Confederate Yankee

September 12, 2006

U.S. Embassy in Damascus Attacked

Via CNN:


Syrian security forces on Tuesday killed four gunmen after they tried to storm the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, the Syrian Information Ministry said.

No American diplomats were harmed.

A fifth attacker was wounded and in custody, officials said. It was not immediately clear how many total attackers may have been involved.

"The State Department confirms an attack by unknown assailants," said Kurtis Cooper, a State Department spokesman in Washington. "The event appears to be under control and handled by local authorities."

There was no word of casualties among the Syrian security forces who battled the gunmen.

The embassy was not damaged in the attack.

Sticky Notes was on this quickly, and has some photos of the scene of what appears to be unexploded bombs made of bulk propane cylinders and pipe bombs.

No Americans were hurt, and there are no reports that U.S. Marines stationed at the embassy opened fire.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 06:13 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

September 11, 2006

Al Qaeda's Vietnams

While many are focused (rightly) on remembering what we lost five years ago today, Ralph Peters chose instead to remember what we have since achieved. One of his salient points was to describe the fact that Iraq has become al Qaeda's Vietnam:


No end of lies have been broadcast about our liberation of Iraq and Afghanistan "creating more terrorists." The terrorists were already there, recruited during the decades we looked away. Our arrival on their turf just brought them out of the woodwork.

As for Iraq, Osama & Co. realized full well how high we'd raised the stakes. They had to fight to prevent the emergence of a Middle Eastern democracy. As a result, they've thrown in their reserves - who've been slaughtered by our soldiers and Marines.

The media obsesses on the price of this fight for us, but the terrorists have been forced to pay a terrible cost in trained fighters - while alienating fellow Muslims with their tactics. Pundits will argue forever over whether deposing Saddam was a diversion from the War on Terror, but the proof of its relevance - even if unexpected - is the unaffordable cost we've forced on al Qaeda.

I'm not certain just how much al Qaeda has alienated other Muslims, as many still quite openly pine for the demise of the West in general and Israel and the United States in particular, but we certainly have made that obsession costly.

When al Qaeda ‘s Number Two Ayman al-Zawahri releases a statement promising to bring Jihad to Israel and Arab Gulf States and advises not sending reinforcements to Afghanistan and Iraq, it reveals a pleading weakness in his cause.

"Whatever you do, please don't send reinforcements to Afghanistan and Iraq," he might as well be saying. With the reconstituted Taliban being martyred courtesy of NATO troops by the hundreds, Zawahiri's threats of attacking elsewhere with any significant sustained force ring hollow. He is the Dark Knight of Monty Python's Holy Grail, threatening to "bite your kneecaps off" of King Arthur after his arms and legs have been forcefully removed.

And indeed, many "limbs" of al Qaeda have been unceremoniously lopped off. Beyond bin Laden and al-Zawahiri himself, you'd be hard-pressed to find a "household name" in al Qaeda's leadership. The terrorist organization's most experienced planners, bomb-builders and experienced foot soldiers have been methodically hunted to near extinction, leaving dangerous but error-prone minor-leaguers terrorists to step up against increasingly savvy military and intelligence services around the world that continue to bleed al Qaeda on an almost daily basis.

Continuing Phyrric "victories" by al Qaeda have reduced it to more of a terrorist public relations firm than a viable terrorist entity. Zawahiri can trumpet jihad all he wants to a dwindling supply of fellow believers, but when his message has to pack-muled out from a remote and hidden cave, it becomes increasingly difficult to see his often-promised victory as anything other than a delusional fantasy.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:35 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Day of Denial

Today more than any other in the past five years, the Left continues to reveal how much they despise the essence of America.

They continue to mock the moment when our President found out that a sneak attack broader in scope and scale than Pearl Harbor was under way. They mock him for showing the same shock and dismay we all felt. They mock him for being moved near to tears as the realization set in that thousands of innocent Americans were dead or dying and that he, the most powerful single man on the planet, was powerless to stop it.

They belittle our pain as a nation, as if only those who had direct friends and family die had a right to grieve, feel pain, or remorse, or anger and resolve.

They lash out against those who do remember what happened under that bright blue September sky, and preemptively lash out against those who would remember future attacks before they've even come to pass.

They refer to memorial services as pornography, and seek to belittle every remembrance, every solemn moment, every tear, every voice raised in anger.

Well, not every voice.

They have plenty of time for their rage and anger. Anger that their peace and love and puppies plan for world peace came crashing down along with aircraft aluminum and structural steel and glass and human bodies that day in Manhattan, Washington, and Shanksville.

Five years later, American Democrats have more hate in their hearts for their own President than they do for the terrorists that killed almost 3,000 of their countrymen. They refuse to confront terrorism. Some would rather blame America and the world they think they understand, rather than face up to the fact that the world we all thought we knew was just an illusion. They are in catastrophic psychological denial, and cannot face the fact that "the other" they have spent their lives providing moral equivalence for were the ones who attacked our country.

It is so much easier to blame Bush than face the fact that we were attacked because we are the beacon of freedom for the world, and the greatest threat to radical Islam. It is so much easier to blame Bush, than realize that decades of denial led us to that horrific moment. If they can only blame Bush for that day—and every day since that their worldview has been shown to be vapid, self-serving, and a fraud—then their denial can go on, and "reality-based community" can continue to live in a world that has refuses to learn, to adapt, to change.

The Left refuses to learn from 9/11 and knows no way forward. It is why they grasp so insistently to the past, clinging to what was and what might have been, instead of moving forward to forcefully determine what should be and what must be done to secure our freedoms for the future. It is they that childishly insist for the "Perfect War" theory, stating a belief that any war not fought with perfect foresight and accuracy is wrong, while knowing securely no war has ever met their standard.

They show that they hate the present and don't understand the lessons of the recent past. They strive for stagnation and stasis and blaming ourselves, but they offer no hope for the future.

They blame Americans for radical Islamic plans for world domination. They vilify our troops instead of the terrorists they fight. They attack western governments fighting for freedom instead of eastern governments and the terrorists they sponsor that are fighting for oppression and destruction of our way of life.

The Left offers America and true liberalism a death sentence, seeking to repeat the failed policies of 30 years in denial.

We will not listen to them again.

That, perhaps, is their greatest fear of all.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:57 PM | Comments (154) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Still Waiting For Kantor

Last week, USA Today columnist Andrew Kantor attacked blogger Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs in a story meant to highlight the "professionalism" of the mainstream media, while calling into question the ethics and accountability of bloggers.

