Does This Washington Post Article Constitute News?

It is hard to imagine how today's Washington Post article, "Iraq Sinking Fast," could be viewed as anything other then agenda journalism at its worst. It is particularly odious, coming as it does, on the first day of major offensives against al Qaeda. As our soldiers fight and die, the Post prints this tripe saying all is lost and it is time to give up. What a craven and despicable lot they are indeed.

The article is the Post's take on a report released by the "Fund for Peace," an organization that the Post tells us is a "research organization and advocacy group." The group says that Iraq is lost and we should leave it in three pieces. Does that sound familiar? Do Reid and Pelosi come to mind.

The ethically challenged Post does not tell us anything about the Fund for Peace that would allow its readers to judge the bias and validity of the Fund's message, but if you click on the Fund's website, you will learn that this is an organization that views all "violence as the last refuge of the incompetent." One almost expects to hear "Kumbiyah" playing in the background. A thorough check of the site reveals not a mention of any of the following: Wahhabi Islam, Khomeinism, Iran, radical Islam, al Qaeda, bin Laden, Zawahiri, nuclear terrorism, Anbar Awakening, counterinsurgeny, surge, 9-11, 7-7, etc. The fact that not just one, but all of these topics are ignored by the "Fund for Peace" might suggest to Post readers that what they are reading is not quite balanced and "reality based."

Of course you will find none of this in the Washington Post report. The Post is fine with merely reporting this groups anti Iraq war message without digging at all into its validitiy or bias. It is only the message that is important.

"The report tells us that Iraq is sinking fast," said Fund for Peace President Pauline Baker. "We believe it's reached the point of no return. We have recommended -- based on studies done every six months since the U.S. invasion -- that the administration face up to the reality that the only choices for Iraq are how and how violently it will break up."

In a parallel series of reports, the Fund for Peace, a research and advocacy group, suggests a policy of managed partition for Iraq.

Ah, such a wonderful thought. Let's just split up Iraq and then we can all get along. Letting alone for the moment that this plan wholly ignores the surge, this is dangerously, if not suicidally, sophmoric.

As a threshold matter, allowing the Kurds to form their own country or anything resembling such an entity in the north is an invitation to a military response from Turkey and quite possibly Iran, neither of whom are willing to tolerate anything resembling a Kurdish state to emerge from Iraq. Both see such as a major threat, given their own large Kurdish populations. Turkey has been quite open about what their response will be.

Two, the Sunnis, including Sunni insurgents, are in open revolt against al Qaeda in Iraq and, in the Sunni stronghold of Anbar, it would appear that the Sunnis are joining with the government. The plan to subdivide Iraq completely ignores those realities. But there is more. It would abandon the Sunni areas to be reoccupied by the better funded, better armed and incredibly brutal al Qaeda. And al Qaeads
is fighting to establish an Islamic state or caliphate in Iraq, not simply a portion of Iraq.

Lastly, if not most importantly, it leaves Shia Iraq to fall wholly under the influence of Iran. Iran is doing all it can at the moment to influence the Iraqi government, and indeed, in Sadr's Mahdi Army, it has something that is beginning to resemble a Hezbollah like proxy force. The greatest brake on Iranian influence at the moment is that even now, Shia's only hold a plurality in Iraq's government and thus must look to Kurds and Sunni legislators to govern. Neither the Sunnis nor the Kurds appear willing to tolerate Iranian influence. Yet to follow the partition plan would be to abandon the majority of Iraq directly to Iran.

Thanks for reporting this as news, Washington Post. We salute you for your integrity and patriotism. And we wish that your stock prices go the way of the New York Times.

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Taqiyya From The Times

Today's papers contain some amazing examples of clueless reporting by the MSM. The article that has to take the cake is the NYT article "The Guidebook for Taking a Life." This is an article that purports to identify jihadi "rules of war" by talking to selected salafists. It is nothing but complete disinformation, painting a false picture of radical Islamists - or as they would call it, taqiyya. The Times authors suggest that there is some moral and ethical code animating the radical Islamists. The problem with this bit of pro-Islamist insanity is that, in articulating the rules, the authors completely ignore the endless contradictory real world examples:

Rule No. 1: You can kill bystanders without feeling a lot of guilt. . .

Is this supposed to suggest that the Islamists feel any sort of remorse over collateral damage - or that collateral damage is even a viable concept among the Salafists? The majority of terrorist attacks are clearly designed to kill as many bystanders as possible. The suggestion that the animals that make up al Qaeda and other related terrorist organizations feel guilt over the death of "bystanders" does not comport with reality. Has anyone ever heard a single bit of Salafi propoganda bemoaning the death of innocent bystanders? The question for the Salafists in regards to "bystanders" is not guilt, its targeting.

Rule No. 2: You can kill children, too, without needing to feel distress. . .

