The Correction the AP Should Give

Now that we know that the Associated Press’ initial wire report on the Sunni mosques did in fact run in some publications, I think they shoud issue the following correction:

“In an initial wire story, we reported that Sunni residents claimed that four mosques in their neighborhood had been destroyed. A more accurate description of what happened is that the mosques were attacked, shot at and firebombed. Our initial reporting on this matter was based on conversations with Sunni residents. When we discussed the matter with Jamil Hussein (who does exist), he clarified that the mosques had been attacked, shot at and firebombed, but not destroyed.”

Does that work, guys? Would that make you happy?

Gavin adds: I just came in the door two seconds ago thinking I’d ask you to do a classic ‘Sadly, No!’ with all the trimmings on the no-publications thing. And then I’d do a ‘Gavin adds’ and be like, “Jeez, thanks a lot, dick. …Say, is this how we’ve been making those wingnuts feel all this time? We’re bad people.�

Thankfully, I don’t have to do that or engage in any self-reflection.

PS, To answer your question: Ha ha! No. Nothing short of teh total subjugation of the AP and all other mainstream news organizations would make them happy. It’s an old-school rustic mob with pitchforks, dude. The Jews media have been poisoning teh wells.
[Gav out]

UPDATE: Patterico writes:

P.S. The defense advanced by some of their commenters is that the story was accurate, and needs no correction, because Sunni residents did claim that Shiite militiamen had destroyed four Sunni mosques.

I agree that’s not a valid argument. Hiding behind “reisdents say” to report events is very sloppy. The AP should have done more reporting on the ground before putting out this initial piece

Now, let’s recap where we are in this story: it turns out that the mosques were actually attacked or firebombed, but not destroyed, and the AP should not have put out this initial wire saying they were destroyed. Additionally, they should have clarified why the initial wire report changed the word “destroyed” to the much more common “burned and blew up” that they later reported.

Recently, the A.P. reported that they revisited the four mosques and found that two had received fire damage. They could not confirm that the other two had received fire damage, and that they were under the control of Iraqi forces. Let’s take a look at those:

_ The third, the al-Muhaimin mosque, had shattered windows and holes in the roof, but a closer examination was impossible because the gate of the wall surrounding the structure was locked, the AP reporter found. It is closed, guarded by the Iraqi army and adorned by a picture of the late Shiite cleric father of Muqtada al-Sadr, the anti-American cleric who heads the Mahdi Army.

_ The fourth mosque named in the AP’s original report, the al-Qaqaqa mosque, also known as the al-Meshaheda mosque, has a broken window and is closed, guarded by Iraqi army troops outside and adorned with a picture of al-Sadr’s father. It also has Mahdi Army graffiti scrawled on its side, partially whitewashed over but still readable.

Now unless you think the A.P. is just flat-out lying about its firsthand accounts (and I’m sure you do, so this is kind of a moot point to make), you have to wonder why the picture of Sadr’s father is adorning these Sunni mosques. Even though the mosques are “still standing,” clearly Something Happened here; I tend to doubt that the Sunnis would hang up a picture of Sadr’s poppy on their own.

So the question becomes, What Exactly Happened here. Did Jamil Hussein and/or the Sunni neighbors exaggerate some of the details of their account to the A.P.? It’s certainly possible. But clearly these mosques were attacked by ethnic militias of some kind. I’d like to find out precisely what happened, and why pictures of Sadr’s dad are now adorning Sunni mosques that are under the control of the supposedly “non-sectarian” Iraqi security forces.

Gavin adds: Don’t let ’em suck you in, Brad. This is how they get you; it’s like Scientology.

Bradrocket adds: Too late!

Here’s a quote from the recent National Intelligence Estimate:

The Intelligence Community judges that the term “civil war� does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict in Iraq, which includes extensive Shia-on-Shia violence, al-Qa’ida and Sunni insurgent attacks on Coalition forces, and widespread criminally motivated violence. Nonetheless, the term “civil war� accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict, including the hardening of ethno-sectarian identities, a sea change in the character of the violence, ethno-sectarian mobilization, and population displacements.

Based on what I know, the story about the Sunni mosques seems to fall squarely in the “ethno-sectarian mobilization” and “population displacements” category. Again, Something Happened at these mosques. The details aren’t fully known, but you can bet they aren’t pretty.

 

Comments: 75

 
 
 

I’m not sure why there should be a correction to this story. A bunch of people claimed something. That was true.

 
 

Sadly, No NO N0!

You don’t understand. This has nothing to do with what the A.P., and everything to do with the magical pony the Decider promised us.

We know that pony is there, we just know it!

Darn traitor liberalmediaislamomunifascisthomexicans just won’t let us have it.

 
 

No, it won’t make us happy. Nothing will. Not even the most abject apology from AP personally deliverd to each of us. You see, we are empty inside, soulless, and can never, ever be happy. So there.

 
 

Correction to AP should give?

Ho ho ho! Your goose is cooked, as all the kool kidz are saying nowadays.

 
 

The mosques were attacked by the Walter Cronkite Brigade, an elite unit made up of liberal MSM reporters.

 
 

I agree that’s not a valid argument. Hiding behind “reisdents say� to report events is very sloppy. The AP should have done more reporting on the ground before putting out this initial piece

No, they should have followed it up. And they did. And I think reasonable people appreciate that reporting from war zones is flaky especially upon first report.

Given the stenography often present in political reporting, jumping up and down over a story in which coverage can buy you death seems a little extreme.

 
 

I liked the Yoda/Pastor Swank headline bettah!

In all seriousness, it’s totally splitting hairs when you start distinguishing between “destroyed” and “firebombed”. I doubt very much that if your local Church of the Open Bible was firebombed by the Mormons that you would think it was ‘just a little bit singed, ‘specially if the steeple was blown to Kingdom Come. There was certainly an attempt to destroy the mosques, at any rate. I doubt very much that the commander of the attackers issued these instructions prior to the offensive: “Now, we don’t want to actually destroy the mosques, ’cause that just wouldn’t be neighborly. Just kinda scorch ’em, okay? That should send a more reasonable, moderate kind of message. Try not to make any big holes in the domes, because the AP will be all over that like a duck on a junebug.”

