Deep Impact

'MSM Neutrality'

 

Iraqi forces targeted a terrorist cell during an operation yesterday in a Shiite neighborhood of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, and didn't enter a mosque in the area, the U.S. military said in a statement.

"Iraqi Special Operations Forces conducted a twilight raid in the Adhamiyah neighborhood in northeast Baghdad to disrupt a terrorist cell responsible for conducting attacks on Iraqi security and coalition forces and kidnapping Iraqi civilians,'' the U.S. military said in a statement e-mailed late yesterday from Baghdad. ``No mosques were entered or damaged.''

The statement contradicts claims by an official in Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari's Dawa Party, who said 16 people killed in the operation were in the mosque, according to Agence France-Presse. U.S. and Iraqi forces were chasing a wanted man who fled into the mosque, the official said.

"This was a hostile attack looking to destroy the political process and provoke civil war,'' Jawad Maliki told the Iraqia television channel, AFP reported. "We put full responsibility on U.S. troops and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.''

When Iraq forces entered the area they came under fire, the U.S. statement said. They returned fire and killed 16 insurgents and detained 15 others. A man who was being held hostage by the group was also released.

U.S. forces were advising the Iraqi soldiers, the statement said. No Iraqi or U.S. soldiers were killed.

According to the U.S intelligence, the operation was conducted exclusively by the Iraqi forces, despite an absolutely rampant slander machine set in motion immediately by the MSM in the west, and the Iraqi television, both showing video footage of piles of dead bodies inside the 'prayer room' of the mosque, with reporting of a US attack on unarmed civilians to boot.

Well speaking of boots, there was one big problem, the dead bodies in the mosque were all wearing shoes. Now as any good Allah worshiping Muslim will know the praying code in the 'prayer room' requires Muslims to pray five times a day including once after the sun sets, once after dark and once in the early hours of the morning before sun rise, all of those times without their shoes on.

The 16 killed in the twilight assault were followers of the young and powerful Shiite Muslim cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, who has strong ties to Iran, and who narrowly escaped death himself yesterday, in an assassination attempt when a mortar with his name on was launched from a neighboring house. He was running his "terrorist cell" headquarters from the mosque, and was held personally responsible for attacks on American and Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi civilians alike.

The differing versions of what happened seemed to raise a broader question about who is in control of Iraq's security at a time when Iraqi politicians still have not formed a unified government, sectarian tensions are higher than ever and mutilated bodies keep surfacing on the streets. On Sunday, Iraqi authorities found 10 bodies in Baghdad and said they were investigating a report that 30 men were beheaded near Baquba.

American officials are now saying that Shiite militias are the No. 1 problem in Iraq, more dangerous than the Sunni-led insurgents who for nearly the past three years have been branded the gravest security threat.

Shiite militias have been accused of running death squads that kidnap and brutalize Sunni men, and on Sunday the American military said the cell its forces raided had kidnapped Iraq civilians.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Blair is defending his Iraq policy and voicing outrage that there is so much anti-American sentiment in Europe:

"If we want to secure our way of life, there's no alternative but to fight for it. That means standing up for our values not just in our own country but the world over.

"We need to construct a global alliance for these global values and act through it."

"I don't always agree with the US. Sometimes they are difficult friends to have."

"But the strain of, frankly, anti-American feeling in parts of European politics is madness when set against the long-term interests of the world we believe in."

No longer could the world's major problems be addressed without co-operation between nations and Mr Blair thanked Australia for its past support.

He said: "This is the age of the interconnected - we all recognize this when it comes to economics, communication and culture, but the same applies to politics.

The struggle in our world today therefore, is not just about security it is a struggle about values and about modernity, whether to be at ease with it or enraged."

Ed Morrissey on "telling us what we already know":

"The New York Times reports on leaked notes from a US-UK White House summit in January 2003 that shows both George Bush and Tony Blair determined to remove Saddam Hussein and to put an end to the twelve-year quagmire that kept Saddam in power. Like most of the Gray Lady's reporting on the war (except for the estimable John Burns), this supposed revelation rehashes what we already know, with a thin veneer of hyperbole:

In the weeks before the United States-led invasion of Iraq, as the United States and Britain pressed for a second United Nations resolution condemning Iraq, President Bush's public ultimatum to Saddam Hussein was blunt: Disarm or face war.

But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.

"Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning," David Manning, Mr. Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and six of their top aides.

Well of course. Why wouldn't they. Ed continues to put things into perspective and asks:

"By this time, had the US not had a plan for military action against Iraq, it would have been almost criminally neglectful. Why should it surprise anyone that two nations that faced war with Saddam Hussein would discuss the military strategy involved in that war?."

We remember the rest: France, Russia and Germany had their investments and contracts with Hussein to protect, which were of course mostly established in violation of the sanctions and under various schemes abusing the 'oil-for-food' program (background here and here). As usual, all the outrage against America's and Britain's  preparations for military actions after 16 resolutions and the refusal to agree to yet another resolution, was entirely based on reasons of selfish greed and had nothing to do with the purported concern for what was in the best interest of the Iraqi people.

The only fault I can see, is that Tony Blair in his push for the 17th resolution simply underestimated the level of selfishness to which the French would stoop in their willingness to go as far as to issue the hitherto unprecedented threat to veto any resolution authorizing military action against Hussein (if only he had known at the time that the French alone had some $13 billion in BNP Paribas’s Iraq accounts to 'protect'), which as Ed Morrissey points out, was not even needed:

"Now, thanks to captured notes of Iraqi meetings, we know that Saddam remained confident that his bribery of France and Russia (as well as their well-known economic interest in maintaining their contracts with the Saddam regime) would result in a stalemate at the Security Council over any resolution opening military force as a consequence of failure. That may be why France practically begged Blair at that moment not to pursue a "second resolution" (actually a 17th); they assured both the US and the UK that the previous sixteen resolutions gave plenty of cause for action, but that France would find it politically impossible to vote for explicit military action against Iraq."

In light of these findings and in the face of the current violence and horrific killings, which are in nature so barbaric, that anyone with any sense must see, that they aren't carried out by any segment of an angry population, but instead by small bands of murderous thugs, I am quite simply disgusted by the attempted distortion and willful duplicity with which the MSM is driving its anti-Bush and we-have-already-failed-in-Iraq-so-let's-get-the-hell-out-of-there agenda.

I am outraged by the stubborn refusal of the MSM and the anti-war faction to acknowledge that this current violence is in fact the surest sign of our progress in Iraq. This isn't just some apologist rhetoric, but plain-old common sense. Maximum brutality and intimidation by a small number of hardcore terrorists is their last resort. This isn't civil war, but it is sure as hell intended to get one going so as to squash any hope for a free Iraq. Leaving at this stage is just plain irresponsible and not an option. Thank God this Administration understands this.

So have the media declared war on Iraq or are they simply blatantly lying?

From Wretchard @ The Belmont Club:

The spin is already in. The BBC is reporting "The American forces went into Mustafa mosque at prayers and killed more than 20 worshippers". Healing Iraq notes that even on tape an Arabic speaking listener can hear the cameraman saying:
Someone in the background was asking the cameraman to film grenades lying around the corpses, to which the cameraman responded: "I can't show our guys' grenades."

"No, these are American grenades," the man in the background explained.

"Oh, okay I'll film them."

Al-Iraqiya TV was very critical of the attack, and is describing those killed as martyrs.

Don't miss Bill Roggio's account, although he posts quite early hence the beginning of the report is still confusing as to the US involvement, which became clear as yesterday's events unfolded.

Pat Santy has some great cartoons depicting the MSM at work

More @ Washington Post, Blue Star Chronicles, Confederate Yankee, The Moderate Voice,  with the left all over it like a rash @  Digby's, The Washington Monthly, The Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and dozens of others here. 

UPDATE I: The London Times picks up on Tony Blair's speech in Australia, well aware that if the President had his communication skills in tact, maybe the resistance would be much more reasonable and not infused with all the vitriolic hatred:

[Prime Minister Blair] said that the danger today was not that the Americans were too much involved in international affairs. The danger was that they might decide to pull up the drawbridge and disengage.

“We need them involved. We want them engaged,” Mr Blair said. “The reality is that none of the problems that press in on us can be resolved or even contemplated without them.”

He added: “The strain of anti-American feeling in parts of European and world politics is madness when set against the long-term interests of the world we believe in.”  [...]

The centrepiece of Mr Blair’s speech was a call for a new global alliance representing universal values. The alliance did not end with America but began with her, and it required an active foreign policy of engagement, not isolationism.

“If we want to secure our way of life, there is no alternative but to fight for it. That means standing up for our values, not just in our own country but the world over,” he said.