True the Salafists argue that the collateral death of children is okay because they will go to Allah without sin and immediately age to the point where they can enjoy their 72 virgins. But the reality goes far beyond that. It begs the far more important "rules" for these animals. What about the deliberate targeting of children for murder when they are, by definition, without sin? What about the use of children as cover to be deliberately sacrificed in attacks? What about the brain washing of children to themselves become suicide bombers? There are no moral or societal limits on these animals as regards children. To suggest otherwise is deny reality.

Islamic militants are hardly alone in seeking to rationalize innocent deaths, says John O. Voll, a professor of Islamic history at Georgetown University. “Whether you are talking about leftist radicals here in the 1960s, or the apologies for civilian collateral damage in Iraq that you get from the Pentagon, the argument is that if the action is just, the collateral damage is justifiable,” he says.

This is the single most offensive statement of this utterly disingenuous article. One, there are no innocents to the Islamic animals. Two, the Islamist animals target women, children, and "bystanders" for death. The term collateral damage is not a term used by Islamists. It is a term used by the U.S. military who routinely do all that they can not to kill civilians. To even suggest that there is any moral equivalence between the unintended killing of innocents by the U.S. military and the targeting of innocents by the Islamist animals is grossly distorted and absurd.

Rule No. 3: Sometimes, you can single out civilians for killing; bankers are an example.

Sometimes? Bankers? This is shear sophistry and dissimulation. The Salafists have so interpreted their religion that their are no civilians. Bin Laden justified the Twin Towers attack on the logic that all Americans, including the civilians in the Twin Towers, were tax payers and thus supporters of America's military. Omar Bakri, the spiritual guide to some of the perpatrators of 7-7, reasoned that the Koran allows the killing of non-Muslim civilians in retaliation for the killing of Muslim civilians. He then blamed the West - including the United States - for killing Muslim civilians starting with the Crusades, circa 1294. The bottom line, there is no moral prohibition on the deliberate murder of any civilian. And indeed, it would seem that the Salafists far prefer the soft targets that civilians present.

Rule No. 4: You cannot kill in the country where you reside unless you were born there. . .

From what planet did this one drop? The 9-11 hijackers were not born in the lower 48. Iraq, Afghanistan, Spain, Lebanon, Israel, and I do not know how many other countries have experienced terrorism in the very recent past, if not on a daily basis, at the hands of the foreign born jihadis. Is this the NYT trying to tell us that we do not have to be concerned with any of the foreign born Islamists in this country? Who wrote this obvious falsity? CAIR?

Rule No. 5: You can lie or hide your religion if you do this for jihad.

This one is well known. It should receive a lot more publicity however. I am aware of no other religion that explicitly condones lying in order to commit acts of murder and mayhem. That certainly should be a centerpiece of dealing with any Muslims or Muslim organizations that one has any reason to suspect may be tied to radical Islam, such as CAIR or the Muslim Brotherhood.

Rule No. 6. You may need to ask your parents for their consent [to conduct jihad].

On one hand, how many times do we hear reports of captured jihadis where the parents are reported saying they cannot believe that their son or daughter could possibly be involved in terrorism. On the other hand, it would seem that many families in the Mid-East are proud when their child engages in terrorism or blows himself up along with a bunch of "bystanders." I personally think that we should hold such families equally responsible for the terrorism committed by their child. But that's just me.


Read the entire article here. Were I a cynic, I would call this the norm for NYT reporting on issues relating to terrorism. But I am a realist. So I will still call this piece of taqiyya the norm for the NYT. I do not understand how anyone pays for the suicidal fiction this paper is peddaling.

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Democrat Politics - Iraq, Murtha on Pork, Pelosi Trys to Silence Republicans, Ethics Rules, - Its a Circus

Lots going under the big top on the left side of the aisle this past week that I haven't had time to blog about - at least not until my recent bout of insomnia.

The lead has to be the political games being run by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, sending the Iraq bill to the President, this time only sans the pork and earmarks that had no business in the bill to begin with. You have to love their feigned disappointment when President Bush refused to agree to Democratic terms of surrender in Iraq, whether or not waiverable. See here. My favorite of all the Democratic posturing on this, though, has to be David Obey, House Appropriations Committee Chairman:

The offers that we made today represented very large steps toward compromise on our part . . . And I think we got an inchworm response from the administration.

Sorry, Mr. Obey, but including terms of surrender in the funding bill does not qualify as any reasonable attempt at compromise.

Jack Murtha apparently likes his pork without criticism or challenge. The government moved to close down National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) located in Murtha's district on the grounds that it is not functioning to expectations and it is no longer needed. When Murtha had continued funding for the NDIC put into the budget, Republican Mike Rogers of Michigan sought to have it cut. Murtha went ballistic, accroding to the WP story:

According to Rogers' account, which Murtha did not dispute, the Democrat angrily told Rogers he should never seek earmarks of his own because "you're not going to get any, now or forever."

"This was clearly designed to try to intimidate me," Rogers said in an interview Friday. "He said it loud enough for other people to hear."

House rules prohibit lawmakers from placing conditions on earmarks or targeted tax benefits that are based on another member's votes.

