Anne Gearan lied: Dandelions died
Well, ok. So no real dandelions died, but I surely do wish to kill all the dandelions in my front yard. They are weeds. Some think they are pretty little weeds, but they are weeds none the less. They spread like wild fire. Just like the ‘common knowledge’ put out by our friends in the media; friends such as a Anne of Gearan Gables. I’m not going to say she lied out right. After all, I’m a private citizen who doesn’t have the right to voice my unfounded opinion in the same manner as a “professional journalist” does. I do not have freedom from slander charges. She and her ilk do. I do have free speech though, but the MSM is freer by far. I hope that means I can get away with my headline. We’ll see.
Now I bet your wondering what is sending me off onto this strange little rabbit trail. Well, I saw this headline while cruising the news during my lunch hour: “Rice frames al-Sadr as coward in Iran” – Washington Times.
I just had to stop and look.
I was sorely disappointed.
The article started out well enough:
Rice frames al-Sadr as coward in Iran
By Anne Gearan
April 21, 2008BAGHDAD (AP) — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice mocked anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a coward yesterday, hours after the radical leader threatened to declare war unless U.S. and Iraqi forces end a military crackdown on his followers.
But it slowly degraded into the usual media all-hype-no-substance-with-a-bogus-conclusion (how do you like ‘dem hyphens?) No where in the article does the author conclusively prove Miss Rice does anything but state the obvious facts. Big deal. The most invective language is actually put in play by the author. Not Dr. Rice. Then we begin to get little gems like this one:
“Miss Rice praised Mr. al-Maliki for confronting Sheik al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, which had a choke hold on Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city. The assault was Mr. al-Maliki’s most-decisive act by far against Sheik al-Sadr, a fellow Shi’ite and once a political patron. Kurdish and Sunni politicians, including a chief rival, have since rallied to Mr. al-Maliki, and the Bush administration argues he could emerge stronger from what had appeared to be a military blunder.”
A military blunder? Standing up to the militia was a blunder? The militia had a choke hold on Basra? So does that mean my friends who blog from Basra lied to me about what’s going on? Does that also mean the al-Maliki caused all of this to happen? Oh but it gets better. Our intrepid reporter ends the article thusly:
“During five days of heavy fighting last month, Iraqi troops struggled against militiamen, particularly the Mahdi Army. The ill-prepared Iraqi military was plagued by desertions and poor organization and U.S. troops had to take over in some instances. The offensive was inconclusive, with Iran helping mediate a truce.”
Even if we limit the whole Mahdi confrontation to just Basra the authors conclusions are worth ridicule. The struggle was not against militiamen. It was against the Mahdi. A few criminals and other freaks joined in but quickly melted away once they saw how things were going to end. The Iraqi military was not ill prepared. It was less prepared than we would have liked but that is a far cry from ill prepared. Desertions happened. Sure. But it wasn’t a plague. Reinforcements arrived and acquitted themselves very well, thank you. The police experienced more desertions by far. However those folk have been sacked. And poor organization? Wrong. The IA was organized enough to call in air strikes, execute joint operations, provide their own reinforcements, and usually provided their own resupply as well as medivac. Those tasks are not easily organized. Were they organized as well as we would have liked? No. But they are a far cry from “plagued”.
Finally, the “offensive was inconclusive”. Oh? I thought it was a blunder? Maybe it was an inconclusive blunder … except that other headlines today reveal that the IA has successfully completed an initiative aimed at destroying the last Mahdi stronghold in Basra. So, the IA turn the initiative around in their favor, forced Sadr to back down, then completed an offensive that cracks the Mahdi stronghold … but that’s inconclusive. Good thing the Iranian’s are there to mediate a truce. If Maliki’s lucky they’ll send in Citizen Carter next cause he obviously needs the help. I hear he’s an alien robot with lasers for eyes. He wants to take over the world. (h/t veggie tales)
What kind of crack does the MSM smoke? The kind that spreads pretty little weeds as far afield as the winds will carry them. They’re going digital next year or so
Bah. Mr.Hooah!, out.
I love how Iran so conveniently “steps in and mediates a truce!”
IRAN?!
Uh, gee it kind of reminds me of the movies you see where the traveling snake oil salesman stops in a city and his man for hire hops up on the stage acting sick and then is “miraculously healed” by the snake oil man and his potions. So, there is some speculation that Sadr has been in Iran (and may still be there per reports of medical treatment he received?) but we think that Iran is truly neutral enough to negotiate a real truce — it couldn’t be that we are being played, could it? Oh, and the MSM is, as usual, such a great mouthpiece for terrorist propaganda — I mean if they can’t get good footage of a soldier being killed in combat then they will reach for anything — including making Iran out to be some special mediator in a time of crisis. Give me a break.
Here’s an update from Ace (http://ace.mu.nu/) -
The Mystery of the Disappearing Sadrists
—Ace
Internet Detective Kevin Drum of The Washington Monthly is facing a stone-cold mystery, as reported by Dave Price:
The New York Times reports that Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army has mostly melted away in Basra. Nobody quite knows why.
That is a real head-scratchin’ puzzler, I’ll allow.
—- I love this quote from Ace, “Kevin Drum and his ilk have no problem discerning precisely what an aggressive Mahdi Army might mean. But a retreating one? In that case, it’s all just far too complicated for him to get a handle on.”
He’s too much.