 
 

I wonder what the Wingnut version of the E-meter is…

 
 

No, they should have followed it up. And they did. And I think reasonable people appreciate that reporting from war zones is flaky especially upon first report.

Given the stenography often present in political reporting, jumping up and down over a story in which coverage can buy you death seems a little extreme.

I agree with RB. Does anyone remember the early reports on September-The-Eleventh? There were wild reports of attacks against the Capital, the White House, etc. As information came in, it was evaluated and the stories became more accurate and precise. The same thing happened here. Do those early reports mean that September-The-Eleventh didn’t happen?

 
 

I agree with RB. Does anyone remember the early reports on September-The-Eleventh? There were wild reports of attacks against the Capital, the White House, etc. As information came in, it was evaluated and the stories became more accurate and precise. The same thing happened here. Do those early reports mean that September-The-Eleventh didn’t happen?

Well that’s the point I’m getting at here.

Clearly, the original AP reports weren’t wholly accurate, but they weren’t just made up whole cloth by some insurgent sitting in a basement. It would be interesting to find out what exactly happened here. With so many reports of ethnic displacement, I’m willing to bet it was something along those lines.

 
 

It seems clear to me.

Thankfully, I don’t have to do that, or engage in any self-reflection.

Avoiding self-reflection is always a good thing.

 
 

On the upside, the thing to be ridiculously happy about in all of this is that Patterico et al. have lost so much ground and have so little in their arsenal at this point that they’re reduced to making semantic arguments. It would be sad if they hadn’t been such pompous, sneering, bloodthirsty twerps for so long.

Now, I’m off to White Castle to destroy some sliders. Crap, did I say destroy?!? I meant chew on! Ingest! Masticate!!!!

 
Tara the anti-social social worker
 

“Did Jamil Hussein and/or the Sunni neighbors exaggerate some of the details of their account to the A.P.?”

Or did someone, somewhere along the way, use an Arabic word that could be variously translated as “destroyed,” “damaged,” or “seriously f***ed up”? I suppose the AP could avoid such errors by printing their reports in Arabic, which would have the additional advantage of making wingnuts’ heads explode, but they wouldn’t be very informative to those of us who don’t speak the language.

Whoops, sorry for getting all rational on y’all. Obviously the original AP story was the work of the mexislamifascistlibrulelitist conspiracy, which should be flogged for saying “destroyed” instead of “seriously f***ed up.” Saying “Jamil Hussein doesn’t exist” when he does exist is okay, though.

 
 

Sunni residents told me that mastication makes one blind.

 
 

I agree that’s not a valid argument. Hiding behind “reisdents say� to report events is very sloppy. The AP should have done more reporting on the ground before putting out this initial piece.

I’d need more information before I could agree with that. How dangerous would it have been to send someone out to confirm what the residents were saying, at that time?

How would A.P. have even known how dangerous it was then…so they should have just reported nothing? Reporting nothing is exactly what the MalkinTentsâ„¢, and their CheneyCo. overlords, want (except for press releases from same overlords).

Here is an example Bob Somerby posted Friday.

What’s so remarkable about that paragraph? In it, Swarns quotes a 58-year-old barber as he makes a string of counterfactual claims about a White House candidate. What does this barber seem to say? He seems to say that he is concerned because Obama is not “an American.� He seems to say that Obama is “from another nationality.� And he seems to say that he is concerned because Obama wasn’t “born, raised, bred, fed in America.� These statements appear without challenge or comment. And all of these claims are just false.

Not only are those claims false, a simple trip to teh Google will confirm their falseness.

As opposed to 4 trips to visit mosques that had been reported destroyed, but might merely have been shot up and firebombed…in civil war torn completely safe school-painting Baghdad.

Furthermore, as has already been posted in comments, the accuracy of claims by Sunni residents is currently quite a bit higher than the accuracy of claims by Team Shrub.

And I don’t see the MalkinTentsâ„¢ screaming and raging about the latter being reported in the news.

 
 

Masticate!!!!

Just don’t do it in Texas. Or Georgia.

 
 

Clearly, the original AP reports weren’t wholly accurate, but they weren’t just made up whole cloth by some insurgent sitting in a basement. It would be interesting to find out what exactly happened here. With so many reports of ethnic displacement, I’m willing to bet it was something along those lines.

I suppose we’ll have to agree to disagree on this point because I don’t think it would be interesting or illuminating. We know the mosques were attacked. Who did it, why, and exactly how much damage they sustained in the midst of a cauldron of ethnic and religious violence is so trivial to me as to be not worthy of more examination (which I think is Gavin’s point).

But reasonable people can disagree.

 
 

Now unless you think the A.P. is just flat-out lying about its firsthand accounts (and I’m sure you do, so this is kind of a moot point to make), you have to wonder why the picture of Sadr’s father is adorning these Sunni mosques. Even though the mosques are “still standing,� clearly Something Happened here; I tend to doubt that the Sunnis would hang up a picture of Sadr’s poppy on their own.

Once again, I gotta point out that there’s a picture over on Confederate Yanqui’s bog that he claims shows Sunnis “worshipping” in one of these “destroyed” mosques. The interesting thing about the picture is that it’s a line of men and women standing together.

Conservative Sunni Muslims do not worship in mixed gender groups. People are parsing these pictures through the lens of their own background and experience, and drawing occasionally inaccurate conclusions by doing so.

Try a little thought experiment with me here, though. Let’s just try conceding the whole wingnut argument on Jamil Hussein and the Sunni mosques. Jamil Hussein has been using the AP to spread wildly inaccurate, partisan propaganda. No mosques were destroyed, and the AP was once again used as an outlet for Sunni propaganda. So therefore…….what, exactly?

