Useful Fools

Fox News Watch today had a segment discussing the prisoner abuse scandal. Never once did they consider the question of whether the photographs should have been released.

The following is my letter to the show:

I am shocked that nobody asked: “Should the pictures have been aired?”

Journalists have a first amendment right not to face prior restraint. With this comes a duty to behave as responsible citizens.

In the case of this story, the release of the pictures was irresponsible. Americans will die because of that action, and 60 Minutes II must have known that. The journalistic watchdog function could have been performed in this case without showing the photos, some of which will appear on terrorist recruiting posters and web sites for decades. Of course, it wouldn’t have provided nearly as juicy a scandal, but it might have saved many American lives. Waiting two weeks was not enough.

This was classified information. The person who released it to the media is a criminal. Were it not for the enormous political power of the media, a grand jury (or military equivalent) would have been convened to determine the identity of the leaker. If necessary, journalists would have been ordered to reveal their source. They would then take great pride in going to prison instead.

Why do you folks think you have not only a right, but a duty to release information very damaging to our effort to fight terrorism? Is it because it is a political year?

I admire Fox news, but I cannot admire anybody on your panel after the arrogance demonstrated by your failure to even realize that such a question is valid.

You people should be ashamed, if such an emotion is allowed in media personnel.

Consider me dismayed and disgusted

The media now assumes that possession of information confers an automatic and unfettered freedom, even an obligation, to release it, regardless of the resulting harm to the nation.

By far the greatest damage resulting from the prisoner abuse situations was the release of photographs. Had those not been released, the situation would have been appropriately handled by the steps already in process. Journalists could even have used their normal “gotcha” against the administration on this issue without releasing the photographs. But that wasn’t enough for them.

The consequence of the release of those pictures is potentially catastrophic. We are fighting a war for the “Hearts and Minds” of Muslims, especially in the Middle Easter. Information is a very important weapon and a very important defense in that war.

If we lose that war, we will have to fight a potentially much broader and vastly more destructive war, both to us and especially to countries that are involved with terrorism. Remember Dresden and Hiroshima, and extrapolate.

Am example of the damage done can be seen at the Iraqi blog Healing Iraq. It contains the writings of Zeyad, a young Iraqi dentist. Zeyad had been supportive of the occupation, even when one of his cousins was apparently killed in another rare incident of abuse (which is also under investigation). Zeyad understood that these events were rare. But now, Zeyad appears to have given up on us.

Thank you, 60 minutes II, for costing us an ally, and for humiliating and angering a good person.

Ironically, the release of those pictures may damage the military’s ability to prosecute those who abused the prisoners. Again, the media didn’t care.

As exemplified by 60 minutes and the Fox News Watch panel, the media simply doesn’t care. They are so arrogant and isolated in their own value system that the question apparently didn’t occur to them.

The pictures caused a scandal. The political scandal will follow the normal script for these. But the international damage may result in the death of many Americans.

Here is their Code of Conduct. You will find no mention of the national interest in it.

Note: Also published at The Command Post editorial section.

Ted Koppel’s choice to read the names of the Iraq war dead was clearly a partisan attempt to damage the American will to continue that effort. This is made obvious by Koppel’s focus on Iraq but not Afghanistan. We have dead from both, but he chose to dramatize Iraq.

Ted Koppel pretends to be reporter and honest host.

He is not. His partisanship has been evident for years. But today’s activity was damaging to our war efforts, was dishonest, and deserves a response.

I suggest that people no longer watch Nightline. You are unlikely to get the truth there anyway, and I doubt you want to add to the profit of this dishonest man who things he is smarter than you and me.

I would suggest complaints or boycotts for his advertisers.

He has done his damage to our nation. It is time he understands the consequences.

Some people say they love America, which means the love living here.

Some people show they love America by their actions, and some pay the ultimate price.

Ted Koppel is clearly in the former category.

From the Arizona Republic:

Iraq could become ‘another Vietnam,’ cleric warns

Associated Press
Apr. 7, 2004 10:15 AM

In a separate statement issued earlier Wednesday, al-Sadr also called on Iraq’s neighbor Kuwait to close U.S. military bases there so that the region is freed of “the great Satan.”

“I call on our brothers of the Kuwaiti people to put pressure on their government to expel these terrorists bases,” it said.
Somehow I doubt the Kuwaiti’s give a damn what some Iraqi nutcase says. They remember what the Iraqis did to them in 1991.
“I call upon the American people to stand beside their brethren, the Iraqi people, who are suffering an injustice by your rulers and the occupying army, to help them in the transfer of power to honest Iraqis,” al-Sadr said in a statement issued by his office in the southern city of Najaf.
This might get more responses, since there are many fools in the United States, many acting as spokesmen for Kerry’s campaign.
“Otherwise, Iraq will be another Vietnam for America and the occupiers,” the statement said.

He is dreaming. The Tet Syndrome is not likely to be set off by his trivial efforts. In Vietnam we were fighting a very well supplied army of over a million.
…
In a separate statement issued earlier Wednesday, al-Sadr also called on Iraq’s neighbor Kuwait to close U.S. military bases there so that the region is freed of “the great Satan.”
One wonders what this guy is smoking…. In any case, pretty soon something will be smoking him!

Kos (Markos Zuniga), of daily KOS, authors the most influential left wing blog in America, with about 100,000 daily readers. His latest productions have caused considerable controversy. Both discussed the atrocities in Fallujah, in which four American civilians security guards were murdered, their bodies burned and mutilated, dragged through the streets and finally hung on a bridge.

Originally, Kos wrote:

et the people see what war is like. This isn’t an Xbox game. There are real repercussions to Bush’s folly.

That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries. They aren’t in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.

