Latest On The Jamil Hussein Saga

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Barry Caro, a sophomore at Princeton, penned a great article a few weeks ago in the college paper about the Jamil Hussein story:

The most explosive and far-reaching news story of the year has nothing to do with underage pages and a certain Republican ex-Congressman. This story involves ignition in the streets of Baghdad and six immolations that probably never occurred. While Mark Foley took down a congressional majority, the tale of Jamil Hussein may end up permanently damaging the credibility of the world’s premier news gathering source, the Associate Press (AP).

The story begins on Nov. 24 when Qais al-Bashir, an Iraqi "stringer" working for the AP, wrote a story in which he alleged that Shiite militiamen avenging earlier attacks burned down four Sunni mosques in Baghdad and that during this rampage, they burned six Sunni civilians alive.

[…]Shortly after the story was published, U.S. Central Command and the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior sent units to the neighborhood where the attacks were said to have taken place. They found no bodies, no other witnesses who would corroborate the story and only one lightly damaged mosque. Perplexed, they questioned the local "imam." He quickly recanted his story. So the ministry went looking for Jamil Hussein and discovered that no one by that name is employed by the Iraqi police. After confirming that no Captain Hussein existed, the ministry publicly stated that Hussein is one of more than a dozen official sources quoted in the press who are not who they claim to be.

[…]That the story is wrong is beyond debate; even the AP now refers to one burned mosque, not four, so the question is not "if" but "how badly" the AP screwed up. Yet instead of an apology, the AP’s response to criticism has been to shoot the messenger.

[…]So why have traditional media sources not reported this controversy? Because it is not in their interests to undermine the AP. This summer’s "fauxtography" scandal at Reuters, in which photographers were found to have photoshopped evidence of Israeli atrocities during the Hezbollah war, did not hit at the underlying narrative. The storyline stayed the same with different details. If the AP has to issue a correction for all 61 stories in which Hussein was quoted, it will call into question fundamental perceptions about what is happening in Iraq. If Hussein isn’t real, it suggests that there are other as yet undiscovered fakes.

Meanwhile Confederate Yankee noticed something amiss….again, in the AP’s initial reporting of the Burning Six story:

In the detailed follow-up account to the initial "burning six" story AP insisted:

Two workers at Kazamiyah Hospital also confirmed that bodies from the clashes and immolation had been taken to the morgue at their facility.

They refused to be identified by name, saying they feared retribution.

This is a damn fine trick. According to Iraqi Brigadier General Abdul-Kareem, (via an email exchange with MNC-I PAO) their is no morgue at Kazamiyah Hospital. Any dead at Kazamiyah Hospital are transported by the police to the Medical Jurisprudence Center at Bab Almadham.

And SeeDubya points out that this is more the likely the reason the AP changed their story…again:

Think that’s a pretty good catch, huh? Maybe the AP caught it themselves, because on November 28th, when they re-visited Hurriya after more challenges, this is what a witness told them:

One witness said he and other people from the neighborhood took the six immolation victims to the Sunni cemetery near Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib suburb and buried them after the gunbattle. That witness said one of the victims was the Mustafa mosque muezzin or prayer caller, Ahmed al-Mashadani. He did not know the names of the five others, but said they were all members of the al-Mashadani tribe.

Is this how the AP corrects its stories? Whether there is a morgue at Kazamiyah hospital or not, the destination of the bodies changed within three days, without notice or explanation. Why would we presume this witness–supposedly one of their two anonymous eyewitnesses to the burning–is any more reliable than the fellow who said the bodies went into the morgue at Kazamiyah hospital? Which of the AP’s sources lied to them?

Meanwhile, does anyone else notice that the AP no longer names ANY source in their Iraq reporting.  Seems like everyone "wants" to be anonymous nowadays.  How convenient:

The doctor, who has provided information in the past, spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.

Said a physician at the nearby Nuaman Hospital, who has provided information to the Associated Press in the past. He also asked to remain anonymous out of concern for his safety.

The bomb killed five people and wounded 14 others, police said.

and wounded six others, police said

That is one single report from earlier today.  Four separate incidents and no one was named.

The AP is hoping that if they ignore the hoopla over Jamil Hussein that it will all go away.  They will continue to use questionable sources, just now they won’t name them, and in the end nothing changes.  We still get hyped up stories about the "hell on earth" we call Iraq.

As I named my original post which broke the Jamil Hussein story, they are STILL getting the news from the enemy.

Finally, Nancy French writes about the blunders made on the left for 2006:

November: After months of therapy trying to “find himself,” Iraqi Jamil Hussein realizes he doesn’t exist after all — in spite of his frequent mentions in the Associated Press. A blogger uncovers the revelation that the AP used false sources and fabricated stories of war atrocities. James Frey doesn’t see what the big deal is, since a “higher truth” is being told.