The problem was, Kantor's attack on Johnson was not grounded in fact. Kantor's shoddy research into the issue was exposed, and I formally asked him for a correction to his USA Today article early Saturday morning.

It is now Monday morning, and Mr. Kantor's USA Today article has gone uncorrected, even though I left a detailed comment on his blog explaining precisely where he made his errors, and asked him for a formal correction shortly before he closed comments.

As a result of the inaction to date, I sent the following email to Mr. Kantor this morning:


Dear Mr. Kantor,

I formally asked you this weekend to ask USA Today to correct the factual inaccuracies in your story that accuses Charles Johnson of “digging up” the story on Editor and Publisher's 2003 column by Greg Mitchell. You have not responded to that request on your blog or in email, and no changes have yet appeared in USA Today.

Do you intent to ask USA Today to make those corrections, or do you intend to let the known inaccuracies in your story stand? Please contact me this morning and let me know if you intend to make these corrections, and if you do not intend to ask USA Today to make those corrections, please let me know why.

I also ask to know whether or not you intend to follow up with Editor and Publisher's Greg Mitchell and Charles McKeown to see what their response to the “stealth” rewrite of Mitchell's 2003 column less than four hours after I linked it, and after two weeks of them refusing to answer questions about that rewrite in any way, shape, or form.

Thank you very much for your time and your (expected) prompt response.

Respectfully,

In addition, I sent a request for correction to USA Today.

Kantor professes to be a professional with "pro principles," and yet his inaccurate article has not be changed more than 48 hours after his inaccuracies and incomplete research were detailed to him precisely. Perhaps Mr. Kantor will eventually get around to updating his misleading column, perhaps not.

The fact remains that this professional journalist, like so many the blogosphere has exposed, is no more accurate than the amateurs he dismisses out of hand.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:28 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Five Years After

Five years ago this morning, a mid-air collision nearly took place over my home in New Windsor, New York. I wish it had. One of the planes was American Airlines Flight 11. The other was United Airlines Flight 175.

Pajamas Media provides the old and new media round-up of the day that changed our reality, Five Years After.

Update: That was then, this is now:


Five years on, a psychosis has gripped millions who can't and won't fathom the true nature of the war we are in. For many of them, having been born and raised in an essentially post-Christian West, they can't imagine that anyone might be motivated to kill and die because of something a warlord wrote down centuries ago. They cannot imagine any religion other than the one they believe they have outgrown being violent or causing violence. They cannot imagine anyone fighting for a cause that offers no material gains and therefore cannot be negotiated away. In our essentially materialist West, millions lack the imagination to believe that bin Laden's pining for the return of Andalusia to Muslim rule is in his mind a legitimate reason to wage war on America now. They can imagine their own countrymen being so motivated, though, and I think that's key to understanding their state of mind. They can imagine the Rotary Club member down the street plotting mayhem because he goes to church and votes Republican, but they can't imagine that the Muslim in Karachi is a real, live enemy who is actually plotting an attack.

This lack of imagination has bred the anti-war madness we have now. Rather than accept the reality of an enemy that cannot and therefore will not negotiate away what he believes to be the will of God, and rather than accept that this enemy will understand nothing outside total victory or total defeat, and rather than understand that this enemy's goals include enslaving the entire world in a global caliphate, and rather than accept that this reality necessitates the use of all tools including military might to defend ourselves, millions have embraced an alternate reality. The reality of the enemy outside the West and its motivations being too terrifying and too far beyond their own control, millions now imagine that the enemy in this war is within. The enemy, to them, isn't the turbaned man behind the plot to hijack multiple airplanes and crash them into multiple buildings in America. The real enemy, to these millions, is the man in the Oval Office, and the man or men behind him.

Read the tagline above, folks.

Because liberalism is a persistent vegetative state.

It wasn't chosen lightly,and continues to manifest itself to this day.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 06:14 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

September 08, 2006

How Quickly They Forget

A Senate report on prewar intelligence in Iraq says that there is no evidence Saddam Hussein had a relationship with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and al Qaeda. Predictably, Democrats are saying that this undercuts the President's justification for going to war.

They are deadly wrong.

Some intelligence experts might dispute the Senate's conclusions on Iraq, unless, of course, the Senate merely means that they didn't have evidence of Saddam and al-Zarqawi having tea.

Regardless, President Bush sent us to war because Saddam had well-documented ties to many terrorist groups, making Baghdad host to a "Who's Who" of Islamic terrorists.

Abu Abbas, mastermind of Achille Lauro hijacking that saw an elderly, wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer murdered and thrown over the side, was a long-time guest of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and was captured near Baghdad as a direct result of our 2003 invasion.

Abu Nidal, Palestinian terrorist mastermind led the Abu Nidal Organization, was another long-time terrorist-in-residence that died in Baghdad in 2002. The ANO was based in Iraq since 1998, and recieved training, logistical assistance, and financial aid from Iraq. They were shutdown by the invasion of Iraq after killing more than 900 people since 1974, and have not been heard from since.

Abdul Rahman Yasin, the bomb builder in the first World Trade Center attack in 1993, was given money and housing by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

I have a simple question for Senate Democrats:

How many more terrorist groups targeting and killing Americans would Saddam have had to support before you found an invasion worthwhile?

And please, pardon me, if I don't expect an answer. Democrats haven't had an answer for terrorism in five years, and I do'nt expect they'll suddenly come up with one now.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:00 PM | Comments (27) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Andy Kantor Finds a River In Egypt

In a USA Today column of September, 7 entitled, Technology empowers amateur journalism — for better or worse, Andrew Kantor decided—for whatever reason—to attack Charles Johnson of the blog Little Green Footballs and his principles.

Kantor stated:


Take the blog that exposed those Reuters/Adnan Hajj photos — Little Green Footballs (LGF). It's written by a Web designer from California named Charles Johnson.

Johnson took offense to a column by Greg Mitchell, the editor of Editor & Publisher magazine, in which Mitchell decried the baseless attacks on war photographers after the Hajj affair.

So Johnson went from using his technology toolbox like a pro to using it like an amateur. He dug up an article Mitchell wrote in 2003 in which Mitchell admitted that — more than 30 years ago — he faked some quotes while working for a local newspaper in Niagara Falls.

Mitchell was clearly embarrassed — it went against his professional ethics enough that 30 years later he told the story. But what was Johnson's take? He claimed it as proof that Mitchell had "first-hand experience with staging news."