This was then removed from his site, Google and the Wayback Machine. But others kept it. It’s hard to hide on the Internet.

This was followed by a pitiful attempt of an excuse:

There’s been much ado about my indifference to the Mercenary deaths in Falluja a couple days ago. I wrote in some diary comments somewhere that “I felt nothing” and “screw them”.
My language was harsh, and, in reality, not true. Fact is, I did feel something. That’s why I was so angry.

I was angry that five soldiers — the real heroes in my mind — were killed the same day and got far lower billing in the newscasts. I was angry that 51 American soldiers paid the ultimate price for Bush’s folly in Iraq in March alone. I was angry that these mercenaries make more in a day than our brave men and women in uniform make in an entire month. I was angry that the US is funding private armies, paying them $30,000 per soldier, per month, while the Bush administration tries to cut our soldiers’ hazard pay. I was angry that these mercenaries would leave their wives and children behind to enter a war zone on their own violition [sic].

So I struck back.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tasty Manatees has done it again! I spent over an hour yesterday photographing the signs of the Useful Fools at the Phoenix demonstration (see other article on this blog), but nothing comes close to Tasty Manatees’ coup. Check it out!

USA Today reports:

Osama bin Laden’s terror network claims to have bought ready-made nuclear weapons on the black market in central Asia, the biographer of al-Qaeda’s No. 2 leader was quoted as telling an Australian television station.
In an interview scheduled to be televised on Monday, Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir said Ayman al-Zawahri claimed that “smart briefcase bombs” were available on the black market. It was not clear when the interview between Mir and al-Zawahri took place.

U.S. intelligence agencies have long believed that al-Qaeda attempted to acquire a nuclear device on the black market, but say there is no evidence it was successful.

In the interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp. television, parts of which were released Sunday, Mir recalled telling al-Zawahri it was difficult to believe that al-Qaeda had nuclear weapons when the terror network didn’t have the equipment to maintain or use them.

“Dr Ayman al-Zawahri laughed and he said ‘Mr. Mir, if you have $30 million, go to the black market in central Asia, contact any disgruntled Soviet scientist, and a lot of … smart briefcase bombs are available,’” Mir said in the interview.

“They have contacted us, we sent our people to Moscow, to Tashkent, to other central Asian states and they negotiated, and we purchased some suitcase bombs,” Mir quoted al-Zawahri as saying.

al-Qaeda has never hidden its interest in acquiring nuclear weapons.

The U.S. federal indictment of bin Laden charges that as far back as 1992 he “and others known and unknown, made efforts to obtain the components of nuclear weapons.”

Hopefully they are just bragging, but Al Qaeda often tells the truth about things like this.

At this point, anyone who is worrying much about domestic policy rather than the War on Terror had better wake up! No matter what is being promised by politicans won’t mean a hill of beans if even one of these weapons goes off in a United States City.

TO many of us, this upcoming election is dominated by one issue: Who can best protect America, a person who has voted against every weapons system and wants to turn our security over to the UN, or someone who has demonstrated his resolve and ability to take the war to the enemy.

This should dwarf any other issue. Even if Al Qaeda is lying, it is only because they have not yet bought the weapons they seek. These people may have, or may shortly acquire weapons capable of killling millions of us and destroying our economy and deeply damaging our way of life. And that is what we should be focused on!

Norwegian defense researchers had found documents last year that clearly shows Al Qaeda’s attack in Spain was intended as the first step to break up the US Coalition, identifying Spain as the “weakest link.”

For those who insist that the attack was not an Al Qaeda victory, this article is must reading!

From news.com.au:

Researchers with the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment who have specialised in digging up original al-Qaeda releases and interviews, told the NRK television channel they had discovered a document on an Arabic website last year outlining al-Qaeda strategies on how to force the United States and its allies to leave Iraq, and pointing to Spain as the “weakest link”.

“It wasn’t until yesterday when we were going through old material to find links to Spain that we understood what we were holding in our hands,” project leader Brynjar Lia told NRK.

The document also reportedly predicts that the other partners in the US-led coalition would follow like “pieces of domino” if Spain were to withdraw from Iraq.

[Hat Tip to Winds of Change]

Today we find out that France is kissing up to another enemy of freedom:

China and France will hold rare joint naval exercises off the mainland’s eastern coast on Tuesday, just four days before Beijing’s rival, Taiwan, holds presidential elections.

[Thanks Puppyblender]

That insignificant country is just getting more and more annoying, so I’ve come up with a plan. The only complication is that France has Weapons of Mass Destruction (nukes).

So here is the Moore plan for France:

1. Using a false flag operation (an agent who pretends to be an Iraqi), purchase all of their nuclear weapons with a complex, illegal oil transaction.
2. Sink their Navy. This should be no challenge. We’ve done it once before.
3. Put together one Marine combat company composed of Marine cooks.
4. Inform France that we are going to conquer them, so they can organize their surrender
5. Conquer France with the company of cooks. All Marines are fighters, and one company should be enough to conquer France.
6. Have the Cooks acquire most of what is good in France - their food and their chefs, and send them back to the states.
7. Use Agent Orange on their vineyards. California wine is better anyway (by objective tests).
8. Bombard them with deoderant. Not being familiar with the product, they will fear it is a chemical weapon and surrender again (it’s always good to get several surrenders from the French, they are sneaky).
9. Replace their government and school teachers with Southern Baptist missionaries. That will put an end, over time, to their decadent culture.
10. Repeat as necessary, except for step 2, which is only needed once.

I received this in the mail. It speaks for itself:

[Thanks to Ed Kostiha for providing this]

See Vets Against Kerry for more information.

[note: originally from Counterpunch ]