim, but the sentiment reflected growing anger in Italy over the conduct of the war, which has claimed more than 20 Italian lives, including the secret agent who rescued her moments before being killed.
a tragedy for him - wasted his life over this commie
Friday evening's killing of the agent and wounding of the journalist, who worked for a communist daily, has sparked tension with Italy's U.S. allies and put pressure on Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to take a hard line with President Bush. The United States has promised a full investigation into incident, in which soldiers fired on the Italians' car as it approached Baghdad airport Friday evening.

The U.S. military says the car was speeding toward a checkpoint and ignored warning shots, an explanation denied by government ministers and the driver of the car. Of course

Speaking from her hospital bed where she is being treated, Sgrena told Sky Italia TV it was possible the soldiers had targeted her because Washington opposes Italy's dealings with kidnappers that may include ransom payments. Paging Eason Jordan? "The United States doesn't approve of this (ransom) policy and so they try to stop it in any way possible."

According to Italy's leading daily Corriere della Sera, the driver, an unidentified Italian agent, said: "We were driving slowly, about 40-50 km/h (25-30 mph)." Italians routinely lie about their speeding.. In a harrowing account of her ordeal, Sgrena wrote in Sunday's Il Manifesto newspaper that the secret agent, Nicola Calipari, saved her life by shielding her with his body.

"Nicola threw himself on to protect me and then suddenly I heard his last breath as he died on top of me," she wrote.
ewwww
PUNISHMENT, APOLOGY
Although Italy has denied paying kidnappers in past hostage releases, Agriculture Minister Gianni Alemanno told the Corriere that "very probably" a large ransom had been paid in this case. Italian newspapers have speculated that anything up to 8 million euros ($10 million) may have been paid.
that buys a lot of killers and IEDs
"We need to get the guilty punished and an apology from the Americans," Alemanno said. "We are trustworthy allies but we must not give the impression of being subordinates."

Italy's minister for parliamentary relations, Carlo Giovanardi, has also said he did not believe the U.S. version of events.
A national outpouring of grief and anger put pressure on Berlusconi, an ardent supporter of Bush and his war on terror, to get answers from Washington on what went wrong.

"All 57 million Italians who were united in the anticipation of Giuliana Sgrena's liberation have the right to know what happened," said Romano Prodi, the former prime minister and leader of Italy's center-left opposition.

Berlusconi summoned the U.S. ambassador immediately after the event and will need to present some answers from Washington when he addresses parliament Wednesday.

He led Italy into the conflict in Iraq where it has some 3,000 soldiers, a decision opposed by a majority of Italians and the opposition which is seeking to unseat him at a general election next year and weaken him at regional polls next month.

So it's a political call for national honor and against Berlusconi, with no proof whatsoever
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Home Front: Politix
No WONDER we won't see the Davos Tapes....
2005-03-05
..Sir, I beg yer indulgence - I know you are not fond of us posting from other blogs, but given the source, I hope you'll permit this one.
Waiver granted, just this once ;-)
From Little Green Footballs (EFL'd) :

Clinton Apologized to Iran?

"At the ArabNews (which raises some red flags), Amir Taheri has an almost unbelievable account of statements by former President Bill Clinton in Davos: Who Should Apologize to Whom? (Thanks to all who emailed.) Where is the country that Bill Clinton, a former president of the United States, feels ideologically most at home? Before you answer, here is the condition that such a country must fulfill: It must hold several consecutive elections that produce 70 percent majorities for "liberals and progressives."

Well, if you thought of one of the Scandinavian countries or, perhaps, New Zealand or Canada, you are wrong. Believe it or not, the country Bill Clinton so admires is the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Here is what Clinton said at a meeting on the margins of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, just a few weeks ago: "Iran today is, in a sense, the only country where progressive ideas enjoy a vast constituency. It is there that the ideas that I subscribe to are defended by a majority."

And here is what Clinton had to say in a recent television interview with Charlie Rose: "Iran is the only country in the world that has now had six elections since the first election of President Khatami (in 1997). (It is) the only one with elections, including the United States, including Israel, including you name it, where the liberals, or the progressives, have won two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote in six elections: Two for president; two for the Parliament, the Majlis; two for the mayoralties. In every single election, the guys I identify with got two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote. There is no other country in the world I can say that about, certainly not my own."

So, while millions of Iranians, especially the young, look to the United States as a mode of progress and democracy, a former president of the US looks to the Islamic Republic as his ideological homeland...."

"... Clinton told his audience in Davos, as well as Charlie Rose, that during his presidency he had "formally apologized on behalf of the United States" for what he termed "American crimes against Iran."

But what were those "crimes"? Clinton summed them thus: "It's a sad story that really began in the 1950s when the United States deposed Mr. Mossadegh, who was an elected parliamentary communist democrat, and brought the Shah back and then he was overturned by the Ayatollah Khomeini, driving us into the arms of one Saddam Hussein. We got rid of the parliamentary democracy {there} back in the '50s; at least, that is my belief."