Calling it "staging news" or saying Mitchell "faked a news story" was a bit off the deep end, and neither accusation would have gotten by a professional editor. But Johnson isn't a professional. He's just a guy with a toolbox. He had great success using it, helping to expose the faked Bush National Guard memos, as well as those Adnan Hajj photos.

But he mistook having a well-worn set of professional tools with being equivalent to a well-followed set of pro principles.

For someone who purports to be a professional journalist critiquing and criticizing citizen journalism, Mr. Kanor seems to have a problem with a core element of journalism, i.e. getting his facts and sources correct.

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs did not "dig up an article Mitchell wrote in 2003."

Jon Ham, currently VP for Communications for The John Locke Foundation wrote about Mitchell's admitted malfeasance the first time around while writing as a professional journalist for the Durham Herald-Sun.

After Mitchell wrote a pair of editorials attacking bloggers (though billed as a defense of war photographers), Mr. Ham sent a link to the 2003 editorial to me, which inspired me to write a post on it on my blog that quickly spread through the blogosphere exactly two weeks ago today.

To the best of my knowledge, every person who wrote about this admitted example in Mitchell's past of staging the news did, in fact, cite my blog as the source, including Little Green Footballs. Mr. Kantor expresses an interest and concern for "pro principles," and so I find it disturbing that he would institute such an attack without getting his basic facts correct.

I'm equally disturbed that a writer of technology does not seem to understand the term "hat tip" which Mr. Johnson used to clearly indicate that I was the source. Perhaps Kantor's understanding of the cyber-culture he covers is perhaps not quite as extensive as he would have his readers believe.

I wish Mr. Kantor had understood that bit of terminology, for if he had, and followed Mr. Johnson's link back to my blog, he would likely have discovered that the act of citing Mr. Mitchell's 2003 editorial led to "someone" at Editor & Publisher to suddenly rewrite the lede of Mr. Mitchell's 2003 editorial to cast him in a far more favorable light. Mitchell is now the obvious suspect in an ethical breach that one Washington, D.C. based newspaper editor said was serious enough to warrant dismissal.

Neither Mitchell, nor publisher Charles McKeown, nor parent company VNU Media's spokesman Will Thoretz will comment two weeks after this clear violation of journalistic ethics, putting up a stonewall of silence, no doubt hoping that the concrete example of journalistic fraud committed in the rewrite of Mitchell's 2003 column will simply die away.

Andrew Kantor say that bloggers have a nice tools for communication, but not the principles. As the editor and publisher of Editor & Publisher both continue to stonewall critics over a serious and obvious breach of journalistic ethics, and no professional journalists with come forth to defend them, I find his nose-in-the-air defense of journalistic principles to ring quite hollow.

( h/t: LGF)

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:38 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Reality-Based Community's War On Freedom

The Disney Corporation and ABC has a decision to make today, on whether the American people get to decide what they will watch on television, or if they will defer that decision to operatives of the Democratic Party.

The Path to 9/11, a mini-series based in part upon individual interviews and the 9/11 Commission Report, is being fought tooth-and-nail by grassroots liberal activists and top Democratic Party politicians in an effort to stifle free speech. The Democratic Party has gone so far as to threaten to attempt to challenge ABC's broadcasting license in a clear challenge to this nation's First Amendment. If ABC allows the Democratic Party to set a precedent of censorship through intimidation, then all Americans will have lost a part of their freedom.

Some elements of this mini-series are expected to be critical of the Bush and Clinton Administrations, and it does reputedly dramaticize some minor elements in the interests of accurately portraying the overall truth. That said, the overall treatment of the failings of the American government leading up to the horrific terrorist of September 11, 2001, must be shown. We must learn from our past mistakes to keep from repeating them in the future, and any attempt to prevent The Path to 9/11 from airing is an affront to the 2,973 people who died in lower Manhattan, Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. as a result of Islamic terrorism.

I strongly urge you to contact ABC, let them know that you support their right to provide the programming of their choice to the American people.

For 230 years we have been a nation of free men and women with the right to debate, dissent, and disagree. We should not forfeit that right to the whims of any political party.

Debate the merits and accuracy of The Path to 9/11 after the American people have had a chance to view it and form their own opinions about its content. That is the American way.

Censorship dictated by political operatives is not.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:01 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

September 07, 2006

Operators are Standing By...


freedomnet

The Carolina FreedomNet 2006 half-day blog conference is just a month from now, and if you plan on coming, I suggest you hop over to Carolina Journal Online and check out the details. I hear that the hotel rooms at the reserved rate won't last too much longer, so you might want to act quickly.

The schedule is as follows:


8:00 a.m.-8:30 a.m.: Registration and Continental breakfast

8:30 a.m.-8:45 a.m.: Welcome session

8:45 a.m.-10:15 a.m.: Local vs. Global: What Should Be Your Blog's Focus? Panelists are Raleigh's Lorie Byrd of Wizbang, Greensboro's Sam Hieb of Sam's Notes, Charlotte's Sister Toldjah and Raleigh's Bob Owens of Confederate Yankee.

10:15 a.m.-10:45 a.m.: Break

10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.: Panel: How Has The Blogging Phenomenon Affected Politics and Political Discourse? Panelists are Townhall.com's Mary Katharine Ham (formerly of Durham), Jeff Taylor of Charlotte's The Meck Deck, Scott Elliott of Election Projection and Durham's Josh Manchester of The Adventures of Chester.

12:15 p.m.-12:30 p.m.: Break

12:30 p.m.-2:00 p.m.: Luncheon and keynote speech, "The 61st Minute: Inside the Eye of Hurricane Dan" with Scott Johnson of Powerline

I hope to see you there.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:05 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Palestinian Terrorists Get New Body Armor

Via Hot Air, Snapped Shot alerts us to new body armor being used by using by Palestinian militants. Lets see if I can provide you with a close-up view of that armor.


1

Note that it is now available in two-ply.


2

And yes, they are being used as body armor as the original photo shows.



At least three visibly armed militants are hiding among more than a dozen civilians in this photo, including the man on the far right who is targeting Israeli soldiers.

Like their brethren in Gaza and in Lebanon, terrorists in the West Bank are willing to use civilians as shields, and though it is hard for our western mind to understand, the civilians themselves seem content with that arrangement.

This battle left two so-called civilians dead and 11 wounded.

Somehow, that doesn't upset me as much now as it once might have.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 05:22 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

An Inconvenient Freedom of Speech

ABC's upcoming mini-series, "The Path to 9/11" which is scheduled to air the nights of September 10th and 11th, has shown that Democrats of all levels, from bloggers, to the national Democratic Party, to the former President of the United States, are all quite comfortable with muzzling freedom of speech when it suits their purposes.

The mini-series is a dramatized account based on "a variety of sources, including the 9/11 commission report, other published materials and personal interviews," according to ABC spokesman Jonathan Hogan. Parts of The Path to 9/11 are speculative, and ABC freely admits that the film is a dramatization of known events, a very common approach to films ranging from Schindler's List to Bonnie and Clyde.

Despite this common cinematic treatment, Democrats at all levels are actively campaigning to have ABC's mini-series altered or pulled from the air, using tactics ranging from accusations that the film is inaccurate, to threats of retribution against ABC and others involved with the project. It is transparent Stalinism, an attempt to muzzle the freedom of speech of those who do not march lock-step with their ideals, radiating from the top down.

Former President Bill Clinton is demanding that the ABC drama be pulled from the air unless the script is revised to meet with his approval.

The Democratic Party's National Director, Tom MacMahon, released a scathing attack on the film to Democratic supporters, encouraging them to bully ABC into taking the drama off the air, and was caught openly threatening to pull ABC's broadcast license if the network did not acquiesce to his demands. This is an open attempt to blackmail a broadcaster by the officers of the Democratic Party.

Sitting Democratic members of Congress are also calling for the film to be censored. Democrats are unabashedly seeking to given themselves the power of Orwell's Ministry of Truth written about in 1984, and are actively stating their intention punish ABC for thoughtcrimes by threatening the networks broadcast license.

Their behavior is shameful.

No self-respecting American should concede a political party the ability to limit our Freedom of Speech. Hillary Clinton once stated, "we have a right to debate and disgree," but it is painfully apparent that Democrats feel that right applies to them, and only to what they would allow you to see.

In 2001, Cyrus Nowrasteh, the same writer who created "The Path to 9/11," released a film called "The Day Reagan Was Shot." It too, was a fictionalized account. It, too, portrayed many politicians inside the White House in an unflattering light during a moment of crisis for the nation.

Politicians portrayed in that film also criticized Nowrasteh's work and accuracy, but they made no attempt to censor the film and keep it from being aired, as Congressional Democrats and the former President have done with "The Path to 9/11." They made no attempt to blackmail the film's distributor to keep it from coming to air, as the Democratic Party's National Director has done. Republicans attacked the 2001 film for it's inaccuracies, but never attempted to run roughshod over our rights to see a controversial film and form our own opinions in the aftermath.

Democrats from the top down have no such problem with attempting to control what you see, and are proving themselves quite willing to brush aside an inconvenient Freedom of Speech.

Update: Captain Ed notes via email that he recalls the response to this and the other Reagan film as being quite contentious, and Joe Gandelman does a good job showing that many conservatives did in fact throw quite a few rocks at these films from the dubious safety of their own glass houses.

To make my own position clear, I'm against any politically-driven censorship of films, and find such attempts to be vile. If you have any faith in the American public at all, you have to let these films, and future ones like them, stand or fall on their own merits, not those imposed by politicians.

Update: The head of the CIA Counterterrorist Center's Osama bin Laden unit confirms that the Clinton Administration killed the attack plan protrayed in the film, and further contends that the Clinton Administration actually missed 8-10 chances to take out bin Laden.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:29 AM | Comments (31) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Accuracy, or Censorship?

The "-based" community is at it again (where did their "reality" go? I have no idea, and I've been trying to find out for years), as Representatives John Conyers, Jr., John Dingell, Jane Harman, and Louise Slaughter, Democrats all, released an open letter to the Walt Disney Company and ABC, asking for "factual accuracy" in the two-part miniseries, "The Path to 9/11."


Mr. Robert A. Iger

President and CEO

The Walt Disney Company


Dear Mr. Iger:

We are advised that ABC is scheduled to air a two-part mini-series entitled "The Path to 9/11" on September 10 and September 11. While we have not yet seen this program, news reports raise serious questions about its accuracy. Therefore, we request that the inaccuracies described herein be addressed immediately and that the program be thoroughly reviewed and revised for accuracy before it airs.

Among our concerns about the program are the following: first, it reportedly contains a scene in which Sandy Berger, the National Security Adviser to President Bill Clinton, declines to give Central Intelligence Agency operatives the authority to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden, and in which those operatives are outside a house where Bin Laden is located. This account has been expressly contradicted by Richard Clarke, a high-ranking counterterrorism official in both the Clinton and Bush Administrations.

Second, the film reportedly contains a scene in which the Central Intelligence Agency declines to share information about the 9/11 hijackers with the FBI and ascribes that failure to the so-called "wall," limiting information sharing by the Department of Justice in certain circumstances, and established by the Department of Justice in an internal memorandum.

This scene is puzzling at best, and inaccurate at worst. According to a Republican Member of the 9/11 Commission, former Senator Slade Gorton, the "Department of Justice guidelines at issue were internal to the Justice Department and were not even sent to any other agency. The guidelines had no effect on the Department of Defense and certainly did not prohibit it from communicating with the FBI, the CIA or anyone else."

These two examples alone create substantial doubt about the overall accuracy of this program. September 11th is a day of mourning and remembrance for every American. We do not believe that it is appropriate for it to be tainted by false assertions of blame or partisan spin.

To avoid that occurrence, we urge you to review this film and correct these and other inaccuracies. We appreciate your prompt attention and reply to this time sensitive matter.

Sincerely,

Representatives John Conyers, Jr., John Dingell, Jane Harman, Louise Slaughter

Let's address the first inaccuracy brought about by our fine upstanding Democrats, the claim apparently made in the film that, "...it reportedly contains a scene in which Sandy Berger, the National Security Adviser to President Bill Clinton, declines to give Central Intelligence Agency operatives the authority to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden..."

This is demonstrably inaccurate, and I thank the fine Congresspeople for pointing that out. There should not be one scene showing Clinton Administration officials declining chances to kill Osama bin Laden, but four.

The 9/11 Commission Report states unequivocally that on four separate occasions--Spring 1998, June 1999, December 1999, and August 2000--U.S. National Security Advisor Sandy Burger was "an obstacle to action," preventing strikes that would have perhaps killed Osama bin Laden, decapitating al Qaeda well in advance of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks that killed nearly three thousand innocent people. This mini-series, if released with only one incidence of the Clinton Adminstration failing to kill Osama bin Laden when he had the chance instead of the four chances we know that Samuel "Sandy" Berger blocked, is a whitewash of history. Like the good Congresspeople said, we deserve accuracy.

Further, I am against any scene in the film that make's the infamous "Gorelick wall" seem "puzzling at best, and inaccurate at worst."

There should be absolutely no doubt of the effect of the Gorelick wall in hindering terrorist investigations:


As the No. 2 person in the Clinton Justice Department, Ms. Gorelick rejected advice from the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who warned against placing more limits on communications between law-enforcement officials and prosecutors pursuing counterterrorism cases, according to several internal documents written in summer 1995.
(none)
"It is hard to be totally comfortable with instructions to the FBI prohibiting contact with the United States Attorney's Offices when such prohibitions are not legally required," U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White wrote Ms. Gorelick six years before the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and at the Pentagon.

As Senator John Cornyn was quoted in the same article:


"These documents show what we've said all along: Commissioner Gorelick has special knowledge of the facts and circumstances leading up to the erection and buttressing of 'that wall' that, before the enactment of the Patriot Act, was the primary obstacle to the sharing of communications between law enforcement and intelligence agencies."

I agree with the four Democratic Representatives that urges Disney/ABC to "review this film and correct these and other inaccuracies."

I do highly suspect, however, that if Disney/ABC squared the film with the historical record that their cries would only become more shrill and bombastic.

As for this and other ham-handed attempts at censorship by liberal Democrats, Giaus astutely notes:


Back when Fahrenheit 911 was the talk of the blogosphere, all the criticism I read was about its accuracy. There were quite a lot of bloggers that were tearing it apart for its twisting of fact. A lot of bloggers wanted to set the record straight, but to my knowledge not one of those people I was reading at that time before I started blogging myself was calling for it to be silenced. They only wanted the record straight.

Now we have a new "docudrama" about 9/11 coming out. And the left side of the blogosphere and mainstream Democratic politicians are calling for it to be radically changed or silenced. Some are gloating that they think they have silenced some voices.

Have you noticed the difference here?

One group decries the accuracy, the other decries the existence. Who is in favor of silencing the opposition again? Who is in favor of curtailing the free speech of others?

I think the answer is obvious.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:03 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

September 06, 2006

Beeb "Mine" Exposed

Anti-personnel mine, or battery? Brought to you by the same folks who force children to stand next to unexploded bombs.

And the letter "C."

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:37 PM | Comments (0) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Dems Call For "No Confidence" Vote on Rumsfeld

Like you didn't expect it:


The Senate on Wednesday is set to debate a resolution that cites "no confidence" in the Bush administration's national security policies or Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's "ability to carry out the job," a Democratic leadership aide said.

The resolution, which was first proposed by Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer of California, will be offered as an amendment to the Defense Department appropriations bill.

Hey, I'm all for it.

While we're at it, why don't we debate a "no confidence" resolution for the Democratic Party, which nearly five years after the 9/11/01 terrorist attack on American, still advocates headlong retreat and disarming our allies as defense policy.

Rusmfeld has made mistakes as has every other Defense Secretary in wartime in American history, but at least he's trying to fight. Democrats are trying to tell us that running away from terrorists is the path to victory, but as a hallowed, still empty hole in Manhattan attests, there is nowhere left to run.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:20 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Bush Folds on Terrorist Bill of Rights

Okay, I'm ready for impeachment now:


The Bush administration on Wednesday said all detainees of the U.S. military would be ensured humane treatment, but some such as al Qaeda members would have fewer protections than other war prisoners.

The Pentagon detailed its policies on prisoner treatment shortly before President Bush was to speak on the issue of detainees on Wednesday afternoon. ABC television reported Bush would announce the transfer of a dozen top terrorism suspects held at secret CIA prisons to Defense Department control.

The Pentagon directive, which gives all prisoners protections as defined by the Geneva Conventions, follows heavy international criticism of the United States over military abuse of Iraqis held at Abu Ghraib prison and over its treatment and indefinite detention of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay.

Let's get a few facts straight about what terrorists are afforded under the Geneva Conventions, starting with the Third Geneva Convention (via Wikipedia):


Article 2 specifies when the parties are bound by GCIII
That any armed conflict between two or more "High Contracting Parties" is covered by GCIII;
That it applies to occupations of a "High Contracting Party";
That the relationship between the "High Contracting Parties" and a non-signatory, the party will remain bound until the non-signatory no longer acts under the strictures of the convention."

As al Qaeda and other terrorist groups do not act "under the strictures of the Convention" by torturing and beheading captives time and again, the rights of the Geneva Convention does not apply to them.

Terrorists are not afforded the protected Prisoners of War status, as they fail to meet the standards in Article 4.1.2:


Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, provided that they fulfill all of the following conditions:
  • that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;

  • that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance (there are limited exceptions to this among countries who observe the 1977 Protocol I);
  • that of carrying arms openly;
  • that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

To be eligible for Geneva Protections, "militias and members of other volunteer corps" must fulfill all of these qualifications; terrorists satisfy none.

Somewhere in North Waziristan, Osama bin Laden just laughed himself to death.

Update: Tammy Bruce seems to be of a like mind, while AllahPundit searches for a silver lining that I hope is actually there.

Update: Okay, I'm an idiot for beleiving this ABC News Report might reflect what the President actually said.


ABC News has learned that President Bush will announce that high-value detainees now being held at secret CIA prisons will be transferred to the Department of Defense and granted protections under the 1949 Geneva Conventions. It will be the first time the Administration publicly acknowledges the existence of the prisons.

From there, I went on to the Reuters report I cited above with the thought that Bush gave Geneva rights to terrorists. It was the thrust of my entire post.
And I was dead wrong:


The President just pulled one of the best maneuvers of his entire presidency. By transferring most major Al Qaeda terrorists to Guantanamo, and simultaneously sending Congress a bill to rescue the Military Commissions from the Supreme Court's ruling Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the President spectacularly ambushed the Democrats on terrain they fondly thought their own. Now Democrats who oppose (and who have vociferously opposed) the Military Commissions will in effect be opposing the prosecution of the terrorists who planned and launched the attacks of September 11 for war crimes.
And if that were not enough, the President also frontally attacked the Hamdan ruling's potentially chilling effect on CIA extraordinary interrogation techniques, by arguing that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions is too vague, and asking Congress to define clearly the criminal law limiting the scope of permissible interrogation.

Taken as a whole, the President's maneuver today turned the political tables completely around. He stole the terms of debate from the Democrats, and rewrote them, all in a single speech. It will be delightful to watch in coming days and hours as bewildered Democrats try to understand what just hit them, and then sort through the rubble of their anti-Bush national security strategy to see what, if anything, remains.

It looks like a lot of us might have gotten blindsided by Bush's sudden and uncharacteristic agility. I could get used to being this kind of wrong.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:41 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Incredible Re-Burning Car of Rafah

The Israeli military was busy Tuesday evening in the Rafha refugee camp in Gaza, striking two separate vehicles driven by Hamas activists, according to the Beeb:


Three Hamas militants have been killed in two Israeli air strikes on cars in Rafah, southern Gaza, Palestinian officials said.

The first attack killed an activist from Hamas' military wing and hurt his companion. Dozens of bystanders were also hurt, Palestinian doctors said.

Two Hamas militants were killed in a second strike on a car in Rafah.

Israeli forces have been carrying out raids and air strikes on Gaza after the capture of an Israeli soldier in June.

Hundreds of Palestinians have since been killed by Israeli action.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the first of the two strikes on Tuesday targeted militants who were planning an attack on Israel.

"After the aerial attack, there were a number of explosions, proving that the vehicle was carrying explosives," the spokeswoman said.

Photographers from the Associated Press and Reuters were quick to converge upon the two cars, as captured in Yahoo's "Gaza" photostream.

AP's Khalil Hamra captured two photos of the vehicle I've dubbed "Car 1," a white vehicle absent all easily identifiable signs of its doors, roof, and even roof pillars.


airstrike


as5

The exposed steering wheel and beveled hood, which is apparent in the second photo, are also useful identifiers, as are the rather plain wheels. It is also perhaps worth noting the surroundings of the photo, which shows an audience of many men in paramilitary attire identified as Hamas-led Palestinian Authority's security forces, in a very well-lit and back-lit area.

The second vehicle hit in Israeli air strikes I've dubbed "Car 2," but you may wish to refer to it as the "Incredible Re-Burning Car," or "IRC" for short, for reasons that will shortly become apparent.

Reuters photographer Ibraheem Abu Mustafa, provides us with this photo and caption:

as4




Palestinians help with rescue work on a car as water is sprayed to douse flames following an Israeli airstrike in Rafah camp in the southern Gaza Strip September 5, 2006. Israeli airstrikes killed four Palestinian militants in Gaza on Wednesday, the Israeli military and witnesses said, ratcheting up violence in the coastal strip further.


Please note that the vehicle fire appears to have been doused at this point. Also note that the door pillar extending over the passenger compartment is somewhat intact, as it a battered driver's side door, the roof-supporting column behind the driver's door, and the rear door on the driver's side, which has blown (or perhaps, looking the two sets of hands on it, pushed) upward and inward.

Also please note the five-spoke wheel, the deformed hood, and the dark mark on the left front quarterpanel, which I estimate to be perhaps 3-4 inches from the back of the panel, and roughly eight inches down from the top of the panel. It is worth noting that the crowd make-up in this photo is exclusively civilian in nature, and that the only readily apparent source of light is from the camera's flash, if for no other reason than to firmly establish that the first two photos are a distinctly separate even than the second pair of photos.

And now, a miraculous AP photo and caption of the exact same vehicle... well, not quite.


airstrike3




Palestinians gather around the burning wreckage of a car destroyed in an apparent Israeli airstrike in the Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2006.Three Palestinians were killed and 12 wounded late Tuesday in explosions, at least one of them the result of an Israeli airstrike, Palestinians and the Israeli military said.


Suddenly this car, still readily identifiable by its five-spoke wheel, deformed hood and dark quarterpanel mark, has burst into flame, after the door pillar extending over the passenger compartment, the battered driver's side door, the roof-supporting column behind the driver's door, and the rear door on the driver's side have all been removed or pulled down.

Perhaps there are other alternative explanations, but it appears to my eye that parts of the vehicle were pulled out of the way and the car reignited between the time the Reuters photographer took the first picture of this vehicle and the unnamed AP photographer took the far more dramatic second photo. Either that, or the order of the photos are reversed, and these fine resident mechanics and body shop fabricators of Gaza were already well on the way towards reconstructing the car before it was even removed from the scene.

I'll let you decide which scenario is more likely.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:05 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

September 05, 2006

Keeping the Peace?

When Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora praised Hezbollah's war against Israel as "legendary" it was disconcerting. When his government refused to disarm Hezbollah, and instead opted for a "if we don't see it, we won't confiscate it (so please hide them)" approach to Hezbollah's weaponry, it was cause for concern.

So what should we make of the Lebanese Army moving anti-aircraft guns into southern Lebanon?


aa


My guess is "nothing good."

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:39 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Reality We Live In

Judd from Think Progress offers up a blistering response the upcoming ABC docudrama, Path to 9/11, from former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke:


ThinkProgress has obtained a response to this scene from Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism czar for Bush I, Clinton and Bush II, and now counterterrorism adviser to ABC:


1. Contrary to the movie, no US military or CIA personnel were on the ground in Afghanistan and saw bin Laden.

2. Contrary to the movie, the head of the Northern Alliance, Masood, was no where near the alleged bin Laden camp and did not see UBL.

3. Contrary to the movie, the CIA Director actually said that he could not recommend a strike on the camp because the information was single sourced and we would have no way to know if bin Laden was in the target area by the time a cruise missile hit it.

In short, this scene — which makes the incendiary claim that the Clinton administration passed on a surefire chance to kill or catch bin Laden — never happened. It was completely made up by Nowrasteh.

The actual history is quite different. According to the 9/11 Commission Report (pg. 199), then-CIA Director George Tenet had the authority from President Clinton to kill Bin Laden. Roger Cressy, former NSC director for counterterrorism, has written, “Mr. Clinton approved every request made of him by the CIA and the U.S. military involving using force against bin Laden and al-Qaeda.”

That is what Judd and Richard Clarke have to say.

Decision '08 recalls a quite different and far more true reality by citing the 9/11 Commission Report which states unequivocally that on four separate occasions--Spring 1998, June 1999, December 1999, and August 2000--U.S. National Security Advisor Sandy Burger was "an obstacle to action," preventing strikes that would have perhaps killed Osama bin Laden, decapitating al Qaeda well in advance of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks that killed nearly three thousand innocent people.

Judd at Think Progress and many other liberals would apparently like to pretend that Islamic terrorism was not a threat before George W. Bush was inaugurated. This collective selective amnesia is neither helpful nor realistic. Osama bin Laden was an identified threat well before George W. Bush took office, and his plan to attack on 9/11 is a direct result of watching President Clinton's headlong retreat "redeployment" from Somalia at the behest of the American Left's favorite defeatist, Congressman John Murtha.

William Jefferson Clinton's Presidency spanned 1993-2001. During that time, al Qaeda was suspected to be the inspiration or the cause of a minimum of four separate terrorist attacks against Western targets.

From NPR:


Feb. 26, 1993: A massive bomb explodes in a garage below the World Trade Center in New York City. Six people are killed and more than 1,000 injured in the blast. Analysts cite some links to al Qaeda in the attack, though Osama bin Laden disavowed any connection.

June 25, 1996: A powerful truck bomb explodes outside a U.S. military housing complex near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 American servicemen and wounding several hundred people.

Aug. 7, 1998: Two bombs explode within minutes of each other near the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The blasts kill 264 people.

Oct. 12, 2000: Seventeen American sailors are killed and 39 wounded by a bomb aboard a small boat that targets the USS Cole, a U.S. Navy destroyer refueling in Aden, Yemen.

If the Clinton Administration had acted to attack bin Laden during any of the four chances it had between 1998 and 2000, there is the possibility that bin Laden's death could have averted the attacks that killed 264 and wounded thousands in Kenya and Tanzania. Osama bin Laden's death in any of the four possible attacks that Berger stopped may have kept 17 sailors from being killed in Yemen, and 389 other sailors from being wounded. But Clinton's administration did not act, and missed its chances, not just one time, but four.

This is not to place all the blame for 9/11 on Clinton's administration, as every single administration from Nixon and Ford onward to today, both Democrat and Republican, "fed the beast" by not responding decisively and with overwhelming force to terrorist attacks. Clinton was the first president to face al Qaeda, but he was not the first President to fail against terrorism.

George W. Bush's administration inherited 35+ years of bad decision-making which led up to the 9/11/01 attacks, and the ramifications of those 35 years of fundamentally "misunderestimating" the thread continue to ripple forward as terrorist organizations around the world act on the now long-held belief that their zealotry and willingness to die is stronger than our determination to live in freedom.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (and of that matter, in Lebanon) have both confused and infuriated the jihadis that are so certain that they can beat the West with outdated weaponry and tenacity, but the simple fact of the matter is that when Western politicians get out of the way and let their militaries fight, western forces have never lost in actions above platoon level in the entire War on Terror. Man-to-man, soldier-to-terrorist, we are quite simply better at killing them than they are killing us.

The reality is that we can and do defeat jihadists when weak-willed politicians let our soldiers fight. It only remains to be seen if the politicians and apologists in free nations will allow us a chance to win.

Update: From time to time, the most recent occupant of the White House shows us that he gets it.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:40 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Too Cowardly to Even Call It Retreat

Captain Ed notes this morning an open letter from Democrats calling for a "change of course" in Iraq.

Their "plan" can be summed up in two words:

  • disengagement
  • retreat

Specifically, they cite four points in their "new direction" for Iraq. They are:

  1. transitioning the U.S. mission in Iraq to counter-terrorism, training, logistics and force protection;
  2. beginning the phased redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq before the end of this year;
  3. working with Iraqi leaders to disarm the militias and to develop a broad-based and sustainable political settlement, including amending the Constitution to achieve a fair sharing of power and resources; and
  4. convening an international conference and contact group to support a political settlement in Iraq, to preserve Iraq's sovereignty, and to revitalize the stalled economic reconstruction and rebuilding effort.

Lets look at what these steps actually propose.


(1) transitioning the U.S. mission in Iraq to counter-terrorism, training, logistics and force protection;

Democrats are stating that they would like for the U.S. military forces in Iraq to take a passive role in combating terrorism in Iraq. In this press release, They throw in the suggestion that U.S. forces would engage in "counter-terrorism," but that has precisely been their role from 2003 to the present. what Democrats are really advocating is their pre-9/11 mindset of counter-terrorism being a police function which is precisely the mindset practiced by U.S. presidents from both parties from the mid 1970s onward that has only emboldened terrorist groups. It was this mindset that inspired Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda to think that slamming airliners into buildings on U.S soil would lead to his ultimate victory. Democrats are willing to concede this point to bin Laden, essentially stating they are willing to re-engage the same reactive approach that has consistently failed to stop the spread of terrorism for three decades. Trying something once and noting it does not work is one thing. Trying the same approach repeatedly even after that approach has been shown to be a categorical failure is the very definition of insanity.

As if their return to the failed policy of reactive counter-terrorism policing isn't passive enough, they expand on just how passive a role they advocate, reducing the American role in Iraq to training, logistics, and force protection. They would have U.S forces train Iraqi forces, but not take them into combat. They would have U.S forces provide logistics and materials to move Iraqi units around, but not use these units to engage terrorists. They would reduce American forces--the best-trained and most experienced active duty military in the world today--to training Iraqis and baby-sitting convoys and hiding in bunkers in fixed installations. Force protection is a defensive measure, designed to minimize losses to specific locations, but does nothing to hunt down and kill terrorists. Quite simply, the Democratic plan is to concede Iraq to any terrorist group that wants to take it, as long as they don't directly attack our forces.


(2) beginning the phased redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq before the end of this year;

Having conceded Iraq to any Tom, Dick, or Achmed with an Ak-47 and an attitude, the Democrats continue with their self-fulfilling prophecy of failure. As they would have our troops emasculated and reduced to a training and force protection role only, it makes no sense to have them there. Why have soldiers in-theater, if they aren't allowed to fight? And having stripping our soldiers of combat roles, they would do what no enemy force in Iraq above platoon level has ever done; force us into retreat. Of course, they call it "redeployment" to try to cover-up what it really is, but when you concede the country to the terrorists and pull all your soldiers of the battlefield and ship them elsewhere, it is a retreat. A retreat is the "withdrawal of troops to a more favorable position to escape the enemy's superior forces." Democrats apparently feel that terrorists are superior to the American military.


(3) working with Iraqi leaders to disarm the militias and to develop a broad-based and sustainable political settlement, including amending the Constitution to achieve a fair sharing of power and resources; and (4) convening an international conference and contact group to support a political settlement in Iraq, to preserve Iraq's sovereignty, and to revitalize the stalled economic reconstruction and rebuilding effort.

After stripping our soldiers of all offensive capability and then calling for their retreat, Democrats get to the real "meat" of their plan, one that hasn't changed in decades: appeasement politics. They steadfastly refuse to learn from the past, which shows that negotiating with terrorists only emboldens them. If you were a terrorist, and you saw Democrats neuter the American military and force them into retreat (something you yourself cannot do), any paper settlement is merely a formality on your way to complete victory. The Democrats, having shown that they are quite willing to take a defeat of American forces in trade for short term political gains at home, are merely looking for paper solutions so that they can have their "victory" over a weak American president. So by all means go ahead and sign anything they float your way. History shows you won't honor any agreement you sign (and in fact, not being a real government, how are they going to hold you to your agreement? "Sanctions?" Yeah, right). So by all means, go ahead and sign whatever "settlement" Democrats send you, recognizing it for what they truly are; an unconditional surrender of the mightiest military on the planet by the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party has often been criticized for not having a plan to win the war in Iraq, and this letter indicates that winning is not now and perhaps never has been part of their plan. All they offer here is a sugar-coated defeat, an abandonment of principles, and an abandonment of 25 million Iraqi men, women and children. Democrats are trying to tell you that running away from terrorists is how you beat them.

As the fifth anniversary of the greatest testament to that failed strategy nears, I'm inclined to strongly disagree.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:17 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

September 02, 2006

Arrogance Unfettered

A week ago this morning, I caught "someone" creatively editing a three-year-old editorial written by Greg Mitchell of news industry trade Editor & Publisher. The lede in Mitchell's editorial was rewritten to cast him in a more favorable light in a story in which he already admitted to being guilty of journalistic fraud three years ago.

Greg Mitchell wrote this as the lede to his 2003 editorial:


Since the press seems to be in full-disclosure mode these days, I want to finally come clean. Back when I worked for the Niagara Falls (N.Y.) Gazette (now the Niagara Gazette), our city editor asked me to find out what tourists thought about an amazing local event: Engineers had literally “turned off” the famous cataracts, diverting water so they could shore up the crumbling rock face. Were visitors disappointed to find a trickle rather than a roar? Or thrilled about witnessing this once-in-a-lifetime stunt?

It stayed unchanged for over three years until I criticized him for it, at which point the editorial's lede was changed to this within hours:


Since the press seems to be in full-disclosure mode these days, I want to finally come clean. Back in 1967, when I was 19 and worked for the Niagara Falls (N.Y.) Gazette (now the Niagara Gazette) as a summer intern, our city editor asked me to find out what tourists thought about an amazing local event: Engineers had literally "turned off" the famous cataracts, diverting water so they could shore up the crumbling rock face. Were visitors disappointed to find a trickle rather than a roar? Or thrilled about witnessing this once-in-a-lifetime stunt?

The changes—most likely made by Mitchell himself—are obvious:


Since the press seems to be in full-disclosure mode these days, I want to finally come clean. Back in 1967, when I was 19 and worked for the Niagara Falls (N.Y.) Gazette (now the Niagara Gazette) as a summer intern, our city editor asked me to find out what tourists thought about an amazing local event: Engineers had literally "turned off" the famous cataracts, diverting water so they could shore up the crumbling rock face. Were visitors disappointed to find a trickle rather than a roar? Or thrilled about witnessing this once-in-a-lifetime stunt?

Over the course of the week, various bloggers have attempted to contact Mr. Mitchell and other figures inside both Editor & Publisher and its parent company, VNU Media, about this journalistic fraud, and neither publisher Charles McKeown of Editor & Publisher, nor VNU Media's company spokesman Will Thoretz has had enough courtesy, professionalism, or even concern about the reputation about the craft they are supposed to represent to respond to those asking very serious questions about a very real breach in ethics apparently committed by one of their senior staff members.

Media organizations have essentially two ways with which they can deal with situations of journalistic fraud as noted by Dr. David Perlmutter recently and ironically enough, in this editorial in Editor & Publisher about a similar journalistic scandal:


News picture-making media organizations have two paths of possible response to this unnerving new situation. First, they can stonewall, deny, delete, dismiss, counter-slur, or ignore the problem. To some extent, this is what is happening now and, ethical consideration aside, such a strategy is the practical equivalent of taking extra photos of the deck chairs on the Titanic.

The second, much more painful option, is to implement your ideals, the ones we still teach in journalism school. Admit mistakes right away. Correct them with as much fanfare and surface area as you devoted to the original image. Create task forces and investigating panels. Don't delete archives but publish them along with detailed descriptions of what went wrong. Attend to your critics and diversify the sources of imagery, or better yet be brave enough to refuse to show any images of scenes in which you are being told what to show. I would even love to see special inserts or mini-documentaries on how to spot photo bias or photo fakery—in other words, be as transparent, unarrogant, and responsive as you expect those you cover to be.

In an email earlier this week to E&P Publisher Charles McKeown I said:


The self-serving rewrite of Mr. Mitchell's column has been described as "journalistic malpractice," by one media commentator, and another suggested today that Mitchell has a "truth problem." This is obviously not the kind of public face you would want your publication to have.

Neither Mitchell, nor others that have been contacted about this incident have sought to explain what happened, why it happened, and what can be done to prevent this from happening in the future. Editor & Publisher, or at least Mitchell and those under him, seem to be trying to stonewall this, apparently hoping that if they can delay long enough, that the issue will simply go away. I fear that when the issue does finally pass, it will take its "pound of flesh" in the form of the credibility of this publication with it.

Trust in the media continues to fall and circulation continue to decline, precisely because people such as Mitchell seem to think they are beyond accountability and beyond reproach. I ask you to help save your publication.

All it takes is a simple look to the server logs to conclusively identify who rewrote Mitchell's 2003 column late this past Friday afternoon. An even application of the kind of company policies I expect in any large media organization against this kind of unethical behavior should provide the remedy. Address the problem transparently, and you can gain credibility for Editor & Publisher instead of losing it.

Instead, officers of Editor & Publisher and VNU Media have chosen to stonewall, dismiss, and ignore the breach of journalistic ethics in an editorial by one of their senior editors, and have chosen a failed path. They can publish articles about journalistic ethics, but seem incapable of practicing what they preach.

Sadly, Editorial & Publisher is apparently unable to follow the advice that it provides to the publishing world; allowing journalistic malpractice to reign in its halls unchallenged, unfettered, and unafraid.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:05 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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