Mr Blair made plain that he wanted Australia on board. In 1939 when Britain declared war on Nazi Germany, Australia was by her side — “no if, no buts”. “We needed you then, we need you now,” he said.

On Iraq, Mr Blair told the Parliament: “I know the Iraq war split this nation as it did mine, and I have never disrespected those who disagreed with me over it.” But he added: “We must not hesitate in the face of a battle utterly decisive in whether the values we believe in triumph or fail.

“If the going is tough, we tough it out. This is not a time to walk away. This is a time for the courage to see it through.”

UPDATE II: Off topic, but very important. The incredibly talented Fausta does a great job of putting together a blogburst of over thirty bloggers who are posting today about Guillermo Fariñas, the Cuban prisoner of conscience who is on hunger strike for being denied internet access. Dean Esmay is amongst them (on Fausta's blog):

They don't even deny people this freedom in China--they try to censor it, but they don't deny people access to it. In China they have it better! Is it even thinkable?

Comments

[weekenderman]

Very well put, Darrell!

[Darrell]

For all you newcomers, all you need to know about DavidByron can be found in his words above. He is as truthful and accurate as he is above always. Any fool can see that the MSM is in league with George W. Bush. The rest of us know that they are not.

[Paul of York]

We seem to be in a pit of venomous snakes, trying to deal with them all while the most venomous are our own MSM which could be of enormous help but choose to go with sensationalism and let seething anger build in the middle east toward the men and women serving all of us.

[Saul Davis]

Mr. Byron: You state: "Btw is all this stuff about how left wing the media is a sort of running joke with you guys? American media these days is pretty much a state run propaganda operation."

Which planet did you come from? Have you never heard of Dan Rather, Maureen Dowd, etc. This is Gov't run media? You are past exasperating and into Alice in Wonderland. My apologies Alexandra, but his last post was off the wall.

[DavidByron]

Btw is all this stuff about how left wing the media is a sort of running joke with you guys? American media these days is pretty much a state run propaganda operation. Your reporters are more like stenographers. Perhaps you should look at some European media if you want an example of something approaching proper journalism. It's even noticeable in the difference between the US and international versions of CNN.

[Stefan]

Great post Alexandra,

I must say that Fox news still runs endlessly many of the breathless stories of death in Iraq ala CNN but they often have guests with a more complete picture on to help give some perspective to the violence. CNN and others seem to have no interest.

I don't ever remember the "Neocons" saying Saddam was an Islamic fundamentalist and he was never a great lover of religious diversity. He promoted those that were lapdogs and those that would fulfill his brutal decrees. I’d advise people not to speak too soon or too sweepingly on Saddam’s flirting with Islamic extremists and terrorism. He was an opportunist and if he thought enabling and encouraging terrorism on western targets would help him then it is very possible that he would have. September 11, was still a new turn of events and I have no doubt that it gave him a lot of ideas. It was the first real damage done to his mortal enemy and he may very well have been thinking of how he could get in the game through a proxy. Even if, in his mind, he would be using radical Islamists for his own duplicitous purposes the results of that aid could have been much worse than the World Trade Center. There is literally tons of evidence that has yet to be gone through yet so things may change in either direction. Even if Bin Laden was not on Saddam’s speed dial there was reason enough to desire his removal.

[http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/]

Motto of the MSM:

"Always the last to know, so you won't have to be."

[Washington]

Dr. de la Vega mentions Fox News. Every week I attend a gathering of veterans (I want give the name)-a large one-that adds new members weekly because of the troops coming home from Iraq. There are usually several televisions going but we observe one hard, fast rule; No CNN or Fox news.

[Dr Victorino de la Vega]

“I am outraged by the stubborn refusal of the MSM and the anti-war faction to acknowledge that this current violence is in fact the surest sign for our progress in Iraq. This isn't just some apologist rhetoric, but plain-old common sense”

Frankly Alexandra (and this is from a BIG fan of yours!), you’re blinded by all that Neocon propaganda you’ve been spoonfed by the Pentagon press corps.
:))

And as much as I have no sympathy for the MSM appeasers and other pinko obfuscators, I’m afraid the Neocon media aren’t less parsimonious with the truth.

Take Fox News or the New York Sun for the sake of argument: the latter recently published yet another article purporting to “prove” the existence of secret links between the Iraqi Baath party and Al Qaeda- see link below:
Saddam, Al Qaeda Did Collaborate, Documents Show

However, reading the article in question only “reveals” that:
“The document has no official stamps or markers”
“The question of future cooperation [between Saddam and Bin Laden] is left an open question”
“New documents […] did not prove Saddam Hussein played a role in any way in plotting the attacks of September 11, 2001”

Funny how after their Iraq debacle, the Neocons haven’t stopped peddling the tall tale of Saddam’s alleged “connections” with OBL: the Leninist thugs of Washington are decidedly obsessed with Saddam and the Baath party…even after they’ve been rendered inoffensive- assuming they ever posed a threat to America any other country.

Bush, Cheney & Co. have always lied about the nature of the Iraqi regime, repeatedly accusing Saddam Hussein of being an Islamic fundamentalist in cahoots with Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban: unfortunately, after having been bombarded with fabricated infomercials produced by Israeli “Middle-East experts”, the American public eventually came to believe exactly what the Neocon wanted: that Saddam was kind of a later days bloodthirsty Saracen, on the verge of conquering the Infidel pastures of Wyoming and Oklahoma!

Yet, as we now know, the truth is otherwise: there never were any “links” between the Baath party and Al Qaeda, no spooky “secret meetings” in Vienna or Prague or “somewhere in Eastern Europe” between “Saddam’s diplomatic envoy and Bin Laden’s righthand man” as Vice-President Dick Cheney had alleged on numerous occasions

In Fact, Saddam Hussein was a staunchly secular Arab nationalist, a disciple of professor Mitchell Aflaq, the French-educated Orthodox Christian philosopher. And, if anything, Christian minorities and women were generally overrepresented in Saddam’s government: Vice-President Tareq Hanna Aziz was actually Catholic and so were Saddam’s Chief of Staff and many of the senior civil servants working at the presidential palace.

And check out this article for a fascinating firsthand description of Saddam’s Tickrit “spider hole” hideout:
“Pinned to the outside wall of the hut was a cardboard box depicting biblical scenes such as the Last Supper and the Madonna and child with the English inscription "God bless our home." Inside the bedroom was a 2003 calendar in Arabic with a colorful depiction of Noah's Ark. Soldiers were surprised at the Christian decorations”

Yes these US soldiers were “surprised” after having been brainwashed about Saddam’s penchant for Islamic fundamentalism…which turned out to be just another lie churned out by Washington’s Neo-Conmintern propaganda factory.

Like him or not, Saddam Hussein was a truly modernist, Westernized Arab head of state who protected women’s rights and enforced affirmative action programs in favor of Iraq’s tiny Christian minority. “Old Europe’s” foreign policy establishment viewed the Iraqi Baath party essentially as a strong bulwark against both Persian-Khomeinist fundamentalism and Wahhabi-Afghan terrorism.

The Israelis and Washington’s Neocons thought otherwise: now we have to deal with the strictures of Sharia Law in Afghanistan, the rise of Hamas and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) which they have deliberately brought to power…

[Michael (van der) Galien]

I heard on Dutch tv (not the utmost supporters of Bush) that the people living in the neighboorhood agreed with what the american army said about the situation; that it were extremists / terrorists who shot at the troops and NOT people who just visited a mosque.

[Washington]

I am outraged by the stubborn refusal of the MSM and the anti-war faction to acknowledge that this current violence is in fact the surest sign for our progress in Iraq.

Why? I mean why are you outraged? It's like getting upset at a Dolphin because it swims. We all harp about the MSM. We recognize that they do a poor job. Why would they suddenly report facts? I'm sure you have seen Molly Ivins latest quote about bloggers-if not it's at several blogs including http://www.rollingbarrage.com/archives/2006/03/molly_ivins_or_mollys_folly.php
That says a great deal about the MSM.

As for the anti-war faction they are not going to change their tune and we shouldn't expect it. It wouldn't matter if we were fighting a hoarde of Islamic barbarians inside a Wal-Mart in Orlando - the anti-war faction would be yelling it was "our" fault.

[Alexandra]

Byron,

Well the last time I was in a Mosque they took their booties off just to go into the one room which was for public (male) prayer.

Yes that is where the bodies were laying. The prayer room. What is your point?

[DavidByron]

Now as any good Allah worshiping Muslim will know the praying code requires Muslims to pray five times a day including once after the sun sets, once after dark and once in the early hours of the morning before sun rise, all of those times without their shoes on.

Well the last time I was in a Mosque they took their booties off just to go into the one room which was for public (male) prayer.