And it gets a WHOLE lot worse than that, Ranters. It may well be that Eason Jordan went down not because of his statements, but in order to keep THIS from hitting the fan.....(RTWT)
Still suffering from the anesthetic. And the beating from Hillary.
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Israel-Palestine
Eye on the media: The Al-Dura cover-up
2005-02-21
The canning departure of CNN news executive Eason Jordan heh came swiftly after reports of his apparent claim at a forum in Switzerland that journalists in Iraq had been deliberately killed by American soldiers. Offering no evidence to support the charge, Jordan resigned under a hail of criticism.
In just months, CBS ousted senior executives held responsible for airing a disastrously flawed segment on President Bush's Air National Guard service. So, too, the New York Times and USA Today acted within months against serial falsifiers Jayson Blair and Jack Kelley, firing senior executives as well as the individual perpetrators, and instituting measures to guard against future infractions.
Far different has been the response of the influential France 2 Television network, in an infamous and unresolved case of gross misconduct by its journalists. Charles Enderlin, Israel-based correspondent for the network, and his Palestinian cameraman, Talal Abu-Rahma, are directly responsible for the calumny spread worldwide against Israel starting September 30, 2000 in the Muhammad al-Dura affair.
Enderlin's voice-over told France 2 viewers that they were seeing footage shot by Abu-Rahma at Gaza's Netzarim junction earlier that day. As images unfolded of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura cowering against his father, Enderlin stated the two are "the target of fire coming from the Israeli position. The child signals, but... there's a new burst of gunfire... The child is dead and the father is wounded."
France 2 then promptly gave the video — barely 55 seconds in length — free of charge to other media outlets. The image of the boy ostensibly shot dead by Israeli guns raced around the world.
Coming as it did in the first days of the Palestinian uprising, the dramatic scenes playing continuously on television stoked the violence.
In Arab nations, al-Dura was quickly mythologized as an emblem of alleged Israeli cruelty, with streets, parks, stamps and newborns named after him. Videos recreated the event, some with calls for young people to seek raisins, oops, virginians "martyrdom" and paradise with al-Dura.
Not everything is known about the chaotic events at Netzarim and the circumstances of the al-Dura case, but certain things are.
First, the footage contains no evidence at all that Israeli soldiers shot al-Dura. Neither in the 55 seconds broadcast around the globe nor in the 27 remaining minutes filmed by Abu-Rahma are there any soldiers in view. It is not logistically possible that the Israeli soldiers present that day, barricaded inside a building across the intersection, could have shot the boy and his father, huddled behind a concrete barrel blocking the line of fire. As James Fallows wrote in an investigation of the case for The Atlantic Monthly (June 2003): "Whatever happened to him, he was not shot by the Israeli soldiers..."
A recent column in the French newspaper Le Figaro (January 25, 2005) reiterated this, and emphasized what others have said - that a review of the terrain where the incident occurred incriminates Palestinian, not Israeli, bullets.
Second, the footage does not contain visual evidence that al-Dura died. Though he collapses, the tape ends abruptly with the boy inert; a further frame, omitted by Enderlin from the broadcast, shows al-Dura raising his head and arm. But this is the last image.
To explain the odd, truncated footage, Enderlin repeatedly claimed he omitted the "agony of the child" - his dying - because it was unbearable to witness.
However, when several French journalists prevailed on France 2 to let them view the unreleased 27 minutes, they found no "agony of the child" - no excruciating scenes of a suffering al-Dura.
Enderlin lied, and his lie heightened the sense of a brutal act committed by Israel.
Third, numerous analysts have noted that in footage taken of the crowds at Netzarim there are clearly instances of Palestinians staging events. The French journalists who viewed the France 2 footage saw this as well, including repeated instances of Palestinians faking injuries followed by the immediate arrival of ambulances to carry away the pseudo-wounded. While no video evidence proved the al-Dura incident was staged, the prevalence of such activity at the time is relevant to any inquiry.
Enderlin has replied to criticism by retorting the case may never be resolved, but for him the "image [as he conveyed it] corresponded to the reality of the situation."
Enderlin states that in his view Israel was using excessive force against Palestinians, and clearly in his mind a journalist can distort and embellish the facts to fit his political opinions.
Four and a half years later, France 2 has yet to issue any statement correcting its reprehensible and unethical al-Dura story, or to take action against Enderlin, Abu-Rahma or others with a hand in the matter.
This should concern everyone who appreciates the enormous damage caused by reckless and ideologically-driven journalism.
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Britain
Former Conservative Party Leader: Blogs will Rescue the British Right
2005-02-19
For decades the national conversation in most western countries has been directed by a few talking heads. Newspapers play important roles but all the evidence suggests that broadcasters have possessed the greatest potential to frame public debate. British politicians have known that communicating their message depends upon getting the nod from a small number of powerful figures in the broadcast media. The editor of BBC1's six o'clock news bulletin can make a minister's day by putting his department's latest announcement at the front of the bulletin. Hearing Huw Edwards say something positive about that afternoon's policy launch will even put a smile on Alastair Campbell's face. But all of this looks set to change because of the blogosphere. Blogging is a geeky expression for how people use online logs, or diaries, to share their opinions. If a weblog is interesting and informed enough it can reach millions of people at zero cost. Karl Rove, the man George Bush described as the architect of his re-election, recently said that the dominance of America's mainstream media is coming to an end. And Rove credits the Davids of the blogosphere for the humbling of the old media Goliaths. After decades of centralisation, Rove believes that the national conversation is being democratised.

Mr Knowledgeable (and it is usually a Mr) of Smallville, Wyoming can, via his PC, transmit thoughts across the world. Mainstream TV can no longer say what it wants without fear of correction. Online diaries, written by teachers, soldiers and numerous other people with real knowledge of subjects, are fact-checking ill-informed broadcasters. The bloggers have already toppled two of American TV's biggest names. In the last few days Eason Jordan, the chief news director of CNN, resigned after a previously unknown blogger - Rony Abovitz - drew attention to remarks made by Jordan at the Davos World Economic Forum. Abovitz reported that Jordan had accused US soldiers in Iraq of deliberately targeting journalists. Mainstream reporters chose to ignore these remarks. But Abovitz's message was picked up by hundreds of other websites, and Jordan's fate was sealed. Easongate, as it has inevitably become known, is an echo of last autumn's Rathergate scandal. Dan Rather, the anchor of CBS's evening news, was as big as TV stars come. Rather had fronted an attack on George Bush's Vietnam-era military service record - based on forged documents. The forgery was exposed when bloggers focused on a superscripted "th" after a date in one of the documents. Experts confirmed that typewriters of the period could not have produced such lettering. Rather apologised and CBS is now desperately searching for someone else in whom viewers might put their trust.

This is just one of the ways in which the internet has strengthened the American right. Last year's Bush-Cheney campaign used information technology to build the largest ever volunteer political army. Visitors to GeorgeWBush.com were invited to join email lists that offered regular information on everything from gun ownership to school prayer. The Bush campaign collected 7.5 million email addresses and amassed 1.4 million volunteers.

You would also expect this electronic revolution to be good for the Democrats, but the American left's relationship with the internet has been disastrous. The internet has sunk a knife into Bill Clinton's moderate Democratic party. Mainstream business people were Clinton's principal funders, simultaneously approving and driving his centrism. But the Democrats' new paymasters are the 600,000 computer users who, in 2004, supported Howard Dean's bid for his party's presidential nomination. Dean energised an unrepresentative group of voters with a stridently anti-war message. Electronic money powered Dean's campaign, and all of the other contenders for the Democratic crown soon pandered to his base.

The Democrats' problem has only worsened since. The dailykos.com site of a Democratic consultant gets 500,000 hits a day. That site's memorial to four American contractors murdered in Iraq was "screw them". Hatefulness also pours out of the popular websites of Michael Moore and MoveOn.org. The conservative blogosphere has dubbed the Democrats' IT base its MooreOn tendency.

Although it was a Googler who discovered that Tony Blair's second Iraq dossier had lifted extensive material from a PhD student's research, Britain hasn't yet had much experience of electronic campaigning. But the blogosphere will become a force in Britain, and it could ignite many new forces of conservatism. The internet's automatic level playing field gives conservatives opportunities that mainstream media have often denied them.

An online community of bloggers performs the same function as yesteryear's town meetings. Through the tradition of town hall meetings, officials were held to account by local people. Blogger communities are going to be much more powerful. They will draw together not only local people but patients who have waited and waited for NHS care. They will organise parents of disabled children who oppose Labour's closure of special-needs schools and evangelical Christians who see their beliefs caricatured by ignorant commentators.

All this should put the fear of God into the metropolitan elites. For years there have been widening gaps between the governing class and the governed and between the publicly funded broadcasters and the broadcasted to. Until now voters, viewers and service users have not had easy mechanisms by which to expose officialdom's errors and inefficiencies. But, because of the internet, the masses beyond the metropolitan fringe will soon be on the move. They will expose the lazy journalists who reduce every important public policy issue to how it affects opinion-poll ratings. Tired of being spoon-fed their politics, British voters will soon be calling virtual town hall meetings, and they will take a serious look at the messenger as well as the message. It's going to be very rough.

Karl Rove is right. The internet could do more to change the level of political engagement than all the breast-beating of introspective politicians and commentators. A 21st century political revolution is now only a few mouse clicks away.

· Iain Duncan Smith MP is chairman of the Centre for Social Justice; he was leader of the Conservative party from 2001 to 2003

When you learn that Iain Duncan Smith has contemptuous feelings towards Markos Zuniga, you know that blogs have hit the mainstream.
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