Month: January 2005

Do you think the photographer responsible for taking the lower photo in this post is an accomplice to murder? Roger Simon:

But these allegations about the Associated Press are even worse. If true–and I don’t, of course, know that they are–they mean that people working with that news agency are embedded with the “insurgents,” that they are participating in murder, aiding and abetting it.

When I first saw the photo under discussion, my immediate thought was that the situation in Iraq was so bad that Iraqis in the resistance were able to execute those they saw as collaboratoring with the occupation in broad daylight in downtown Baghdad. Because I believe the invasion and occupation of Iraq was and is immoral, illegal, unconstitutional, wasteful, counterproductive, destructive and stupid, I lack the black/white high contrast lens of “with us or against us” that the warbloggers use to simplify everything that happens in Iraq, so it never occurred to me that this photo would be seen by some as an indictment of the photographer and the AP. After the Kevin Sites incident (see here and here), I suppose it was predictable that this photo would be all over the warblogs, not as an example of the failure of the US occupation, but as proof that the “MSM” (that’s mainstream media, aka The Enemy, in War Blog lingo) was nefariously undermining The War Effort and is on The Other Side.

Clark Stooksbury on Hugh Hewitt’s assertion that a warblog “‘scissor[ed]’ the Associated Press’s credibility,” on the Haifa street photo:

But he also seems to think that just because a blog has attacked a big media source, that the blog must be correct. He say that the Belmont Club “scissor[ed]” the Associated Press’s credibility and links to a post that is a confusing mess of accusations based in part on a letter sent by some guy to the aformentioned Power Line. The gist of the argument is that the AP is in cahoots with terrorists in order to be able to get pictures of their murders. If the anonymous blogger who goes by “Wretchard” has any solid evidence for this theory, I am not smart enough to glean it from his post.

No, Clark, not only does he not have any evidence whatsoever for his theory, the fact that he even raised the question is proof of both shoddy thinking and failure to do even the most rudimentary research, as Ryan at The Dead Parrot Society proves in this post:

In all likelihood, even the photo on the left was cropped in from full frame; very few news photos aren’t cropped at least somewhat to tighten in on the important part of the image. But you can see how easy it is to take a photo from distance and bring the viewer right in close. So we know the Baghdad photographer wasn’t standing right up on top of the insurgents, and common sense says the photographer wasn’t standing fearlessly in the middle of the street, either. Even if you were one of the terrorists themselves, you wouldn’t do that. Ever tried to get a sense of what’s going on around you when you’re looking through a camera lens? Want to do that with bullets and grenades flying around?

So where was the photographer most likely standing when he got these shots? Hey, you know that Glenn Reynolds, he’s a camera buff, so why not ask him: If you were a professional photographer carrying professional equipment optimized for shooting pictures in a war zone (where you might not want to be right up close to the action), how far away could you have been and still gotten these shots? Actually, you don’t have to ask Glenn, because I just spoke with a news photographer on our staff (for readers who don’t know, I’m an online producer for a newspaper in Washington state). Judging by the perspective and clarity on the image above, he estimates that the photographer in Baghdad was using a 300-millimeter lens from about a block away. “From a very safe distance,” he said.

Let me repeat that: From a city block away. This is part of why you think the AP might have done something wrong? (Hey, remember how awesome it was when a blogger found someone in the field to speak to the authenticity of the CBS memos? You’d think someone might have thought of this on the Haifa Street photos.)

Read the rest of the smackdown. Ryan concludes by saying, “Hopefully this gets cleared up, but I’m not holding my breath. The AP deserves criticism like any media agency, but it certainly doesn’t deserve a demonization campaign based on suspicions supported by little more than misconception.” No, don’t hold your breath, Ryan. These types of bloggers are infamous for throwing out damaging speculation and then blithely ignoring anyone who proves them wrong, as Clark points out, and Henry at Crooked Timber also has some damning things to say about blogger responsibility and hypocrisy. Matt Welch lets Hugh Hewitt and the Bias Hunters have it here, as well:

The ideology of bias detection begets the shortcut of hyperbole, which then demands escalation when the conditions being described worsen. Many of the same people who roasted Dan Rather lapped up Judith Miller’s discredited New York Times reporting about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. People believe what they want to hear. What are bloggers and other media watchdogs willing to believe about the target of their wrath?

“Because you ignored us,” Breitbart says, “because you ignored Rush and Drudge and God knows who else, we decided to go out and create our media. And I think that what we’re doing is building up something that may be bigger and better.”

Bigger, probably. Better, arguably. More factual…we’ll see.

I think we can see already.

Who knew that the Pentagon has experts in the use of enemas as torture?

….after a review, Mr. Rumsfeld issued a final policy in April 2003, approving 24 techniques, some of which needed his permission to be used.