Facts!  We don’t need no stinkin’ facts! 

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As far as I know the Interior Ministry in Iraq has official spokespersons who can be identified by name with regard to reporting of civilian casualties.

That AP is unwilling to name sources implies that the reports they are receiving are “unofficial”. They also neglect to state if those reports have been independently confirmed. So we have official named sources available but they choose to use unconfirmed anonymous sources.

The only conclusion one can reach is that AP is probably including a lot of inaccurate reports and is only striving to confirm them when questioned. At this point I would say that AP reports can not be viewed as accurate or authoritative and in many cases could be invented by the source for economic or propaganda purposes.

Reuters has been refusing to name sources on casualty reports for quite some time.

News outlets are performing in an unprofessional manner with a degree of ethical integrity that brings shame to the entire journalism trade. I believe them like I believe a used car salesman.

I suppose we could make up “truthy” stuff to publish in our blogs too. At this point AP and Reuters ability to influence opinion is greatly diminished and soon to be at the level of Mad Magazine if they keep this up.

Is “Barry Caro of Princeton” related to the Robert Caro of “Power Broker” fame, who exposed left-winged fleas infesting Robert Moses’ armpits? What’s “brilliant” about treating mass-media subversives seriously? (We were Nassau-onians too, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, before the wheel, previous to co-eds quivering at every patriarchal slight.)

In any case, this endless waffling over a perfectly obvious propaganda ploy is beside the point. “Police Captain Jamail” does not and never did exist. Associated Press contributors –so-called “correspondents”, stringers, anonymous tipsters– are certifiable, habitual, shameless liars. Their putative Editors are knowingly, wilfully complicit in subverting “news” accounts in furtherance of an extreme left-wing agenda that seeks U.S. defeat and failure at all costs, by any means. As in South Vietnam, Cambodia et.al. this means that Iraq’s nascent democratic polity will have to perish, taking with it literally millions of benighted victims foolish enough to believe America’s assurances.

No disrespect to Barry Caro of Princeton, Class of ’09, but we recall the Autumn of 1956 when Soviet tanks rolled into Hungary; Harold Macmillan attacked Nasser’s nationalized Suez Canal; Eisenhower rode to re-election without benefit of today’s scurrilous personal attacks, venomous partisan animosities worthy of Paris in 1792. By 2050, Mr. Caro will probably have seen at least one American metropolis vaporized by Iran, North Korea, Venezuela… name a kleptocratic thugocracy, any one will do. Call it Jihad, Revolution, Gringo-phobia, whatever… our question for the Class of 2009 won’t be, why did you not prevent this (we’ve “moved on”, and all that– faugh!), but “Kleine Mann, was nun?”

Hint: Don’t presume to take cues from AP, Reuters, mass-media of any kind. Assuming that even the shell of Western civilization, the Enlightenment, persists, there will come a day of reckoning for sociopathic megalomaniacs, and if (lord help us) Princeton hasn’t prepared Mr. Caro to discriminate, we’ll find a crude, rude and tattoed Biker from Indianapolis who’ll hoist ’em on his Harley for a spin.

Why falter back on Prospect Street, good Mr. Caro? About 2045, when you turn fifty-eight, the choice will fall to you if it has not already. Of course by then atmospheric evaporation, a cooling process due to ocean warming, may well have buried all the Northern Hemisphere under half-mile sheets of rapidly accumulating ice. Al Gore’s response: “Why didn’t they tell me the Hockey Stick curved into my left nostril?”

Earth to Captain Jamail Hussein, c/o The Associated Press: Drop dead.

Well, Reuters is still at it. No source identified, usual boiler plate text:

BAGHDAD – A total of 40 bodies were found, shot dead and most showing signs of torture, in different districts of Baghdad on Tuesday, an Interior Ministry source said.

One sentance, no source other than the mysterious, anonymous “Intereor Ministry Source”. In other words, “Just trust us on this one, okay?”

NEW YORK, December 29, 2006: A total of 140 brain-dead bodies were found in and around Times Square, most showing signs of nibbling by ducks, a source in Manhattan’s Bloomberg Office of Nanny-otrics said.

Bloggers as sentient entities seeking to verify the BON report were referred to Mayor Mike’s recent Trans-fat fatwa, which asserts that Mike sees all, knows all, and has considered his entire left-liberal constituency brain-dead from Day One. “Get used to it,” reads the BON release. “Like a rotting codfish, Pinch Sulzberger is decaying from the head.”

Barry Caro PU09 is in fact the grandson of Robert Caro PU56.