What the Heck was I Thinking!?

Just saw this comment by Thomas Barnett on his blog:

I watch Michael Moore promote “Sicko” and he impresses throughout (Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog)

I watch Michael Moore promote “Sicko” and he impresses throughout Not an endorsement of everything claims, but a sense that he’s trying very hard to make things better. And is that not the essence of America?

My response:

“Only if you think Tokyo Rose was trying to bring hometown music to the troops in WW II. Being persuasive might count for something, but you should consider the content as well.”

I think that Mr. Barnett has some very good ideas about how to describe the world in which we live. This picture enables us to come to better answers on how to proceed toward success.

I am likewise disappointed that someone who has studied one of the world’s best laboratories for socialized “solutions” to problems (the Soviet Union) would buy the propaganda that Cuba has better health care than the US.

And North Korea has better health care thank South Korea - for the half dozen thugs at the top of the heap only!

Source: I watch Michael Moore promote “Sicko” and he impresses throughout (Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog)

Those parasitic blogs appear to be at it again. This time, they’re sucking the life out of a story about decapitated Iraqis! Those bastards!

Confederate Yankee looked at the original posts from AP and Reuters.

Based on Confederate Yankee’s and others’ questions to MNF-I Public Affairs Office, the MNF-I PAO reported that they had investigated this story and found it to be false.

Reuters has written a retraction article, “US says  report of 20 beheaded bodies in Iraq false.” Note that it doesn’t say that the report is false. It says “The US says…” I guess that’s their way of minimizing Reuters’ culpability here - The US said it wasn’t true…, with the echo of …but we all know how lying and self-serving the US can be.

AFP did not report the original false story, and crows about it’s fact checking.

US military accuses media of reporting ‘false’ Iraqi claims - Yahoo! News

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The US military accused the international media on Saturday of exacerbating Iraq’s violent tensions by reporting false claims of massacres which it said were deliberately fabricated by extremist groups.

This week several newspapers and agencies reported that Iraqi police had found 20 beheaded corpses in Salman Pak, just south of Baghdad. AFP did not carry the report after its sources were unable to confirm the rumour. (emphasis added)

They couldn’t completely give up on the underlying story line:

“It now appears that the story was completely false and fabricated by unknown sources,” a statement from the US military said. “Anti-Iraqi forces are known for purposely providing false information to the media to incite violence and revenge killings, and they may well have been the source of this misinformation,” the statement alleged. (emphasis added)

And what is the underlying story? From the international press’s side, it is that they, the press, are the fact checkers. Governments, and especially the military, are the ones who will lie to twist situations to the government’s political advantage or to cover up some atrocity. The press are the ones who are protecting the populace from the powerful forces bent on doing evil.

Well, the truth of the matter is that the press are not so selfless. Some just want to make money selling news. Others will fall for anything that makes them look either well connected to sources or like the white knight, protecting the peasants from the powerful evil in the world. These are the ambitious and the self-righteous.

Then there are those who believe every bad thing about government and especially the military. These reporters just know that the military, because it has that overwhelming coercive power, must be doing bad things. These are the apologists.

And, lastly, there are those who know they are undermining the war against the Islamo-fascists. These people are the propagandists - knowingly aiding and abetting the enemy.

 

Source: US military accuses media of reporting ‘false’ Iraqi claims - Yahoo! News