Well, we would now all concede that the AP is not a news source that we can rely on for accurate reporting about the situation in Iraq, I suppose. And therefore…..

What? Things are going swimmingly in Iraq? It’s now a great place to take your family on vacation? No other news agencies (good, bad, or indifferent) have reporters on the ground in Iraq? None of these other agencies have been reporting the same damn types of stories the AP has been reporting – Iraq is a clusterfuck, Iraq is in a civil war, scores of dead bodies turn up daily on the streets of Baghdad, the so-called “government” has no control or authority outside of the Green Zone?

This is what I don’t get. Even if every single thing the looney toons have insinuated about the Associated Press is true, what fucking difference does it make? If you decide you don’t want to date me because I’m not a vegetarian, because I eat beef, chicken and pork every week, but later on you find out that I don’t eat pork (it’s not kosher, don’t you know), how does that even make the slightest difference?

This has become the political equivalent of one of those bloody ancient church wars over whether God is three persons in one form or three faces of the same form, or whether you cross yourself left to right or right to left. It just stinks to high heaven. While it’s worth taking the time to debunk the stupidity as it comes out of their festering gobs, it’s not worth wallowing down in the stench with them.

 
sleazy, scuzzy, unprincipled, & handsome
 

is jamil hussein still alive?
we could ask him for the addresses of the mosques, and then turn our spy satellites’ telescopic cameras on the buildings. Peeking thru the holes in the roofs (rooves?) we could assess the damage using off-the-shelf conventional Claims Adjuster technology. how do I know this would work? I’m a Claims Adjuster and I’m okay.

 
 

You guys put too much effort in to this shit. Its like you’re having a debate with a drunk chimp, you’re standing there at the podium using your lazer pointer to highlight a interesting subsection of your latest graph, but whats the chimp doing? Yep, he’s smearing shit on the graph with his little hands. He wins.

 
 

So Patterico, have we found those WMD yet?

 
 

DJR, commenting yesterday on Gavin’s post, cites the Las Vegas Sun as one of the news sources that on 11/24/06 ran the AP wire story that used the word destroyed. That same day the same paper ran subsequent AP wire story. The infamous word was not used to describe what had happened to the mosques.

And that, my friends, is why they call it the self-correcting mainstream mediasphere.

 
 

Excuse me. That should be DRJ.

 
 

Its like you’re having a debate with a drunk chimp, you’re standing there at the podium using your lazer pointer to highlight a interesting subsection of your latest graph, but whats the chimp doing? Yep, he’s smearing shit on the graph with his little hands. He wins.

lol

That sums up the modern wingnut as well as anything I’ve ever read.

 
 

“Excuse me. That should be DRJ.”

And that, J, is a self-correcting blog post! You walk the walk!

 
 

What does “destroyed” mean? How much damage would have to be done to my house, or a store, or a church before an ordinary person (not a panel of architects) would say it was “destroyed”?

If my church had its roof blown open and fires lit and bullets shot through it so that we couldn’t attend until a massive and extensive rebuilding, would that be “destroyed”?

Has the U.S. military ever reported that a bridge tactically important to the Enemy had been “destroyed” but in reality there was, say, 80% of it still standing — except that it was no longer usable (say the middle part was gone)?

If I looked back at pictures of Sherman’s march through Georgia and found that certain houses and factories were partially burned and blown up and not usable, but could be rebuilt with a tremendous amount of effort and material and expense, would I suddenly start screaming at the local historical commission which had a sign in front of some site which said that so & so’s house had been “destroyed” in the war?

 
 

So what you’re saying bpower is we should laminate our graphs for easy clean up?

 
 

And that, J, is a self-correcting blog post! You walk the walk!

Thanks, Candy.

And there should be an indefinite article before the word subsequent. I’m on a self-correcting roll!

 
 

Now that we know that the Associated Press’ initial wire report on the Sunni mosques did in fact run in some publications, I think they shoud issue the following correction:

Score one for the wingtards with the successful goalpost move. This is pure fuckin’ bullshit. Quit dancing with these pigs. You’ll just end up covered in shit.

 
 

Hiding behind “reisdents say� to report events is very sloppy. The AP should have done more reporting on the ground before putting out this initial piece

Y’all are fuckin crazy. Think about the environment. I have been one of those guys who claimed stuff to reporters. In the summer of ’70, after every big firefight/engagement/battle, the next morning the choppers would come in with reinforcements, supplies, intelligence guys and reporters. Print, radio, tv, all of ’em. And they’d go around talking to the troops who fought in the battle. We were easy to find, smoke blackened, torn fatigues, bandages, red, staring eyes, hostile attitude. Lots of them learned quickly to bring booze or pills to hand out. And lots of times there was still heavy fighting in the area.

Anyway, the point is, we would be their primary sources. Some times we told the truth, sometimes less so. And it all was filtered through our perceptions and biases. If one of our guys broke down and started crying hysterically and the perimeter got breached at his pos, you think we were gonna tell the press that? If there was a smoldering track with 4 melted Amererican soldiers in it, and it was actually hit by our own arty, would we say so? Well, some of us might, but most wouldn’t. Not fair to the dead guys families. If we got overrun ’cause somebody fragged an idiot LT, would that be the description? Of course not.

The point is, in a situation that includes people killing each other and blowing up their shit, you’re never gonna get truly “accurate reporting”. Even if the journalist is there seeing it happen, he may not see everything, he may not know what he is seeing, he may misinterpret what he is seeing. So their job is to tell it with the best info they can get, and when they get more, tell it better. As long as there have been war correspondents, this has been the case. If it wasn’t for that bullshit rathergate, they wouldn’t even be trying to play this game. It’s all so pointless..

mikey

 
 

“I wonder what the Wingnut version of the E-meter is…”

You twist a radio’s AM dial. If you find a wingnut without knowing the area’s right-wing radio stations beforehand, you are a Clear.