Rogers will submit a motion to censure Murtha before the House on Monday. Nice to see someone standing up to Murtha. It needs to go a lot further, though.

On a different front, there are the lobbying rules that Democrats promised to clean up as a function of their campaign against a "culture of corruption." But it seems now that many Democrats kind of like that culture. This from the NYT:

House Democrats wavered Thursday in their vow to tighten Congressional ethics rules as their leaders scrapped a campaign pledge to double the current one-year ban on lobbying by departing lawmakers and senior staff members.

Democratic leaders in the House faced a rank-and-file revolt over the measure, which would significantly cramp the ability of lawmakers to cash in on their government service for million-dollar paychecks on K Street as soon as they leave office. . .

Then there was the attempt by Nancy Pelosi to change a House Rule in effect since 1822 allowing the party in the minority to submit a Motion to Recommit on bills before the House. You can get a thorough explanation at Fausta's Blog and the links therein. Nancy's talk of bipartisan cooperation was, it would seem, lacking in any substance - she attempted to completely shut off the minority from their 185 year old procedural right to impact on legislation she and her Democratic majority would bring before the House. Fortunately, she failed in this endeavor, at least for now.

And on the "insuring ideological purity" front, Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the House Majority Leader, was one of several Democrats who voted against the McGovern Bill a few days ago. That bill, would have mandated an immediate withdraw from Iraq. Enjoying the full support of the George Soros propaganda machine MoveOn.org, it was nonetheless defeated by a vote of 255 to 171. Hoyer, it should be noted, at least as recently as December, 2005, admitted to strong differences of opinion on the Iraq War with Nancy Pelosi, saying that if she "had her way it 'could lead to disaster, spawning a civil war, fostering a haven for terrorists and damaging our nation's security and credibility.'" See here. I couldn't agree more.

Such ideological variance from the mainstream of Soros-thought is not to be tolerated in the Democratic Party. Thus, it is no surprise that Soros's MoveOn.org is running attack ads against Hoyer in his district for failing to vote "yea" on the McGovern bill. They are also running attack ads against Carl Levin for his suggestion that Democrats would vote to fund the war without requiring surrender on a date certain. See here. It is not nice to disagree with George Soros. Not if you are a Democrat.

And thus ends a week of politics in the Democratic majority. I personally was glad to see the Republicans bounced from the majority on the grounds that they had become wholly unmoored from their conservative, small government roots. What I am not glad to see is the Democratic circus that has replaced them.

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Remaking The World In His Image, One Entity At A Time

George Soros is possibly the worst enemy of freedom, democracy, and conservative values to grace this world in many a year. With a billion dollars at his disposal, he has played a pivotal role in changing the face of American politics by funding the far left organizations that now control the Democratic party. Across the Atlantic, he is organizing the European Council on Foreign Relations, an organization that will no doubt seek to imprint his philosophy on the EU and EU nations. He is using his money to reshape the Western political world in his distorted image.

Having said all that, let's switch gears to the World Bank and the move to unseat Paul Wolfowitz as Chairman. The whole fiasco surrounding Mr. Wolfowitz is well documented. The facts read like a very bad movie script. Mr. Wolfowitz agrees to take over as head of the World Bank with full disclosure that his paramour works there. He asks to be recused from all personnel decisions regarding her, but the request is refused by the ethics committee who instead outline a plan for her to be transferred to a different job with additional compensation for her lost opportunities. Mr. Wolfowitz fully complies. Mr. Wolfowitz then begins a campaign against corruption - followed shortly thereafter by charges that he violated ethics rules in regard to the transfer of his paramour.

So what is the intersection of Paul Wolfowitz and George Soros? The Wall Street Journal suspects that it is the hand of George Soros behind the World Bank inquisition to unseat Mr. Wolfowitz. As they explain:

Mark Malloch Brown spoke Monday to a crowded auditorium at the World Bank's headquarters, warning that the bank's mission was "hugely at risk" as long as Paul Wolfowitz remained its president. Only hours earlier, news leaked that a special committee investigating Mr. Wolfowitz had accused him of violating conflict-of-interest rules. A coincidence? We doubt it.

Mr. Malloch Brown, remember, was until last year Kofi Annan's deputy at the United Nations. In that position, he distinguished himself by spinning away the $100 billion Oil for Food scandal as little more than a blip in the U.N.'s good work, and one that had little to do with Mr. Annan himself. Last week, Mr. Malloch Brown was named vice president of the Quantum Fund, the hedge fund run by his billionaire friend George Soros. A former World Bank official himself and ally of soon-to-be British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Mr. Malloch Brown would almost surely be a leading candidate to replace Mr. Wolfowitz should he step down. Not surprisingly, Gordon Brown cold-shouldered Mr. Wolfowitz at a recent meeting in Brussels.

The bank presidency would be a neat coup for Sir Mark, and not just because the post has heretofore gone to an American. He also stands for everything Mr. Wolfowitz opposes, beginning with the issue of corruption. Consider Mr. