Minx Dynamic Pages for Movable Type

Confederate Yankee

April 17, 2007

Brian Ross' Gun Idiocy Rides Again

I've already slapped around Ross and ABC News for refusing to retract an entry on "The Blotter" that was remarkably fact-free, but Ross seems determined to further showcase his ignorance in yet another post today, attempted to tell us that one of the guns used was a 22 millimeter handgun.

Cho Seung-Hui bought his first gun, a 9 mm handgun, on March 13 and his second weapon, a 22 mm handgun, within the last week, law enforcement officials tell ABCNews.com.

Well, that would certainly explain why the casualty figures were so high. 20, 25 and 30 millimeter cannons are used as armament on helicopters, fighter aircraft and armored vehicles. Of course, no handgun could fire such a massive shell, outside of a Hollywood fantasy.

***

It is also worth noting that the ABC News picture associated with this blog entry is inaccurate as well.

It shows a picture of the Virginia Tech shooter as well as a Walther PPK or PPK/S in .380 ACP; a firearm and cartridge not used in the shooting.

The firearms used were a 9mm Glock 19 and a Walther P22 in .22 caliber.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:42 AM | Comments (27) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Virginia Tech Shooter, Weapons Identified

Allahpundit has the story on the shooter, who has been identified as Seung Hui Cho (CNN calls him Cho Seung Hui), a Korean national, a permanent resident of the United States and a Virginia Tech student.

I'm cross-referencing this to Curt at Flopping Aces, who noted in an update a post to a firearms message board, where a gun shop employee claims (site currently down) he sold Cho the firearms used in the shooting:

"Well, I'm screwed. They found a receipt in the gunman's pocket indicating that he bought the gun from me in March. ATF is at my shop right now. See you later, I'm on my way to the shop right now."
[...]"Call BS all you like, but I just spent the last several hours with 3 ATF agents. I saw the shooter's picture. I know his name and home address. I also know that he used a Glock 19 and a Walther P-22. The serial number was ground off the Glock. Why would he do that and still keep the receipt in his pocket from when he bought the gun? ATF told me that they are going to keep this low-key and not report this to the tv news. However, they cautioned that it will leak out eventually, and that I should be ready to deal with CNN, FOX, etc. My 32 camera surveillance system recorded the event 35 days ago. This is a digital system that only keeps the video for 35 days. We got lucky. By the way, the paperwork for Mr. Cho was perfect, thank God."

I'm as disgusted as you probably are with the poster's focus on himself among all the real carnage around him, but that fact remains that he named "Mr. Cho" more than 12 hours before officials, so I think his claim that he sold these firearms to Cho is probably legitimate.

The firearms used in the shooting appear to be a Glock 19 (left, above), a 9mm pistol very popular with police agencies in many countries including the United States, and a Walther P22 (right, above), a .22 caliber pistol that is primarily used as a practice or target pistol. The Glock is typically sold with two standard 15-round factory magazines, a capacity fairly standard among comparable sized 9mm pistols. The P22 is typically sold with a pair of ten-round magazines.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:11 AM | Comments (24) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Does ABC News or Brian Ross Have Any Integrity at All?

A day after posting a blog entry replete with falsehoods, and despite more than dozens of comments pointing out the factual inaccuracies of the story, Brian Ross and Dana Hughes of the ABC News blog "The Blotter" have yet to issue a retraction.

Does ABC News have an obligation to report facts, or is peddling a political agenda buttressed by lies their preferred stock in trade?

As I noted yesterday, the ABC News blog did not get so much as a single fact in their blog entry correct.

The Ross entry states that high-capacity magazines "became widely available for sale when Congress failed to renew a law that banned assault weapons." This is a patently false statement, containing no truth at all.

High-capacity magazines have been around for more than half a century, and the sale of high-capacity magazines was not impacted whatsoever by the 1994 Crime Bill. These magazines were freely and commercially available, both in retail stores and online, without interruption, for the 10-year life of the ban, the decades preceding it, and afterward.

Ross implies that high-capacity magazines are now for sale on Web sites as a result of the ban expiring. Again, this is a deceptive, inaccurate statement.

The fact of the matter is that high-capacity magazines were always available for purchase (as noted above) both online, and in retail stores, without interruption.

I stated yesterday:

This Blotter entry by Ross and Hughes is a study in bias, wrapped around ignorance, justified by fear.

I'll now add to this that it is now quite possible that Ross' entry is a study in willful media deception as well. The Blotter's own moderated comments section contains dozens of posts warning ABC News that the information contained in the post was incorrect.

Brian Ross and Dana Hughes can't even get their facts right about the 94 AW law nor can ABC fabricate a legit connection between high capacity magazine availability and this crime.
Just the usual liberal bias against gun ownership.
Posted by: sssss | Apr 16, 2007 3:07:54 PM
---
For the record, the federal law that lapsed didn't have any effect on the sale of high-cap magazines. Sales of existing magazines with capacities over ten rounds was entirely legal after the 1994 Act. What was prohibited was the manufacture of new magazines.
Posted by: Jeffersonian | Apr 16, 2007 3:09:34 PM
---
The magazines (not clips) were available during the ban on them, as anything that had been manufactured prior to the ban was grandfathered in. The "ban" banned nothing and was democratic showmanship at it's worse.
You can't ban firearms in the US, they are a constitutionally protected right. Again, the shooter is at fault, not the tool he used.
Posted by: Brian Heck | Apr 16, 2007 3:25:08 PM
---
Lets stick to facts for a side story. This article implies that the person guilty of this used large capacity clips and assault style weapons. all unknown @ this time. As an earlier post stated - lots of small capacity magazines can sould like one large capacity. The Magazine size limit was no clips 10 or over could be manufactured for sale in the US. this didn't stop the existing quantity to be resold.
As to the description of spraying requires large capacity clips. Two handguns with 9 round clips would sound like 18 rounds going off rapidly. If the person was truely Spraying fire into classrooms then Large capacity clips were the least infraction. Automatic weapons as seen in hollywood flicks spraying fire downrange were banned in 1934 for private ownership. either the person had a license for the weapon (unlikely)or modified (in violation of the law) the weapon to fire automaticly.
Again I ask to stick to facts and not jump to conclusions about what may have exasperated the situation to promote a political agenda.
Posted by: glenn | Apr 16, 2007 3:26:18 PM

This is just a sampling of comments left in the moderated comments thread accompanying the Ross blog entry.
Every single one of these comments went past an ABC News employee. This ABC News employee either decided not to investigate the multiple inaccuracies noted by readers, or passed the information on to Ross, who also declined to address the multiple falsehoods contained in his post. In either event, Ross and ABC News have had ample time to correct a blog entry devoid of facts, and they have declined to do so.

This is media malpractice and what many would consider willful deception.

Facts and truth do not apparently matter to ABC News.

Pushing a political agenda is clearly their goal, even if that agenda must be supported by abject falsehoods.

Update: It is also worth noting that one of the weapons used did not have a high-capacity magazine by any definition, and the other is typically used with a standard 15-round non-extended magazine that is moe or less an industry norm for pistols of its size.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:23 AM | Comments (47) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

April 16, 2007

The Blotter: Never Let Tragedy or Stupidity Get in the Way of Your Political Agenda

Brian Ross and Dana Hughes prove just how little they know about firearms, laws related to them, and the effects of both with their knee-jerk response to today's Virginia Tech shootings, where they attempt to place the blame not on the shooter, but on high-capacity magazines:

High capacity ammo clips became widely available for sale when Congress failed to renew a law that banned assault weapons.
Web sites now advertise overnight UPS delivery of the clips, which carry up to 40 rounds for both semi-automatic rifles and handguns.
"High capacity magazines read extreme firepower and gusto. Stock Up!" is the headline of one of many gun shop Web sites.
Virginia law enforcement officials have not identified the weapon used in the shootings today at Virginia Tech, but gun experts say the number of shots fired indicate, at the very least, that the gunman had large quantities of ammunition.
"When you have a weapon that can shoot off 20, 30 rounds very quickly, you're going to have a lot more injuries," said Peter Hamm of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
"It's not one or two shots at a time when you're putting 20 bullets, spraying them into a classroom or into a dorm room," Hamm said.

This blog entry is so ignorant and factually incorrect on so many levels that ABC News should immediately print a correction or a retraction, and require Ross and Hughes to go to a basic firearms safety class before ever being allowed to write about the subject again.

They state:

High capacity ammo clips became widely available for sale when Congress failed to renew a law that banned assault weapons.

This is absolutely and totally false.

First, "clips," literally thin strips of metal designed to hold cartridges for ease in loading, were never addressed in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994.

For that matter, the law never banned existing high magazines either, "magazines" being the word that Ross and Hughes needed, but were too technically ignorant to use.

As a matter of practical fact, if Hughes and Ross had bothered to speak with any experts at all, they would have discovered that high-capacity magazines were never in short supply prior to 1994, and the commercial sale of high-capacity magazines was never slowed, much less stopped, during the ten years the ban was in effect from 1994-2004.

The commercial sale of high capacity magazines was legal during the ban, and the supply of pre-existing magazines was so plentiful that prices for many magazines never increased. In some instances, prices actually dropped.

Web sites now advertise overnight UPS delivery of the clips, which carry up to 40 rounds for both semi-automatic rifles and handguns.

Again, Ross and Hughes are lazy and factually incorrect.

Large commercial sporting good stores sold high capacity magazines during the entire life of the ban, because the ban never affected the sale of existing magazines, and there were warehouses full of them. Nor are we limited to 40-round magazines (not clips, which are something else entirely). If you want a 100-round magazine, you can have it shipped the very next day. You always could.

"High capacity magazines read extreme firepower and gusto. Stock Up!" is the headline of one of many gun shop Web sites.

Horrible grammar, perhaps, but at least they know the difference between a magazine and a clip. Online and commercial retail stores, again, have never been affected by the ban in any measurable way, nor have been consumers.

Virginia law enforcement officials have not identified the weapon used in the shootings today at Virginia Tech, but gun experts say the number of shots fired indicate, at the very least, that the gunman had large quantities of ammunition.

There are tens of million of people in this nation with "large quantities of ammunition." Does that mean we're all criminals in the minds of these ABC reporters? Probably.

The fact of the matter is that high-capacity magazines were never difficult to get, and that even standard capacity magazines would have made very little difference in today's tragic shooting. For anyone with even a rudimentary familiarity with their firearm, changing a magazine takes less than three seconds. Those who practice can make a magazine change in less than that. Whether a shooter has two 15-round magazines or three 10-round magazines, the outcome would likely be very much the same.

Once again, Ross and Hughes spray rhetorical blanks, and hit nothing.

But they aren't quite done yet: now they need an expert opinion to provide the illusion of competence and objectivity.

Send in the clown.

"When you have a weapon that can shoot off 20, 30 rounds very quickly, you're going to have a lot more injuries," said Peter Hamm of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
"It's not one or two shots at a time when you're putting 20 bullets, spraying them into a classroom or into a dorm room," Hamm said.

I sholdn't have to point out the fact that their "expert" is from the anti-gun Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a viciously anti-gun group, who is as light on the facts and as high on rhetoric as is Ross and Hughes. Note how Hamm purposefully uses the word "spray" to create an image of machine gun fire, even though machine guns are strictly regulated, and no one is even suggesting one was used in Blacksburg. I’d also note the obvious and undisputed fact that a weapon with a high-capacity magazine does not fire any faster than one with a regular magazine.

This Blotter entry by Ross and Hughes is a study in bias, wrapped around ignorance, justified by fear.

I don't think that is how ABC News should run their newsroom, but then, that is their decision to make.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:23 PM | Comments (33) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Multiple Shootings at Virginia Tech

At least one shooter eyewitnesses identified as an "Asian" male wearing military load-bearing equipment has shot between 7-17 students and faculty members at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.

One fatality has been confirmed, and one shooter is in custody as the campus remains on a lockdown while police search for a second gunman. The first shootings took place in a dormitory, and a second rounds of gunfire erupted in an engineering classroom building at the opposite end of campus hours later. The campus has been shutdown and students are locked down as police scour the campus for a possible second shooter.

Collegiate Times, the Va. Tech student newspaper, is stating that there are 22 fatalities, including one shooter. The web site also states that three men were arrested and escorted from the engineering building.

I'm not sure how accurate these accounts are, and cannot find a corroborating source to support these claimed fatalities. I would therefore recommend this being regarded as rumor for now. If true, however, this may be the deadliest collegiate shooting in modern history.

Update High number of fatalities confirmed, via AP.

Update: The following is an educated guess, and may be incorrect: Based upon the high number of fatalities among those shot, and the high number of victims overall, and the description of the shooter as wearing some sort of load-bearing vest, I'm going to make an educated guess and suggest that the shooter was likely armed with a 7.62x39mm semi-automatic rifle, probably patterned on the AK-47.

There are a couple of reasons why I feel this is probably the type of weapon used.

The description a shooter "wearing a vest covered in clips." The witness seems to be describing load-bearing equipment, typically made for either 5.56 NATO or 7.62x39 magazines, the two most standard assault rifle calibers. The typical standard magazine for each weapon is typically 30 rounds.
Of the two calibers, the 7.62x39 is a far more lethal bullet across a wider range of conditions than the 5.56 NATO or slightly less powerful .223 Remington variant that can be fired from the same weapon. People shot with 5.56 NATO rounds often survive after even being hit with multiple shots. The high number of fatalities suggests a more lethal caliber and/or cartridge.
The rifles patterned after AK-series are typically far less expensive (often less than $500) than those patterned on the AR15/M16 platform (often more than $900-1,000), and are also often more plentiful for sale.

Obviously, our prayers go out to those Virginia Tech faculty, students, staff, and family members affected by this tragedy.

Update: I'd like to make one last statement about this after reading Allah's latest update, noting that a bill to allow students to carry handguns was recently quashed in the Virginia General Assembly.

When I was a T.A. in graduate school at East Carolina University in the mid-1990s, I knew several graduate and undergraduate students that illegally carried concealed weapons on a fairly regular basis. Contrary to what you might suspect, most of these students were female liberal arts majors. One of my students in the class that I taught brought a Browning .380 to class every day. I felt safe knowing my fellow students were armed. I also felt better when the left the building at night that they could protect themselves and others from any predators that may have been about.

Would the number of students shot at Virginia Tech today have been lower if student there were allowed to take a training class, get a permit, and carry a concealed weapon on campus? There is of course not way to be sure. I do think it is obvious that an armed student or faculty member could have at least made taking their lives a far more difficult.

I'd urge a far more somber Virginia General Assembly, and the General Assembly of other states, to consider letting student who have satisfied their state requirements to carry concealed weapons also carry those weapons on campus. The lives saved may belong to someone dear to them.

Update: 32 killed, 28 wounded. NBC is citing two anonymous law enforcement officials as saying that a pair of 9mm handguns were used in the rampage. This does not seem to match up with eariler reports of the shooter wearing what sounded like military load-bearing equipment, and if accurate, means my earlier educated guess was based upon inaccurate assumptions, as I noted it could be.

A clearer picture separating the fact from rumor will begin to emerge over the coming days.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:38 AM | Comments (33) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

April 13, 2007

AOL Poll Results Thus Far: Can Rosie

It's not looking good for a certain 9/11 Truther.

As of 1:06 PM (EDT), 82% of 6,873 people casting votes in the America Online poll agree that Rosie O' Donnell should be fired.

The link for the Drudge Report probably isn't helping Rosie fans, but I doubt it is swinging things too much.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:16 PM | Comments (55) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Continuing to Cry Defeat

I must thank blog aggregator Memeorandum this morning for providing this link about the latest Charles Krauthammer column, which in turn, led to a Melanie Phillips blog entry highlighting key points of a Fouad Ajami editorial, Iraq in the Balance.

Among the subjects the Ajami essay touches upon are the long history of Sunni and Shia animosity, the failure of salvation for the Sunni insurgency, and the distrust of Iranian-backed Shia militias as Iraq enters what Ajami calls the "final, decisive phase":

There is a growing Shia unease with the Mahdi Army--and with the venality and incompetence of the Sadrists represented in the cabinet--and an increasing faith that the government and its instruments of order are the surer bet. The crackdown on the Mahdi Army that the new American commander, Gen. David Petraeus, has launched has the backing of the ruling Shia coalition. Iraqi police and army units have taken to the field against elements of the Mahdi army. In recent days, in the southern city of Diwaniyya, American and Iraqi forces have together battled the forces of Moqtada al-Sadr. To the extent that the Shia now see Iraq as their own country, their tolerance for mayhem and chaos has receded. Sadr may damn the American occupiers, but ordinary Shia men and women know that the liberty that came their way had been a gift of the Americans.
The young men of little education--earnest displaced villagers with the ways of the countryside showing through their features and dialect and shiny suits--who guarded me through Baghdad, spoke of old terrors, and of the joy and dignity of this new order. Children and nephews and younger brothers of men lost to the terror of the Baath, they are done with the old servitude. They behold the Americans keeping the peace of their troubled land with undisguised gratitude. It hasn't been always brilliant, this campaign waged in Iraq. But its mistakes can never smother its honor, and no apology for it is due the Arab autocrats who had averted their gaze from Iraq's long night of terror under the Baath.

...

One can never reconcile the beneficiaries of illegitimate, abnormal power to the end of their dominion. But this current re-alignment in Iraq carries with it a gift for the possible redemption of modern Islam among the Arabs. Hitherto Sunni Islam had taken its hegemony for granted and extremist strands within it have shown a refusal to accept "the other." Conversely, Shia history has been distorted by weakness and exclusion and by a concomitant abdication of responsibility.
A Shia-led state in Baghdad--with a strong Kurdish presence in it and a big niche for the Sunnis--can go a long way toward changing the region's terrible habits and expectations of authority and command. The Sunnis would still be hegemonic in the Arab councils of power beyond Iraq, but their monopoly would yield to the pluralism and complexity of that region.
"Watch your adjectives" is the admonition given American officers by Gen. Petraeus. In Baghdad, Americans and Iraqis alike know that this big endeavor has entered its final, decisive phase. Iraq has surprised and disappointed us before, but as they and we watch our adjectives there can be discerned the shape of a new country, a rough balance of forces commensurate with the demography of the place and with the outcome of a war that its erstwhile Sunni rulers had launched and lost. We made this history and should now make our peace with it.

Without any shred of a doubt, we are in the final, decisive phase of this war.

The "surge" of American troops into Iraq only half-begun as part of Commanding General David Petraeus' counter-insurgency doctrine will be the final major push of American forces into the Iraq theater. With the success of the surge, the stabilization of Iraq means that American forces should be able to start drawing down in victory. If the surge does not work, the American public will be able to elect a President in 2008 that will bring our troops home in defeat. Either way, the surge represents America's endgame, for better or worse.

Based upon the success of French Lt. Col. David Galula's counter-insurgency efforts in Algeria, General Petraeus literally wrote the book on American counter-insurgency, Army Field Manual FM3-24 (PDF).

The Baghdad security plan, expanding to other parts of Iraq, comes at a time when al Qaeda has lost support in its former base of al Anbar province, where Sunni tribes once loyal to al Qaeda have turned against it. Within the past months, Sunni tribesmen that have recently joined the Iraqi police and military by the hundreds and thousands have fought pitched battles that al Qaeda has invariably lost, and the Sunni supporters of al Qaeda in Iraq are continuing to fracture, as noted as recently as yesterday.

As Krauthammer states in his recent op-ed with a nod to Ajami:

Fouad Ajami, just returned from his seventh trip to Iraq, is similarly guardedly optimistic and explains the change this way: Fundamentally, the Sunnis have lost the battle of Baghdad. They initiated it with an indiscriminate terror campaign they assumed would cow the Shiites, whom they view with contempt as congenitally quiescent, lower-class former subjects. They learned otherwise after the Samarra bombing in February 2006 kindled Shiite fury -- a savage militia campaign of kidnapping, indiscriminate murder and ethnic cleansing that has made Baghdad a largely Shiite city.
Petraeus is trying now to complete the defeat of the Sunni insurgents in Baghdad -- without the barbarism of the Shiite militias, whom his forces are simultaneously pursuing and suppressing.

Meanwhile, John Wixted points out that the media-declared "civil war" in Iraq is not a civil war:

Again, these Sunni insurgent groups are unhappy (not happy) with al Qaeda for indiscriminately slaughtering Shiite civilians in Iraq. How does that fit into the "civil war" schema? Answer: it doesn't. Think about the Tal Afar bombing again, the one that you thought was just part of the cycle of violence in a escalating civil war between Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents. There is just one tiny little problem with that superficial analysis: the major Sunni insurgent groups are extremely displeased with bombings like that. That being the case, you should now be able to appreciate the fact that, contrary to the standard analysis, the Tal Afar bombing (like many similar bombings) was not carried out by Sunni insurgents in their civil war against Shiites. Instead, those bombings represent al Qaeda in action. They are, in effect, counterattacks in our war on terror, not retaliatory strikes in a civil war.
The Sunni insurgents have come to realize that al Qaeda is not helping them in their fight against American troops. Instead, al Qaeda is trying to provoke a civil war, which benefits al Qaeda alone. That is, al Qaeda is trying to get Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army to once again start executing Sunnis in Baghdad. That's why the Sunni insurgents are not happy. They have no interest in a civil war because it does not benefit them in any way. They want al Qaeda to help fight the Americans, and that's what al Qaeda was doing for a while. It's what George Bush wanted al Qaeda to do as well (at least I suspect as much). But al Qaeda came up with a fiendish alternative plan, and it has been amazingly effective up until now. Predictably, in response to al Qaeda's repeated atrocities against Shiite civilians, most Americans and all Democratic politicians think they are watching a civil war unfold in Iraq and have become demoralized as a result (just as al Qaeda knew they would -- it's always that way with the weak-willed America).
[snip]
All of this should also serve to update your thinking about Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army, which, contrary to what you might believe, was killing Sunnis in Baghdad in an effort to stop those atrocities being carried out by al Qaeda against Shiite civilians. But now the Mahdi Army is cooperating with the troop surge, so those executions have come way down. Perhaps Muqtada realized that he was just playing into al Qaeda's hands (and the truth is, he was).
Unfortunately, last month, al Qaeda successfully slaughtered many hundreds of Shiites, and that increase in violence offset the decrease in violence by the Mahdi Army, so overall civilian casualties in Iraq remained essentially unchanged. However, the fact that the Sunni insurgency is beginning to resist al Qaeda, and the fact that they have even implored Osama bin Laden to call off attacks against civilians by al Qaeda in Iraq could be highly significant. If the Mahdi Army continues to cooperate (and all signs suggest that they will despite the Tal Afar bombing) and if al Qaeda can be induced to stop slaughtering civilians, then the troop surge will be seen as a resounding success because civilian casualties will come way down.

In short, Sunni tribes former aligned with al Qaeda are turning against them and joining the Iraqi military and police forces by the thousands. At the same time, Shia militias are staying their hands (for the most part), while the more militant offshoots of the Madhi Army are being either rounded up or shot down as are their Sunni opposites.

All in all, there is a picture beginning to emerge that shows the more radical and divisive elements of both the Sunni and Shia sects are slowly but steadily being whittled away. Sunnis and Shias formerly loyal to al Qaeda or al Sadr quietly melt away, inform on their former allies, or actively join forces with the Coalition and Iraqi government. These extremists that now only exist to cause terror in a fractured nation tiring of war, are losing.

Aligned against these growing signs of progress, we once again encounter our ever-present enemy... Democrats:

A memo from a top House Democrat says party leaders must not yield to White House pressure on Iraq and should cast President Bush as increasingly detached from public opinion.
Bush has said he will not negotiate with Democrats on legislation that would finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through September if it sets an end date for the Iraq war. Holding only a narrow majority in Congress, Democrats do not have enough votes to override the president's veto.
In a memo to party leaders, Rep. Rahm Emanuel says that as long as Democrats continue to ratchet up the pressure on Bush, the president loses ground.

Like many Democrats, Emanuel shows that in his eyes, the real enemy in the War on Terror (a name, I'd add, Democrats are cravenly trying to change) is American President George W. Bush, not al Qaeda terrorists or Shia militiamen.

The gathering signs of progress in Iraq means that the window of opportunity to claim a "victory" for Democrats—a headlong retreat and possible genocide that could result from a too quick withdrawal before Iraq is stabilized, which they would then attempt to pin on Bush—is closing.

If signs of progress continue to cautiously crop up in Iraq, the media-determined and Democrat-supported narrative of defeat may slowly begin to fall away, which is the worst possible situation for Democrats.

Should the surge continue to prove effective and Iraqis continue towards a path towards a reconciliation and a fair division of assets among the sects, it is not hard to see that public opinion will begin to turn against the liberal Democrat leadership, who have done all that is within their power to lose the war. Nobody likes someone who cheers against the home team, especially if the home team(s) rallies to win.

Only time will tell if the "rally" in Iraq is successful, but that is a chance Democrat leaders such as Emanuel, Reid, and Pelosi aren't will to take, and why they endeavor to lose Iraq by forfeit.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:02 PM | Comments (33) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Screening Outside the Wire

The Washington State University Young Republicans screened Outside the Wire by JD Johannes, a former Marine, who joined the Marinesbecause:

... JD Johannes did not study hard or take his secondary education seriously, because he came from a rural, midwestern town, and because he had no other opportunities, Johannes was easily conned into joining the Marines by a high-pressure salesman in Dress Blues.
Just like U.S. Senator John Kerry said, JD Johannes got stuck in Iraq.

A synopsis of the screening is recounted on palousitics, including some barbed comments at Democrats who tried to upstage both the movie and the Iraq war veterans that were to address the audience and take questions after the film.

The young democrats expressed vivid interest in expressing opinions and produce questions to us, the WSU College Republicans. Dan Ryder and I articulated to the young democrats that no such exchange would take place in any shape or form. I was unequivocal in expressing that this documentary should leave you to derive your own opinions of the troops/war and that the WSU College Republicans did not feel qualified in hosting questions. After all, we did not serve in Iraq.
The young democrats "staged" a walkout upon hearing our truthful and legitimate response. This was a display upon epic proportions of the infantile demeanor of such a group that preaches the freedom of expression, ideas, opinions, etc. Their actions were pusillanimous in nature and a flat out slap in the face to the attendees, our organization, our great country and more acutely speaking, the Veterans of our brave service men and women present. They are a sickening disgrace. A classic display of uncouth trash.

The quote of the day, however, goes to one of the Iraq War veterans during a Q&A session after the screening to a question that was never asked.