 
 

mikey- I get where you’re coming from. My point would be that the AP could have waited a bit until they’d nailed the story down a bit better. I’m not arguing that journalists are cowards, or that they’re trying to “help the terrorists” or any other such crazy-assed conspiracy theory. From the standpoint of accuracy, though, relying on what residents say may not be the best way to figure out what happened.

And yes, I am fully aware that these asshats are attacking the media because it prints things they don’t like, not out of some high-minded concern for accuracy. But I will say that, strictly going by reporting standards, the initial report could’ve been better sourced.

 
 

I agree with tb. You don’t seem to understand the trick he’s playing, i.e. magnify mote, minify beam.

By concentrating on getting 1% exactly right he gets to be a forceful intellect in his own eyes even while being 99% wrong on everything that actually matters. And they’ve led you right in. This is classic wank.

 
 

How about instead of wasting time like this, we just agree upon a time, say, six p.m. E.S.T. today, to issue a deep belly laugh in honor of these fucking morons? Stop whatever you’re doing and just laugh at how pathetic it must be to make such a mountain out of a molehill in defense of a collapsing worldview. If you have a local version of Malkin, Patterico, or any other useless shitstain handy, laugh right in their face. You’ll feel much better, and it’s the only response they deserve anyway.

 
 

Just to complicate matters, here’s the piece the San Diego Union-Tribune ran on 11/25/06, the day after it ran the “Sunni residents claimed…” wire story. The byline is Edward Wong, New York Times News Service, and below the article is a note that says, “The Washington Post and Associated Press contributed to this report.”

Note the sources cited.

 
 

The premise of all wingnut media fables is that the personal motivation of reporters is to lie and make things look bad. Yes, they’re engaging in more projection. The stories wingnuts create are fundamentally wrong since they don’t know the political opinions of regular reporters. They assume they’re all political hacks. Everything is about politics to the American right (I’ve been told the left did this many years ago).

We don’t like it when political hacks we know have an agenda lie or twist the facts, but wingnuts think telling the truth is a sign of political bias. It doesn’t make sense to attack apolitical reporters who simply write stories as best they can based on the information they have. Attack the people who do have agendas, like right-wing media personalities.

 
 

El Cid: What does “destroyed� mean? Excellent point.

I was on a jury considering a car accident. The defense attorney showed a picture of the car the plaintiff said was totalled, on which the front passenger side fender was crunched, but the car was still driveable. She mocked the notion that the car was “totalled.” That just means it would cost more to fix than the car is worth.

This argument about the mosques is the same. Certainly, until life is more stable and things like lumber and plaster are readily available (and standing around on a roof using them won’t get one sniped), no on will want to use buildings that are filled with holes and burned out rooms. Essentially, they are destroyed, and the longer they are exposed to the elements without being fixed, the more difficult and expensive they will be to repair.

 
 

My point would be that the AP could have waited a bit until they’d nailed the story down a bit better.

What, Brad, you’re saying that the AP should have calibrated their semantic control potentiometers a little more finely? Waited until the “facts” were confirmed before paraphrasing an second-hand eyewitness account as “destroyed” rather than as the more accurate “firebombed and blown up”?????

What the fuck? Are you actually saying that the overly sensitive, conspiracy-laden standards of the likes of Malkin et al are appropriate?

there is nothing improper about relating the accounts of witnesses and then subsequently publishing a fuller account. The AP did nothing wrong here.

Whoever brought up 9/11 has a good point here. I woke up to NPR saying “It appears a small plane has struck the WTC.” Obviously, that was an inaccurate report.

Do you think NPR should have held off until confirming exactly what kind of plane hit the tower, for fear that the Malkins of the world would blame the liberal media of minimizing the evil nature of the attack?

 
 

g- you make good points. I shouldn’t let myself get sucked into these arguments.

 
 

Here are some things the wingnuts have told us over the last few years, in chronological order:

-We must attack Iraq, because they have WMDs and are a threat to us.
-Iraqis will greet us as liberators. This thing will be easy.
-Yay! Mission Accomplished!
-The insurgency is in its last throes. Could take a couple of weeks to sort this insurgency thing out.
-We’re staying the course until the job is done.
-There was some unpleasantness at Abu Ghraib, but it’s really no worse than college fraternity hazing.
-Purple fingers, beeyatch! Iraqis are totally free!
-Sure, there’s still an insurgency, but it’s just the fault of the Liberal Media, who want the terrorists to win.
-We never said we would “stay the course.” We said “adapt to win.”
-There is no such person as Jamil Hussein.
-Okay, maybe there is a Jamil Hussein, but the AP still wants the terrorists to win.

Thanks, assholes. Thanks for lying to our faces so you could have your little racist kill-the-brown-people war. What’s it like to be wrong about EVERYTHING? Fucking dumbshits.

 
 

My real point, admittedly somewhat poorly expressed, was that in a war zone, with all the concommitent chaos, confusion, hatred, fear, killing and destruction, perhaps, just perhaps, the standards for journalism might be just a tiny bit different than say, reporting on a wall street merger, a school board meeting in portland, or last nights red sox game. It is fluid, and ugly, and fearful, and people have agendas and guns and time is not unlimited, so you ask people what they saw, and that’s pretty much the best you can do…

mikey

 
Some. Sunni. Residents.
 

you’re having a debate with a drunk chimp, you’re standing there at the podium using your lazer pointer to highlight a interesting subsection of your latest graph, but whats the chimp doing? Yep, he’s smearing shit on the graph with his little hands. He wins.

Yep.

I once had an argument with a Holocaust denier.

His dazzling proof that the Holocaust did not exist? Get this:

“Which way did the doors swing at the Aushwitz shower room— in or out? You don’t know? Well, they swung IN! Proving that no dead bodies were found in there because the SS men couldn’t have opened the doors from the outside!”

Normal human beings just can’t make this shit up, only wingnuts can!

 
 

If somebody firebombed my apartment leaving it a smouldering wreck albeit still standing, and the press came a knocking, I’d probably tell them “They destroyed my home!” Yes, I’d use the word “destroy” without a second thought because to have your place made uninhabitable or unuseable is to destroy it.

 
 

The real point is that NONE OF THIS FUCKING MATTERS. People are dying every day and we’re splitting hairs over this bullshit. It really just makes you infuriated.

Let’s just restate some facts here for the record. There is overwhelming evidence to suggest that Iraq is a horrifically brutal war zone. Malkin’s attempt to discredit the AP has blown up in her face. The “four mosques” story is just one of literally thousands of horrific incidents. Horrific murders, beheadings, torture– there is overwhelming evidence that these things happen on a daily basis. Are we to believe that all of this stuff is being made up whole cloth? People are stupid, but they’re not THAT stupid, except for apparently around 30% of them.

The wingnuts can stick their head in the sand and scream bias all they want, but the facts are clear. The war they demanded and cheered for is a failure. It was poorly concieved and poorly executed, and the result is that America has been humiliated and yes, weakened. It’s time to let some sane, rational people run the country and the discourse for a while.

 
 

> The real point is that NONE OF THIS FUCKING MATTERS.

Quite.

Even humourous posts about this are just feeding the distraction. This has never been anything except a tactic to distract attention from the actual events. What sort of rational human being would really think that it really makes a difference whether mosques were demolished or simply had the shit blown out of them, but were still standing? Would the latter indicate that everything was okay? Of course it bloody wouldn’t, it makes no difference.

This is just wingnuts grasping at straws. Stop giving them straws, let them drown.

 
 

Brad R. @ 20:29:

mikey- I get where you’re coming from. My point would be that the AP could have waited a bit until they’d nailed the story down a bit better. I’m not arguing that journalists are cowards, or that they’re trying to “help the terrorists� or any other such crazy-assed conspiracy theory. From the standpoint of accuracy, though, relying on what residents say may not be the best way to figure out what happened.

And yes, I am fully aware that these asshats are attacking the media because it prints things they don’t like, not out of some high-minded concern for accuracy. But I will say that, strictly going by reporting standards, the initial report could’ve been better sourced.

Brad,

I agree with you. Okay, I admit I don’t agree with the second paragraph, for reasons I think you will understand after reading this, but I agree it’s wrong to embrace an AP conspiracy theory.

I think the initial AP report and the burning Sunnis report were probably based on rumor. Something happened there but I’m not sure what. My guess, based on reading the various reports, is that there were Shiite mortar attacks on Hurriyah that damaged the mosque and burned at least 1 home, possibly more. Thus, if people were burned to death that day, and they may have been, I think it occurred because they were trapped in their homes and burned. It’s true I don’t like hearing that people were burned but I don’t like it because it’s a horrible way to die, whether it occurred through immolation or a mortar-based house fire. Both are horrible but the latter is something that probably can be expected from mortar attacks, the former is on a scale with beheading.

But you don’t care about my guess, right? Nor should you, and that’s the point about these AP reports. If the first report was rumor-based, what about the second and third versions? It’s analogous to the Duke lacrosse case, where the alleged victim’s story changed several times. That doesn’t mean she lied but it does cause people to question her truthfulness. Similarly, if the burning Sunnis’ story went through a few versions before it “got it right,” it makes me question its reliability.

I am not saying there are no problems in Iraq, and I understand the constraints reporters have in trying to work there. I do not want them to risk their lives to get perfect stories, even though I’m sure some of them do just that. I admire their courage and resolve. What I do want, however, is for them to clearly state when they are relying on personal observation and knowledge and when they are using anecdotal telephone or word-of-mouth reports. Frankly, I think that would be better for the public and for the AP.

So why does this all matter? If you look carefully at the articles that are sourced to Jamil Hussein, they are largely (not completely, but largely) stories of Shiite attacks on Sunnis or unknown attacks on Sunnis. The stories that have the least detail and are more violent fit these categories. It is clear there are daily attacks against Shiites in Iraq, but the attacks against Sunnis are less frequent and harder to verify. There may be a good reason for this – the Iraqi government and police are reportedly predominantly Shiite, so they may not be the best source of reports of Sunni violence. On the other hand, it may be that most violence is against Shiites.

With Jamil Hussein, the AP found a source that balances the daily incidents of violence against Shiites with evidence of violence against Sunnis, hence it supports claims of a civil war. If, in fact, the violence in Iraq is largely one-sided, it doesn’t make Iraq a wonderful place but it does change the focus: the problem becomes Sunni-based insurgents and al Queda. I want to know which is correct – civil war or insurgency – but the AP reports don’t help me get the information I need to do that.

 
 

I want to know which is correct – civil war or insurgency

According to the NIE, Juan Cole and most parties on the scene without a political agenda, both are true…

mikey

 
 

I think it’s time to walk away from this particular right-wing fucktard circle jerk..

JK47 is correct. Iraq is shot to shit, no one sane can deny it any longer, and the only people claiming that Iraq is NOT shot to shit, are now, IMO, quite adequately exposed as clinically insane (in some cases), brazen liars, and/or paid-off government propagandists.

They are shrieking to one another, but no one else is listening. They have behaved childishly and irresponsibly and criminally, but no one believes them any more. They will continue their shrieking, to an ever-decreasing audience of moronic fuckwits just like themselves. Whatever.

Who’s still listening to idiots like Patterico who are still obsessing with whatever Bad Things may or may not have happened to however many Sunnis and their mosques? I mean, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, Pattycakes? I’m sure one of your fanboys knows. Maybe you could have a contest, or something.

But, hey, far be it from me to suggest that if these dolts wish to ensure that they and their criminal enterprise masquerading as a political party are never entrusted with any sort of power by the American people ever again, then they are certainly going about it the right way.

