(Note to literalists: the Watched column presently contains only a smattering of 'warblogs' because the facilitator of the template-change--Dr. Menlo--is not very familiar with them, and will be adding more as they are sent to him. Also, this blog may contain areas of allusion, satire, subtext, context and possibly even a dash of the surreal: wannabe lit-crits beware.)
Control
[Watch this space for: Pentagon and Petroleum, The Media is only as Liberal as the Corporations Who Own Them, Wash Down With, and Recalcify]
WARBLOGGER WATCH
Thursday, May 01, 2003
Dack Ragus, thankfully, continues to follow Raines Times (Thanks, Andy; oh, and Happy May Day!) reporter Judith Miller's so-called "bombshell" piece on the man "clad in nondescript clothes and a baseball cap" to whom the American military attributed a brace of smoking guns. The piece looks even schlockier today than when it first broke, and Miller's own subsequent articles bring that earlier piece into disrepute.
For what it's worth, I was most startled that by way of verification of the Army's claims, Miller offered only that she was "permitted to examine a letter written in Arabic that [the cap-clad fellow] slipped to American soldiers offering them information about the [chemical weapons] program and seeking their protection." Presumably it was this examination that allowed the dubious piece to pass as anything but a Pentagon PR Newswire. Curious as to how well Miller reads Arabic (she makes no mention of having a translator), I wrote both her and managing editors of the Times asking, but have yet to receive a response. posted by Grady5:59 AM
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Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Innumerate Andrew Stuttaford condones pillaging today over at NRO's Corner. He does allow a proviso, however. The plunder, he states, must be of a resale value "however that can be calculated" of under $1,000.
With just under 150,000 coalition troops in the country, and each helping himself to $1,000 in spoils, Stuttaford's plan would amount to an economic act of war (another one, that is) against the country.
Elsewhere Colonel Kurtz, accredited anthropologist, assures us that the spectre of gay marriage and the the permissiveness of the 1960s are conspiring against the institution of the family. If only he would apply his genius to the effects of the American way of structuring work and of assigning social costs to individuals, he'd be worth reading. posted by Grady9:30 AM
Like the Wall Street Journal's newsroom staff is embarrassed by their colleagues on the opinion pages, I wonder if the older scribes working on the print edition of National Review are ashamed of their online adjunct. There's a plenitude of reasons why they should be.
Witness Rod Dreher's small town sensibilities thoroughly outraged by a newspaper article, reducing him to shout "slut" and "whore" at the article's subject in a none too gentlemanly manner.
And what about Kurtz throwing about accusations of "leftist anti-Catholicism and the rise of leftist anti-Semitism" just weeks after erstwhile NRO contributor and prominent killblogger G. Harlan Reynolds, livid over Rome's opposition to the war against Iraq, accusing the Catholic Church of anti-Semitism? posted by Grady11:28 AM
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Glenn Reynolds yesterday admitted to something he thought was an isolated incident, but which I believe is his problem continually. He confessed to not catching an error in an article because he was "seeing what I expected instead of what was there."
I appreciate his candor here, but I think his problem with overlooking the obvious is more comprehensive than he realizes.
Unstable pro-death asshole Richard Perle assures a French newspaper that "We [sic, chickenhawk] are not going to stop" with the military interventions in Afganistan and Iraq. posted by Grady11:25 AM
"American Psycho, it pretty much sums up what's going on," said Scott Matthews, a clerk at Toronto's Exile where the shirt also has sold out several times in the last two weeks. The $10-decal, which can be ironed onto an array of clothing items, officially became the shop's hottest seller when Susan Sarandon sauntered in and bought one, he said.
Sounds about right. Heh. Indeed. posted by Grady7:50 AM
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Monday, April 21, 2003
Andyland as Bizarro World: Sullivan's back and recommending a reporter for the blatantly biased and thoroughly discredited Raines Times for a Pulitzer.
A great shame that he's no longer patrolling Ira Stoll's beat, documenting the paper's God-awful reportage. This Judith Miller piece, "Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert," is about the worst Miller, Head Numskull In Charge of the Defense Department steno pool, has filed to date.
Note these paragraphs:
An American military team hunting for unconventional weapons in Iraq, the Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha, or MET Alpha, which found the scientist, declined to identify him, saying they feared he might be subject to reprisals.
...
Under the terms of her accreditation to report on the activities of MET Alpha, this reporter was not permitted to interview the scientist or visit his home. Nor was she permitted to write about the discovery of the scientist for three days, and the copy was then submitted for a check by military officials.
Those officials asked that details of what chemicals were uncovered be deleted. They said they feared that such information could jeopardize the scientist's safety by identifying the part of the weapons program where he worked.
...
While this reporter could not interview the scientist, she was permitted to see him from a distance at the sites where he said that material from the arms program was buried.
Clad in nondescript clothes and a baseball cap, he pointed to several spots in the sand where he said chemical precursors and other weapons material were buried. This reporter also accompanied MET Alpha on the search for him and was permitted to examine a letter written in Arabic that he slipped to American soldiers offering them information about the program and seeking their protection.
So, ignore what all those named scientists accessible to the press say. This guy, yeah, him over there in the ball cap, corroborates everything Bush said, thus obviating our need to produce the weapons that we told you Saddam had. Just please don't try to approach or question him. Also, sit on your copy for a few days before submitting it to us for screening and redaction. Basically, just report what we say.
I know Miller was bureau chief of Cairo, but I also know that many correspondents cannot speak the language of the country to which they are assigned. How well does Miller read Arabic? posted by Grady9:36 AM
By the way, Herr Professor Doktor Reynolds never did quite explain how he can simultaneously deride the "IT'S ALL ABOUT OOOIIILLL" explanation for the war in Iraq (i.e., claim that anything smaking of the pecuniary is ridiculous) while claiming that France and Germany opposed the war solely on pecuniary grounds. posted by Grady7:31 AM
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Glenn Reynolds' enthusiasm in pursuing stories ("What is it with these Algerians?") is known to flag once it seems a story will not provide neat corroboration of his barbaric and class contemptuous worldview. Thankfully "Blogs" such as the excellent wyeth wire don't tire as easily.
I once worked as a punch press operator, lasting about two weeks bashing sheet metal into half-rounds. I know how tiring mindless, repetitive work can be, and Lord Sullivan's been at it a whole lot longer than two weeks. You've earned your rest, old boy. Enjoy it!
Douglas Feith, a top Pentagon official, has reportedly drawn up a contingency plan for a strike on Syria, but it remains under lock and key, unseen by the White House and the National Security Agency
Under lock and key, just like the "proof" of Saddam's WMDs that Bush and Blair, not wanting to "compromise" their sources, refused to share with the world. Now that Saddam is "no longer in power," and the threat to those sources is, ahem, lessened, can we please see your evidence?
Returning to Feith's secret plan, if this lunatic has his way, the specifics of that plan will soon be made very clear to the Syrians. And the Iranians. And the North Koreans. And the Libyans; "and I could go on," says the loon.
The killbloggers, with spittle running down the chin and a pronounced bulge in the shorts, wait in anticipation. posted by Grady8:45 AM
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Saturday, April 12, 2003
Don't know how many words were deployed in sanctifying Michael Kelly, but the patriotic media spent damned few on the serviceman who perished along with Kelly. As of present, a Nexis search yields just 51 hits for "Wilbert Davis," the soldier believed to be driving the Humvee crashing into the canal, killing both, over the past 60 days. Of course, most of these citations came via casualty counts, burial notices, and photo captions. The Tampa Tribune - the paper based in Davis' native city - was one of the few to honor him properly.
The neighboring Orlando Sentinel ran a full 71 words announcing Mr. Davis' death. The headline to that item read, "TAMPA-BORN SOLDIER DIED IN CRASH ALONG WITH JOURNALIST."
The Washington Post, where Kelly's demands for war often appeared, ran a piece on Mr. Davis.
A search for "Michael Kelly," the pro-combat non-combatant, over those same 60 days returned 970 articles.
This correspondent found no mention of Davis' vs Kelly's salary.
"President" George W. Bush, White House Briefing, March 6, 2003: "He has weapons of mass destruction."
The Baltimore Sun, March 19, 2003:
Should an Iraqi attack employing chemical or biological weapons not materialize, however, the burden would fall to U.S. forces to find and expose to the world the deadly arsenal that Bush and others have long insisted Hussein possesses.
"If Iraq doesn't use chemical or biological weapons, and an investigation of the Iraqi program reveals just a small amount, we will clearly have egg on our face, and it could undermine the Bush administration's justification for going to war," said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington research organization.
Belfast Telegraph, April 11, 2003:
Twenty-two days after the invasion of Iraq, British and American forces have yet to confirm a finding of weapons of mass destruction.
Reuters, April 12, 2003: "U.S. offers reward for news on Saddam, WMD"
So, we knew he had them - an assertion presumably based on evidence. This evidence served as a justification for the war. War waged, we're now paying people to give us evidence to serve as justification. Seems about right. Heh. Indeed.
Judge Dredd: The New Face of America. Here's yet another installment of inadvertently political comics or how the world views the United States. Please note the Fox/CNN news anchor on the left hand side. The artist is Simon Bisley. Note to Mike Medved: Comic creators have always been wildly left of center (mostly) and iconoclast. The absence of significant ad revenue allows that. Comics are probably the least censored mass medium in the United States. And if you're mad about what Captain America is doing now, then you probably wouldn't like him much during Watergate either, when he resigned the costume and became The Nomad...!
Continuing attacks on US forces in Baghdad by Iraqi fighters in civilian clothes produced a deadly response on Thursday, as nervous soldiers of the US 5th Marines opened fire repeatedly, hitting unarmed men, women and children.
Three times in three hours I saw troops who had seized one of Saddam Hussein's small palaces open fire, killing five people and wounding five - among them a six-year-old girl who was shot in the head.
"There's just no reason that this can't be an affordable endeavor," said White House budget director Mitch Daniels of the present war with Iraq. That's great! The Reuters piece containing the quote reported that the administration - conspicuously committed to bettering the lives of Iraqis - is already downplaying the costs of reconstructing Iraq. "So far," the piece notes, "the White House has requested about $2.4 billion for humanitarian aid and reconstruction."
Or, put differently, 20 per cent less than what Congress - the great guarantor of free enterprise and free markets - proposes to give to the airlines.
[I realize I didn't use a killblogger as a peg to hang the above on; frankly, I'm too tired to bother.] posted by Grady1:19 PM
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On April 9, the always horrid Diane of Letter From Gotham wrote:
This beat is well patrolled by Atrios and others, but as warblogger Glenn Reynolds found it "hard to believe" that genteel Yalies could behave like disgusting thugs, I feel obliged to pass along these lovely stories from that esteemed institution.
Raphael Soifer '04 said he was the victim of such harassment Wednesday evening when a man spit on him as he was walking out of the Davenport dining hall. Soifer had just finished participating in a silent vigil mourning the loss of Iraqi civilians killed during the current conflict.
"I'm a little scared, and I'm a little disappointed that [such intimidation] is going on at Yale," Soifer said. "It's ironic but distressing that the people in support of the war are working to stifle expression of others in the United States."
"I definitely feel for the families and friends of those who have to go over there and fight the war, but we also have a war we have to fight, too--the Washington Wizards are trying to make the playoffs," he said. "It's pretty much the same thing. They're going over there to fight for what they believe in, what we believe in as a country. We're fighting for what we believe in as a basketball team."
Al Qaeda, Iraq - it's pretty much the same thing. posted by Grady9:00 AM
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Judging by his most recent effort, Hitchens is in Baghdad, arriving, well, just a few days behind Robert Fisk. I'm sure Hitch's beloved Orwell would have remained holed up in the Kuwait City Hilton while the life and death struggle against Islamofascist-terrorist Stalinoids was being fought. As the battle joined, Hitchens joined fellow conservatives for a cocktail.
Hitchens departed from recent form in not naming his current Mirror piece "We Must Search the Sewers," but he did remain true to his now familiar habit of accusing anyone of insufficient credulity before state power of either wearing a tinfoil hat or of seeking to "make liberation impossible." It's his most wearisome outing to date. posted by Grady8:37 AM
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Thursday, April 10, 2003
More GHR: "Of course, an absence of dead Iraqis would disappoint the bloody-shirt element of the peace movement, if not the Pentagon. But Marc Herold can probably supply dead bodies as needed, in any quantity requested..."
Glenn Reynolds, thoughtful bugger he is, links to a "talking points memo for the peace movement." It's great that The Professor knows exactly what the peace movement is thinking, though that's a minor feat of divination compared to his determination of just exactly what the Iraqis are thinking at present. Previously Matt Welch held the record for reckoning-at-a-distance with his count of dead Iraqi children. Welch's achievement was an empirical survey. GHR adds a dimension of the supernatural, his being in apparent telepathic conversation with Iraqi consciousness.
For my part, I am disinclined to attribute a preferred narrative to the doings in Baghdad. Getting a few days distance between present events and ones summation will likely change the image entirely, as does getting a few hundred meters distance between the camera and present events. Things seem too ambiguous. posted by Grady8:59 AM
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Wednesday, April 09, 2003
I had thought those ridiculous "We Must..." titles to Hitchens' Mirror pieces were simply ill-chosen rhetorical devices. Seems the easier explanation - lunacy - was correct. A full DSM IV's worth of manias operating on him, Hitchens writes today of the war and his plans to gloat obnoxiously at an upcoming peace demonstration: "All of this has been done in my name, and I feel like bearing witness." posted by Grady2:15 PM
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The Bushites have named the persons they propose to install in post-Saddam Iraq. Among them: serial controversialist Robin Raphel, who left a series of "diplomatic land mines" across South Asia as assistant secretary of state; John Limbert, who was so oblivious to popular resentment against the Shah that he was taken unaware when the Shah was overthrown - and was himself was taken hostage in the embassy; and Clint Williamson, recent head of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo's justice department, called "unprofessional" and incoherent by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Afghanistan gets an ice cream man. Iraq gets a woman who bumbled across India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. posted by Grady12:48 PM
Meanwhile, I wonder where all those celebrities who seemed to care so much about the Iraqi people when they were opposing the war have disappeared to now that it’s won. Shouldn’t they be organizing benefit concerts or something? Or was it all just posturing? The postwar era will be a test for American diplomacy and administrative skills. But it’ll be a test for some other people, too.
We'll see the level of solidarity the anti-war movement musters in the weeks to come, but the administration that so awes The Professor has so far performed as an historically conscious proctor would have predicted:
Hay Al Ansar, on the outskirts of Najaf in Iraq, was glad to be rid of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party government, when the city was seized by US forces last week.
But they appear to be just as terrified, if not more so, of their new rulers - a little-known Iraqi militia backed by the US special forces and headquartered in a compound nearby.
The Iraqi Coalition of National Unity (ICNU), which appeared in the city last week riding on US special forces vehicles, has taken to looting and terrorising their neighbourhood with impunity, according to most residents.
"They steal and steal," said a man living near the Medresa al Tayif school, calling himself Abu Zeinab. "They threaten us, saying: 'We are with the Americans, you can do nothing to us'."
Sa'ida al Hamed, another resident, said she witnessed looting by the ICNU and other armed gangs in the city, which lost its police force when the government fled last week. One man told a US army translator on Monday that he was taken out of his house and beaten by ICNU forces when he refused to give them his car. They took it anyway.
If true, the testimony of residents reveals a darker side to US policy in Iraq. In their distaste for peacekeeping and eagerness to hand the ruling of Iraq back to Iraqis, US forces are in danger of losing the peace as rapidly as they have won the war.
US special forces said they were looking into the complaints, which had been passed to them by US military sources. They declined, however, to discuss the formation of the group, how its members were chosen, or who they were.
The head of the ICNU, who says he is a former colonel in the Iraqi artillery forces who has been working with the underground opposition since 1996, announced on Tuesday that he was acting mayor of Najaf, and his group had taken over administration of the city.
Other Iraqi exiles, brought in by the CIA and US special forces to help assemble a local government over the next few days, say the militia is out of control.
"They are nobody, and nobody has ever heard of them, all they have is US backing," said an Arab journalist.
Winning hearts and minds, indeed.
Perhaps it would have been more prudent for Instapuppet to ask whether Bush et al will pay for the post-war reconstruction as they should, or whether they'll bill the Iraqi people (via a confiscation of oil resources) for the war. posted by Grady11:36 AM
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Two (relatively) new "Blogs" readers of this page may be interested in:
Hector Rottweiller Jr's Web Log is a collaborative effort, though the bulk of the posts originate with Curtiss Leung. Very recommended.
Erstwhile Warblogger-Watcher Roy Edroso and friends have traded down, relocating their excellent alicublog to the blogspot hosting service. The upside of occasional blogspot-related inaccessability is the addition of permalinks. Here, for instance, Edroso offers a hearfelt farewell to a fellow practitioner of the journalistic arts who is leaving Edroso's New York for the cultural Medina that is Dallas. Mecca of course being Sandusky, Ohio.
In a letter to the Oman Observer, Mohammed Ali Ramadhan of Al Suwaiq writes:
Jordan’s Prince Hassan bin Talal’s offer to play a coordinating role in the political reconstruction of Iraq appears very reasonable. After all, he is familiar with the nature of Arab politics, much more than any White House appointee can claim to know. Having been schooled in the finer points of Arab diplomacy, and the cultural and political sensibilities of the region, Prince Hassan is perhaps ideally suited for the job as interim administrator in Baghdad on behalf of the United Nations. In fact, by appointing an Arab leader with such distinguished credentials, the US and Britain can still hope to win the “hearts and minds” of Iraqis, and of Arabs in general.
Great idea, Mohammed! Thanks for writing! Sadly, though, it is doubtful that this arrangement will work out. The US appears to have decided that a convicted criminal who hasn’t lived in Iraq since 1958 is a much better choice for the position. However, Mohammed, you can perhaps take some relief in knowing that Mr. Chalabi does have a Jordanian connection- - -that’s where he was convicted!
This one was liberated not from Iraq proper but from Denmark, where he was under investigation for war crimes. So after ridding the world of a tyrant who used chemical weapons on his own people, the liberators seem poised to replace said tyrant with the field marshal who actually chose "the chemicals to be used and the intensity with which to drop them."
I'm really hoping this is another instance of the press getting it wrong and presenting a hoax as fact, but The Frogs of War at AFP who broke this have been better than most. I'll be checking Slate and the Mirror tomorrow for Hitchens demonstration that the successful prosecution of a war on theocratic fascism actually requires such perfidious maneuvering. posted by Grady12:32 PM
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The bloggers of mass destruction sure love their polls. Lummox Taranto reports on a poll showing 81 per cent of Americans affirming that they have a clear idea of what the present war is about. I don't know why the statistic so fascinates the Lummox; after all, I'm sure even Ted Rall believes he knows what the war is all about.
Here are some more poll results the killbloggers may care to put in their pipes and smoke:
In a Jan. 7 Knight Ridder/Princeton Research poll, 44% of respondents said they thought "most" or "some" of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers were Iraqi citizens. Only 17% of those polled offered the correct answer: none.
Glenn Reynolds comes within inches of calling one of his preferred cites a liar today. "Blogger" Josh Chafetz had told of a story passed along by an "old and trusted friend" who related the events of: "Last week here at Yale, [where] several male students, armed with a 2x4 in the middle of the night, broke into the suite of another female student and activist, because she had an American flag hanging upside-down (a symbol of distress, dissent with the government) out the window of her room." Chafetz next relates how his trusted friend "verified [the events] with the victim."
For Herr Professor Doktor Reynolds, "The story, frankly, seems hard to believe." Per Reynolds, Chafetz, then, cannot be relied upon to pass along factual reports from friends-of-friends. Will Reynolds then continue to pay attention to the unreliable Chafetz's speculations about events involving the administration or Islamofascistterorristagressors - i.e., persons further removed from the circle of friends of friends - if Chafetz cannot be relied upon to report accurately on the life and times of his intimates? Yes - as long as Chafetz's writings buttress GHR's BS.
Glenn, for his part, believes it "does it not sound like Yale students to do such a thing, it doesn't sound like the way Yale students would do such a thing if they did." True Yalies, of course, flee such martial endeavors, ordering proxies to deploy not 2x4s but daisy cutters and cluster bombs in their stead. posted by Grady10:29 PM
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The Watchers
WBW: Keeping track of the war exhortations of the warbloggers.