One question that never came up was "can you support the troops if you don’t support the war?" After the question and answer session ended a Vet replied, "Absolutely not, how can you support someone if you don't support what he or she is doing?"

I've wondered about that same question myself, and have yet to hear what I would consider a reasonable answer.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:54 AM | Comments (26) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Not Quite Innocent

Terry Moran is sure to be creamed for this contrarian opinion, but I tend to think he's right:

So as we rightly cover the vindication of these young men and focus on the genuine ordeal they have endured, let us also remember a few other things:
They were part of a team that collected $800 to purchase the time of two strippers.
Their team specifically requested at least one white stripper.
During the incident, racial epithets were hurled at the strippers.
Colin Finnerty was charged with assault in Washington, DC, in 2005.

The "Duke Three" are without a doubt innocent of the crimes of rape and kidnapping levied by a mentally-disturbed stripper and a dishonest district attorney, but they are not innocents. There is a huge distinction between being innocent of a crime, and some of the comments made during the defense lawyer's press conference that painted these three young men as almost being ripe for canonization.

They are part of a group that deserves criticism for their actions. These three young men are not criminals, but nor should they or their teammates be made into heroes. We should be able to redress the travesty of justice committed against them without making them into idols or figureheads of purity, when they clearly are not.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:34 AM | Comments (40) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Black Panther Calls Malkin a Prostitute

Ah, leftists in action.

On the show she apparently creamed him, according to Don Surber:

You could almost feel the delight in her as she knew she had him. She stuck to her guns while he sputtered and locked into the name-calling mode. He is so stuck in the '60s (although he is far too young to have lived much then) that he could not understand that women really are the equal of men and that they can think for themselves — and mature into the same conservatives that educated men become.

Malkin's response to Malik Shabazz's name-calling is here.

It's rather sad in this day and age that women and minorities, especially women who are minorities, are treated so horribly if they have political opinions that stray from what some people think that their skin color should believe.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:15 AM | Comments (24) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

April 12, 2007

Because Unfair Charges are Wrong

One day after normally cautious North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper blasted the handling of the Duke Lacrosse rape case and took the extraordinary step of declaring the charged players innocent of all counts, disgraced Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong has issued a trite semi-apology:

Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong acknowledged today that three former Duke University lacrosse players were "wrongfully accused" of sexual assault.
Nifong released a statement one day after N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper dismissed the charges against the lacrosse players and declared them "innocent" and the victims of an "unchecked" prosecutor who rushed to judgment.
"It is and has always been the goal of our criminal justice system to see that the guilty are punished and that the innocent are set free," Nifong wrote. "No system based on human judgment can ever work perfectly.
"Those of us who work within that system can only make the best judgments we can," Nifong continued. "To the extent that I made judgments that utimately [sic] proved to be incorrect, I apologize to the three suspects that were wrongly accused. ... It is my sincere desire that the actions of Attorney General Cooper will serve to remedy any remaining injury that has resulted from these cases."
But Nifong disputed Cooper's assessment of him as a "rogue" prosecutor.
"The fact that I instead chose to seek that review should in and of itself call into question the characterizations of this prosecution as 'rogue' and 'unchecked,'" he wrote.

Shorter Mike Nifong: "I'll accept that charges shouldn't have been brought, but don't call me a "rogue" just because I conspired to hide evidence that would have exonerated the accused and used a mentally-disturbed girl's inconsistent stories as a battering ram to bludgeon my way into an elected office I promised to the governor himself I would not run for.

"Why, it is horrible to stigmatize someone with an inaccurate description.

'Cause that would, you know, be wrong."

Nifong faces a hearing at the North Carolina State Bar's Disciplinary Hearing Committee tomorrow afternoon at 4:00 PM, which will determine if he will be stripped of his law license.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:37 PM | Comments (23) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ten Fred Thompson Facts

From U.S News & World Report:

Fred Thompson has two speeds: Walk and Kill.
Fred Thompson once shot down a German fighter plane with his finger, by yelling, "Bang!"
Fred Thompson has counted to infinity. Twice.
Fred Thompson is the only man to ever defeat a brick wall in a game of tennis.
The opening scene of the movie "Saving Private Ryan" is loosely based on games of dodge ball Fred Thompson played in second grade.
When Fred Thompson goes to donate blood, he declines the syringe, and instead requests a hand gun and a bucket.
Fred Thompson’s house has no doors, only walls that he walks through.
When taking the SAT, write "Fred Thompson" for every answer. You will score a 1600.
The show Survivor had the original premise of putting people on an island with Fred Thompson. There were no survivors and the pilot episode tape has been burned.
Fred Thompson ordered a Big Mac at Burger King, and got one.

At least I think that is from U.S News & World Report.

I hired Katie Couric's producer as my fact checker, and now I'm not so sure.* *

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:51 PM | Comments (21) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Meanwhile, in the Other War...

I think the casualty figures are probably inflated, but the overall impact is still worth noting:

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Thursday that tribesmen have killed about 300 foreign militants during a weekslong offensive near the Afghan border and acknowledged for first time that they received military support.
The fighting that began last month in South Waziristan has targeted mainly Uzbek militants with links to al-Qaida who have sheltered in the tribal region since escaping the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.
"The people of South Waziristan now have risen against the foreigners. They have killed about 300 of them, and they got support from the Pakistan army. They asked for support," Musharraf said in a speech at a military conference in Islamabad.

This amounts to a stronger enemy force killing off a weaker enemy force, and not something that I'd necessarily say is worth celebrating. However, if enough Taliban tribesmen and al Qaeda-linked militants kill each other, it might bleed their enthusiasm to take their jihad to NATO forces in Afghanistan for the time being.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:25 PM | Comments (22) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Smoking Kills

Mike Yon reports from within a British Army assault on al Sadr-alligned Shia militia forces, a fight that saw 26-27 militiamen killed and 4,000 rounds of ammunition expended.

The British forces suffered no wounded, at least until after the battle was well over....

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:04 PM | Comments (19) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

April 11, 2007

Duke Players Innocent / Media Outs Accuser

Read Ace for the analysis of Attorney General Roy Cooper's press conference stating the Duke Lacrosse players were innocent of all legal charges brought against them.

The Raleigh News and Observer, perhaps upset that the public furor, class warfare and racial acrimony they helped stir up turned out to be false, reacted by "outing" the accuser.

Her identity was an open secret for months on the Internet, but the decision to publish the name of someone that might be less than stable in the community where she lives seems punitive in nature, and perhaps more than a little dangerous.

Update: The N&O explains why they outed her.

Fox piles on. Hard.

Most other media outlets display a little bit of class.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:44 PM | Comments (34) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Fisking Fisk

The man who has been wrong so often that he became a verb, is at it again:

Faced with an ever-more ruthless insurgency in Baghdad - despite President George Bush's "surge" in troops - US forces in the city are now planning a massive and highly controversial counter-insurgency operation that will seal off vast areas of the city, enclosing whole neighbourhoods with barricades and allowing only Iraqis with newly issued ID cards to enter.
The campaign of "gated communities" - whose genesis was in the Vietnam War - will involve up to 30 of the city's 89 official districts and will be the most ambitious counter-insurgency programme yet mounted by the US in Iraq.
The system has been used - and has spectacularly failed - in the past, and its inauguration in Iraq is as much a sign of American desperation at the country's continued descent into civil conflict as it is of US determination to "win" the war against an Iraqi insurgency that has cost the lives of more than 3,200 American troops. The system of "gating" areas under foreign occupation failed during the French war against FLN insurgents in Algeria and again during the American war in Vietnam. Israel has employed similar practices during its occupation of Palestinian territory - again, with little success.

Mr. Fisk claims that the style of counterinsurgency to be used in Baghdad had its "genesis" in the Vietnam War. This is especially troubling, considering that in the very next paragraph, Fisk brings up the French war in Algeria as another example.

The seminal work of counter-insurgency, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice was written in 1964 by French Lt. Col David Galula, eight years after he first implemented them in 1956 in Greater Kabylia, east of Algiers.

The United States did not bring ground troops into Vietnam until the first detachment of 3,500 Marines was dispatched on March 8, 1965, nearly a decade after Galula began modern counter-insurgency tactics in Algeria.

I'm quite curious: does Robert Fisk conduct his research using "alternative history" books as a guide?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:46 PM | Comments (24) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Is the Associated Press At it Again?

You'll likely remember that the Associated Press uncritically published an Association of Muslim Scholars claim on November 25, 2006 that 18 Sunni worshipers were killed in an "inferno" at the Al Muhaimin mosque in the Hurriyah neighborhood of Baghdad:

And the Association of Muslim Scholars, the most influential Sunni organization in Iraq, said even more victims were burned to death in attacks on the four mosques. It claimed a total of 18 people had died in an inferno at the al-Muhaimin mosque.

The claim has never been substantiated.

To the contrary, the Iraqi military forces reported no evidence of a fire having ever occurred inside the mosque, a conclusion also supported in U.S. military accounts. A photo of the interior of the mosque taken the very next day proves there was no "inferno."

The Associated Press has never issued a retraction or a correction for this clearly fabricated claim.

But why throw away a perfectly good source, just because they've been caught fabricating stories?

Today, the Associated Press once again used the Association of Muslim Scholars as a quite dubious source:

The Muslim Scholars Association, a Sunni group, issued a statement quoting witnesses as saying Tuesday's battle began after Iraqi troops entered a mosque and executed two young men in front of other worshippers. Ground forces used tear gas on civilians, it said.
"The association condemns this horrible crime carried out by occupiers and the government," the statement said.
But the witness in Fadhil said the two men were executed in an outdoor vegetable market, not in the mosque. The Iraqi military was not immediately available to comment on the claim.

Why does the Associated Press continue to use an organization with an obvious political agenda, ties to al Qaeda, and a documented history of providing false information as a source?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:47 AM | Comments (24) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Pelosi Diplomacy: Legitimizing Terrorism

When Democrat Presidential candidates Clinton, Obama and Edwards dropped out of the Congressional Black Caucus Institute debate that was going to be co-sponsored by Fox News, many liberals crowed over the decision. It is their contention that Fox News is an "illegitimate" news source (or a "propaganda machine," or not even a news outlet at all. Someone should tell Nielsen), and that if these candidates had answered the questions provided by the CBCI in a televised debate on Fox News, it would "legitimize" the network.

Their central argument seems to be that if these Democrat candidates appeared on Fox, that their very presence would legitimize the news network.

Using that same logic, what then, should they make of this?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, just back from a trip to Syria that sparked sharp criticism from Republicans and the Bush administration, suggested Tuesday that they may be interested in taking another diplomatic trip - to open a dialogue with Iran.
The Democratic speaker from San Francisco and Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, were asked at a press conference in San Francisco Tuesday whether on the heels of their recent trip to the Middle East they would be interested in extending their diplomacy in the troubled region with a visit to Iran.
"Speaking just for myself, I would be ready to get on a plane tomorrow morning, because however objectionable, unfair and inaccurate many of (Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's) statements are, it is important that we have a dialogue with him,'' Lantos said. "Speaking for myself, I'm ready to go -- and knowing the speaker, I think that she might be.''
Pelosi did not dispute that statement, and noted that Lantos -- a Hungarian-born survivor of the Holocaust -- brought "great experience, knowledge and judgment" to the recent bipartisan congressional delegation trip to Israel, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia in addition to Syria.

Pelosi has already been hammered for undermining U.S. foreign policy and possibly committing a felony when she visited Syrian President Bashir Assad, leader of a Baathist dictatorship that serves as a conduit for weapons bound for terror groups Hezbollah and Hamas, and is a regime that is implicated in the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister.

Not content with botching her last and possibly illegal attempt to create her own foreign policy separate from that of the official position of the United States, Pelosi seems open to the idea of visiting Iran, a brutal mullacracy that provides munitions and training to terrorist groups, whose officials will be indicted for murder, a regime that has conclusively shipped a significant quantity of weapons into Iraq that have killed American soldiers.

Apparently, the double standard is this:

Liberals are solidly behind the idea of boycotting a news network to avoid giving them legitimacy, but they are in favor of defying their own government's foreign policy to lend legitimacy to yet another terrorist state that has sponsored attacks on our allies and are actively engaged in trying to kill U.S. soldiers.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:03 AM | Comments (63) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

April 10, 2007

tbogg: Imus wannabe

"Nappy-headed ho's" had been overused, so he went with the next best thing.

Sure, tbogg's a hypocritical racist, but making a racist attack on a conservative black woman is perfectly acceptable behavior for liberals.

Anticipate other liberal bloggers coming to his defense by sundown.

Update: tbogg's comments echo those of Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau from April 7, 2004, which prompted this response:

Recently, Trudeau’s political observations ran a red light in referring to the nation’s National Security Advisor, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, a black woman, as "brown sugar." Frankly, the political satire in the April 7, 2004 Doonesbury escapes me and most women I know, black or white, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican. It draws on centuries of deep-rooted, wicked and indefensible portrayals of black women. In doing so, it is decidedly unfunny. The only purpose served by this cartoon strip is that it proved one sad fact: despite the contentions of many, in 21st century America, race and gender still matter.
[snip]
The fact is that black women at the apex of power have struggled long and hard for respect. The struggle still continues. This is why in this context, references to black women as brown sugar are not funny. It reminds us of the historical exploitation of black women in America. It reminds us that there are those who believe that no matter how accomplished we may become, no matter how educated we are, and no matter how many books we read, black women should remain in "their place," figuratively or literally. This place is one that is out of public view.

tbogg joins a long list of liberals that feel it is their right to use racial slurs against black conservatives.

Some of these past racial attacks on Secretary Rice included Garry Trudeau's "Doonesbury" comic strip having President Bush refer to her as "Brown Sugar," Ted Rall's cartoon suggesting she was a "house nigga" needing "racial re-education" and Jeff Danziger depicting her a the slave "Prissy" from the movie "Gone With the Wind." Additionally, former entertainer Harry Belafonte referred to Secretary Rice as a "house slave" and "sell-out," while NAACP chairman Julian Bond called her a "shield" used by the Bush Administration to deflect racial criticism.

And lest we forget, liberal Steve Gilliard's Sambo smear against another black conservative, Michael Steele.

Tolerance. It's a liberal value.

Except when they don't feel like it.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:39 PM | Comments (33) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Some of the News That's Fit to Print

Gateway Pundit correctly nails the leading regional and world media outlets for vastly over-exaggerating the actual number of protestors making noise on behalf of Tehran resident Mookie al Sadr in an anti-U.S. protest over the weekend.

A sampling of the media's inaccurate mis-reporting:

The Associated Press: "Tens of thousands of Shiites..."
New York Times: "Tens of thousands of protesters loyal to Moktada al-Sadr..."
Reuters: "Tens of thousands of people waving Iraqi flags..."
Gulf Daily News: "Hundreds of thousands of chanting Iraqi Shi'ites burned and stamped..."
Guardian (UK): "Hundreds of thousands of supporters of the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr..."

And now, a reality break.

As Bugs Bunny says, "That's all, folks."

Even Duke University football games get better turn-out than the 5,000-7,000 shown in the image above.

I'd be very interested to discover which organizations actually had reporters in Najaf for the protests, if those reporters were bureau reporters or local stringers, and where they came up with their figures. Thinking I'd actually get a response to any of these questions from these news organizations is, of course, absurd. The media doesn't like the idea of accountability.

I'll update this with more detail if information becomes available.

Update: Crap! I screwed up. the photo above was clearly captioned as being from Baghdad in the MNF-I article , and I did the "assume" thing, and thought that Gateway Pundit captioned the photo correctly (he didn't), and got it completely wrong.

SSG Craig Zentkovich said via email that he shot this picture from the top of the Sheraton hotel in 2005. You have my apologies.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:38 PM | Comments (31) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

<< Page 159 >>

Processing 0.04, elapsed 0.6869 seconds.
37 queries taking 0.6526 seconds, 296 records returned.
Page size 274 kb.
Powered by Minx 0.8 beta.