They’re never going to admit to their mistakes. They’re never going to grow up. They’re never going to suddenly become capable of critical thought. They’re never going to stop supporting their Dear Leader and his warmongering, Treasury-emptying cronyism, and moral imbecility. Because they are stupid, greedy and vain people.

We can’t fix them. Of course we can run circles around them in terms of things like facts, logic, and truth. It doesn’t matter. They don’t care. And now we know that there are quite so many of them as we had feared. They’re not made of Teflon. They can be defeated. They have been defeated.

Now, let’s work on keeping them from starting another useless, unwinnable immoral and illegal war, shall we?

 
 

DRJ, I have a question for you. Do reports from the Bush administration help you get the information you need?

 
 

OK, so this is the big picture here:

With Jamil Hussein, the AP found a source that balances the daily incidents of violence against Shiites with evidence of violence against Sunnis, hence it supports claims of a civil war. If, in fact, the violence in Iraq is largely one-sided, it doesn’t make Iraq a wonderful place but it does change the focus: the problem becomes Sunni-based insurgents and al Queda. I want to know which is correct – civil war or insurgency – but the AP reports don’t help me get the information I need to do that.

It’s fairly clear to me that you’re seeing a lot of Shiite-against-Sunni violence in Iraq. Check out this piece, which is very well-sourced:

The U.S. military drive to train and equip Iraq’s security forces has unwittingly strengthened anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia, which has been battling to take over much of the capital city as American forces are trying to secure it.

U.S. Army commanders and enlisted men who are patrolling east Baghdad, which is home to more than half the city’s population and the front line of al-Sadr’s campaign to drive rival Sunni Muslims from their homes and neighborhoods, said al-Sadr’s militias had heavily infiltrated the Iraqi police and army units that they’ve trained and armed.

“Half of them are JAM. They’ll wave at us during the day and shoot at us during the night,” said 1st Lt. Dan Quinn, a platoon leader in the Army’s 1st Infantry Division, using the initials of the militia’s Arabic name, Jaish al Mahdi. “People (in America) think it’s bad, but that we control the city. That’s not the way it is. They control it, and they let us drive around. It’s hostile territory.” […]

Amid recurring reports that al-Sadr is telling his militia leaders to stash their arms and, in some cases, leave their neighborhoods during the American push, U.S. soldiers worry that the latest plan could end up handing over those areas to units that are close to al-Sadr’s militant Shiite group.

“All the Shiites have to do is tell everyone to lay low, wait for the Americans to leave, then when they leave you have a target list and within a day they’ll kill every Sunni leader in the country. It’ll be called the `Day of Death’ or something like that,” said 1st Lt. Alain Etienne, 34, of Brooklyn, N.Y. “They say, `Wait, and we will be victorious.’ That’s what they preach. And it will be their victory.”

Quinn agreed.

“Honestly, within six months of us leaving, the way Iranian clerics run the country behind the scenes, it’ll be the same way here with Sadr,” said Quinn, 25, of Cleveland. “He already runs our side of the river.”

The infiltration by al-Sadr’s men, coupled with his strength in Iraq’s parliament after U.S.-backed elections, gave him leeway to operate death squads throughout the capital, according to more than a week of interviews with American soldiers patrolling Baghdad. Some U.S.-trained units carried out sectarian killings themselves, while others, manning checkpoints, allowed militiamen to pass.

Al-Sadr’s gunmen got another boost in 2005 and 2006 when American commanders handed over many Baghdad neighborhoods east of the Tigris River to Iraqi units, transitions that often were accompanied by news releases that contained variations of the phrase “Iraqis in the lead.”

“There’s been a lot of push to transition to Iraqis so you can show progress, but have you secured the area?” said Capt. Aaron Kaufman, a Washington, Iowa, native who works for a unit that acts as a liaison between U.S. and Iraqi forces in the Shiite enclave of Kadhamiya, across the river from east Baghdad. “I think the political pressure has hurt. … You’re wishing away, you’re assuming away enemy activity, and you hurt yourself doing that.”

In hindsight, many American officers said there was too much pressure to give Iraqi army units their own areas of operation, a process that left Iraqi soldiers outmanned, outgunned and easy targets for infiltration and coercion.

“There was a decision … that was probably made prematurely,” said Lt. Col. Eric Schacht, a 42-year-old battalion commander in east Baghdad from Glen Mills, Pa. “I think we jumped the gun a little bit.”

Al-Sadr’s militia has taken advantage of the chaos.

Iraqi soldiers, for example, often were pushed into the field by Iraqi commanders who didn’t give them adequate food, clothing or shelter, said Etienne, a 1st Infantry Division platoon leader.

Etienne was on patrol one day when he saw Iraqi soldiers eating fresh vegetables and meat. The afternoon before, the same soldiers had complained that they had only scraps of food left. Who’d brought them their meal? It had come courtesy of Muqtada al-Sadr.

“Who’s feeding the Iraqi army? Nobody. So JAM will come around and give them food and water,” Etienne said. “We try to capture hearts and minds, well, JAM has done that. They’re further along than us.”
Now, this is an excellent piece of reporting. You have several officers speaking candidly and on the record about the difficulties they’ve experienced as Sadr’s army has successfully infiltrated Iraqi gov’t security forces and has converted them into an ethnic militia. You certainly cannot call this piece weakly-sourced (and it’s funny how Patterico never mentions reports like this on his website, isn’t it? It’s almost as if he combs through thousands of reports looking for some minor little detail to notpick over endlessly).

As for whether these death squads are responsible for violence, I would take a look at this:

Death squads, however, remained active. Thirty-seven bodies were found throughout Baghdad, 36 of them on the mostly Sunni west side of the city. In Hai al Amil, a neighborhood that the Mahdi Army militia of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr controlled, 20 bodies littered the streets.

And really, this all makes sense. If you have Sunni insurgents who are targeting Shiites on their holy days, how can you not expect that Shiite groups will lead reprisal attacks?

(Incidentally, sir, I’m normally not this polite to people. I’m normally a screaming asshole. But since you’ve been so kind as to present me with real arguments and not accuse the entire press of being on the side of the terrorists, I figured it was the least I could do.)

 
 

(My God, I really have let myself get sucked into this. If someone wants to buy me an E-meter for my birthday, I’d greatly appreciate it. I’m tired of having to pay others to scan me for thetans, thankyouverymuch.

 
 

What I do want, however, is for them to clearly state when they are relying on personal observation and knowledge and when they are using anecdotal telephone or word-of-mouth reports.

It’s not the AP’s fault that you can’t read. Here, once again:

Sunni residents in a volatile northwest Baghdad neighborhood claimed Friday that revenge-seeking Shiite militiamen had destroyed four Sunni mosques, burned homes and killed many people, while the Shiite-dominated police force stood by and did nothing.

That’s pretty goddamned clear to me. You obviously need it explained with finger puppets.

 
 

Brad A.,

Thank you for your courtesy and your links. I had read both but it’s helpful to revisit them, and your points are valid. I know there is violence against Sunnis in Iraq but it’s hard to tell how extensive it is. That’s why I’m interested in getting good information from a variety of sources, including the AP.

 
 

but the AP reports don’t help me get the information I need to do that.

I was going to say: “Why should it? An informed person reads AP reports and other print reports, listens to NPR and watches CNN or even Faux; reads blogs by experts like Juan Cole and by Iraqis, like Riverbend” to get their news.”

But then I realized that you were not being serious, you were instead merely posing as a reasonable person. Your purpose instead was to be dishonest and stupid and provocative by posing such a stupid question.

So, instead, I’ll say: What kind of idiot relies only on a single news source’s account of a since incident to decide whether a horrible tragic chaotic conflict is either A) civl war or B) insurgency??

You use stupid semantic games about “destroyed” vs. “blown up” to help you decide between two other stupid semantic choices?

Are you really saying that because the AP “misled” you to think that 4 mosques were “destroyed” rather than being “firebombed and blown up ” you can’t determine whether the holy clusterfuck in Iraq is A) a civl war or B) an insurgency?

As if it fucking matters what you determine.

“Oh, laws a mercy, I’m a reasonable person. I was on the verge of going for “civil war” but then the fact that the mosque only has a hole in the roof instead of being an empty lot makes me wonder, is it only an “insurgency”, and therefore not so bad? How to decide?? Damn you, AP news, for causing me to doubt.”

What fucking bullshit.

 
 

I come to Sadly, No for the snark, and a rational discussion between DRJ and Brad breaks out. It’s like the old line about going to the fights and having a hockey game break out….

If were going to be serious, I think we would do well to take the NIE seriously: Iraq is a free-for-all. There are so many different forces fighting each other that “civil war” is too bipolar a description. And of course each faction is trying to get their point of view into any number of media outlets. Despite this, if you look at the big picture, and take into account the necessary inaccuracy of each small report, you eventually come to the conclusion of the NIE, the Baker-Hamilton report, etc: the situation is bad and getting worse.

 
 

John Protevi makes a good point. I appreciate the largely polite reception I received but I’ll leave now.

 
 

OK now. Is it time for the poop jokes yet?

Hindrocket.

It will be interesting to see what emerges from this maneuvering. The most likely outcome, I think, is that the Senate’s lack of consensus over the best path forward in Iraq will be plainly revealed, and the net effect of all this resolution-writing will be close to zero. That’s the best we can hope for, I think.

Assrocket sounds objectively pro-defeatist to me. Perhaps he has been reading too much AP’Qaida propaganda.

 
 

I come to Sadly, No for the snark, and a rational discussion between DRJ and Brad breaks out.

It’s an ugly side of me that I don’t want the world to see. Tomorrow, I’ll be back to making fun of Blogs for Bush.

 
 

I see that Patricia is celebrating the linkjuice he’s received from Instapundit. Shows his priorities. What a douche.

 
 

Wow, Thunder, that’s quite a revealing quote. If you’re assrocket, the best outcome is we keep losing our people, we keep wasting billions, we keep failing in Iraq and we keep losing the mid east, despite our dependence on their petroleum.

Y’know, it’s not too early to start looking at long-term consequences. How much more seething hatred will we have to create before, nukes or no nukes, israel is overrun? What’s going to become of secular Turkey, let alone radical pakistan and wahab saudi? They are gambling the mortgage here, folks, and they’ve got shit for cards…

mikey

 
 

OK now. Is it time for the poop jokes yet?

Hey, I tried to introduce mastication waaay upthread, but only tigrismus took me up on it.

 
 

It’s analogous to the Duke lacrosse case, where the alleged victim’s story changed several times. That doesn’t mean she lied but it does cause people to question her truthfulness.

With all due respect, the Triangle isn’t a war-zone.

Here’s the deal: when Malkin tees off on people like Lara Logan, who don’t have the benefit of La Traitement Superbe for short visits to Baghdad, she creates a misleading impression about the process of reporting from Iraq. That process, in itself, is further complicated by its reliance upon people who deserve credit for going where western reporters cannot, but also have a limited perspective and work at a tremendous risk to themselves.

I wish that Malkin had shown the guts to spend a week at the AP bureau, or the NYT bureau, or the WaPo bureau, under the same conditions as those who work there. But she is not a reporter; she has never been a reporter; and she was playing at being a reporter on her trip to Baghdad. She is an editorialist.

 
 

How much more seething hatred will we have to create before, nukes or no nukes, israel is overrun? What’s going to become of secular Turkey, let alone radical pakistan and wahab saudi? They are gambling the mortgage here, folks, and they’ve got shit for cards…

Mikey, the guys who brought us this war don’t give a damn about long term consequences. Fuck, Bush is on record saying he’s gonna hand the Iraq mess off to the next President. Their only concern is making sure that the blame for the mess gets landed on anybody but them. And yes, you are absolutely right. In the long term, US and Israeli interests are screwed if the warmongers have their way. The most idiotic thing they do is take the knowledge that the United States is the most powerful country on the planet, and assume that such power is infinite in strength and cannot be thwarted.

I figure if the US elects McCain-Lieberman in aught eight, within two years the Chinese will be calling in your debts and you’ll be wishing for the good ‘ole days when “moderates” like Al Sadr or Sheikh Nasrallah dominated Middle East politics.

 
 

[…] Welp, I tried to be somewhat polite with Pattycakes here, because he did in fact catch us in an “oopsie.” But now he’s just asking for it: By the way, let’s not pretend that the new post is honest. It also pretends that the AP’s error was slight — an odd stance, given the fact that the AP recently reported only “slight damageâ€? at one supposedly “destroyedâ€? mosque, and nothing more than a broken window at another supposedly “destroyedâ€? mosque. […]

 
 

Hell, I reasoned with Pattycakes last night to the point he admitted he’s asking the AP to correct an accurate report of Sunnis claims, and in response he just kept telling me to acknowledge a hypothetical situation that, had it been applicable, would have vaguely resembled how he saw the AP’s actions.
There was no point to getting in his face, I just wanted the satisfaction of knowing he saw words indicating how full of shit he is. I was even relatively polite, to make sure the point got through. Snarky is more fun, tho.
The mention of 9/11 is quite relevant, also, I agree with all those who’ve said so. Living through that period on manhattan island taught me, in simple words, not to believe the hype. Came in real useful when the news started claiming the african american residents of New Orleans had been reduced to savagery by the biggest engineering failure in american history.
Patterico and the wingnuts are basically saying they don’t know how to read and don’t know how to interpret news, and that the news should apologize to them for that. Um, no.

 
 

“If were going to be serious, I think we would do well to take the NIE seriously: Iraq is a free-for-all. There are so many different forces fighting each other that “civil warâ€? is too bipolar a description.”

i’ve heard a lot of people saying this sort of stuff lately, what the fuck is going on? have we redefined the meaning of civil war recently? who in the name of greek buggery got to decide “civil war” was only applicable to a bipolar situation? nothing i’ve ever read about civil wars states there can only be two sides. who comes up with this shit?

 
 

ichomobothogogus, I guess the NIE authors were trying to intervene in the domestic political debate about the use of the term “civil war,” and that they thought that in that debate people thought about “civil war” in bipolar terms. So they tried to move away from the semantic debate by saying it’s multipolar and hence not like a civil war if you assume civil wars are bipolar, but it is like a civil war if by that you mean ethnic cleansing. I was just saying, in the context of this Jamilgate thread, that the NIE stance was better than nitpicking about Jamilgate, in that it is a big picture perspective.

 
 

OR! They could say, “We at the Associated Press did in fact trust a single source that we won’t identify who said horrible things about the Iraqi Security Forces. We believed him because we so hate Bush that it simply MUST be true. We want him to fail, and this single ‘anonymous’ source MUST be telling the truth that the ISF did nothing to save the innocents, because America trained them, and Americans trained the ISF. We now know he lied to us, but that is of little consquence. It’s our point of view that is important. We report these unsubstantiated claims because we want everyone to know that Bush is evil and America cannot even HOPE to free oppressed people. In other words, it’s because we care.”

Any chance of that honest statement appearing at the AP? Hateful bastages.

 
 

So, dude, do you still stand by the 6 firebombed people part of the AP report?

 
 

So, dude, do you still think reducing the death toll in Iraq by 6 makes a difference?

 
 

“So, dude, do you still stand by the 6 firebombed people part of the AP report?”

I will not.

“So, dude, do you still think reducing the death toll in Iraq by 6 makes a difference?”

In many ways I do. Do I need to ‘splain why, or do you know my previous posts on this evil site?

 
 

Kevin- you already gave up the game, homey, with this statement:

“We at the Associated Press did in fact trust a single source that we won’t identify who said horrible things about the Iraqi Security Forces. We believed him because we so hate Bush that it simply MUST be true. We want him to fail, and this single ‘anonymous’ source MUST be telling the truth that the ISF did nothing to save the innocents, because America trained them, and Americans trained the ISF. We now know he lied to us, but that is of little consquence. It’s our point of view that is important. We report these unsubstantiated claims because we want everyone to know that Bush is evil and America cannot even HOPE to free oppressed people. In other words, it’s because we care.”

Basically, you’re a conspiracy theorist who thinks every bad report out of Iraq is an Effort to Get Bush written by mustache-twirling librul reporters who hate this country and who want to see Sharia law implemented everywhere. That’s completely crazy.

 
 

In many ways I do. Do I need to ’splain why

Yeah, you really fucking do. Tens of thousands – maybe over a hundred thousand – of Iraqis have died because of Bush’s stupid, ill-considered, lying, poorly executed war.

Start explaining why it’s different.

 
 

Kevin is totally right! He’s the rightest guy I’ve ever seen in my life.

In fact, he’s so right that I won’t believe a single news report that comes out of Iraq until Kevin himself goes there and starts bringing me the news. Because Kevin is obviously the only guy I can trust on the matter.

Go, Kevin, go! Bring me that sweet, sweet, unbiased news reporting I crave so much. We’ll even take up a collection to pay for your airfare if you need it.

 
 

Basically, you’re a conspiracy theorist who thinks every bad report out of Iraq is an Effort to Get Bush written by mustache-twirling librul reporters who hate this country and who want to see Sharia law implemented everywhere. That’s completely crazy.

Brad R. said,

February 4, 2007 at 6:23

No, Kevin is a shit-smearing chimp. He knows this isn’t really true. He knows that Iraq is a disaster, and that the dead are on his hands as well as those the foul war-architects of the administration.

He trying to relieve some of his own guilt by calling you ‘evil.’ Heaven only knows what Kevin thinks your ‘punishment’ should be.

 
 

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