None of the approved techniques, however, covered some of what people have now said occurred. Mr. Kahtani was, for example, forcibly given an enema, officials said, which was used because it was uncomfortable and degrading.

Pentagon spokesmen said the procedure was medically necessary because Mr. Kahtani was dehydrated after an especially difficult interrogation session. Another official, told of the use of the enema, said, however, “I bet they said he was dehydrated,” adding that that was the justification whenever an enema was used as a coercive technique, as it had been on several detainees.

I wonder if they passed this knowledge on to their domestic counterparts in the Department of Homeland Security.

Charts show U.S. military deaths and injuries as well as attacks on U.S. forces by month for 2004 and 2003; includes chart showing states with most troops killed so far this year. (AP Graphic)

Link via yankeedoodle at Today in Iraq

InstaGlenn says the best way to help aid the victims of the tsunami disaster is to go to a devastated area and booze it up on the beach while watching the corpses float by. Ah, the smell of rotting flesh and the cries of starving locals! It’ll be a vacation to remember.

Hey, that’s at least as fair as what Reynolds did to Tim Cavanaugh.

Mark Gisleson at Norwegianity directed me to this James Wolcott post, What kind of a maniac puts eagles in a Christmas tree?, that I, devoted Wolcott reader though I am, somehow missed. Here are just three sentences of Wolcott on Matt Taibbi’s Time Person of the Year article to demonstrate why you should read this post:

The annual Whatzit of the Year allows the editorial brass to rise above the trendy transient and serve as clerks of posterity, judges of History. Without fail we get the same pre-announcement buildup to the big ho-hum moment. Items in the press about the deliberation process, the “lively editorial debate”–a euphemism that implies some hothead wiping the mustard from his mouth, tossing the crumpled napkin on the conference table, and flouncing out at the very idea of enshrining so-and-so on the cover.

Matt Taibbi:

The “Person of the Year” issue has always been a symphonic tribute to the heroic possibilities of pompous sycophancy, but the pomposity of this year’s issue bests by a factor of at least two or three the pomposity of any previous issue. From the Rushmorean cover portrait of Bush (which over the headline “An American Revolutionary” was such a brazen and transparent effort to recall George Washington that it was embarrassing) to the “Why We Fight” black-and-white portraiture of the aggrieved president sitting somberly at the bedside of the war-wounded, this issue is positively hysterical in its iconolatry. One even senses that this avalanche of overwrought power worship is inspired by the very fact of George Bush’s being such an obviously unworthy receptacle for such attentions. From beginning to end, the magazine behaves like a man who knocks himself out making an extravagant six-course candlelit dinner for a blow-up doll, in an effort to convince himself he’s really in love.

Definitely Metaphor of the Year.

(see 10 for introduction)

John Nichols didn’t make it, the streak ends at 109 Capital Times columns, it just wouldn’t be December 30th without him using the word “Israel” for the first time. Last year it was refusenik pilots, this year it’s Richard Ben Cramer.

In a new wrinkle, however, he defends himself. “Throughout the year, I kept buying copies of Cramer’s book and handing it to friends and colleagues, who in turn recommended it to book groups, discussion circles and friends and colleagues of their own.” Why, this rippling effect could turn into a veritable, well, never mind.

But if the book’s “that important,” if it’s “that important” that the U.S. has “‘never done squat'” to get Israel out of the occupied territories, why can’t John say so in the Capital Times, “Your Local Progressive Newspaper?”

And he never says why it’s “that important” that the U.S. has “‘never done squat.'” Israel with a soul is better than Israel without a soul and it would be great to see the injustice done to the Palestinians rectified and the truth of their suffering acknowledged, but the point of this countdown has been to draw attention to a disconnect—many of the same “progressives” who are outraged over how Bush exploits the public’s fear of terrorism are not willing to talk about a fundamental cause of hatred of the U.S.

I don’t know what’s in Cramer’s book, but a quick web search determines that he is more than willing to talk about this fundamental cause. It also brings forth a final convolution—Cramer plays the key role in an article which cuts to ribbons the same 9/11 Commission Report which I have used as both point of departure and cornerstone.

Philip Weiss sees the glass empty in 9/11 Report Misses One Crucial Point: Mideastern Policy, but I don’t. The reports states thats the “U.S. government must define what the message is, what it stands for. We should offer an example of moral leadership in the world, committed to treat people humanely, abide by the rule of law, and be generous and caring to our neighbors…we can offer [Muslim] parents a vision that might give their children a better future.” Later it says our Israel/Palestine and Iraq policies must be “integrated with our message of opportunity.”

Let’s think positively, the decidely mainstream 9/11 Commission has done activists a tremendous service, advocating for a U.S. foreign policy steeped in morality, decency and justice. Now if only we could get “progressives” to give “a foreign policy steeped in morality, decency and justice” a prominent place on their list of “progressive values.”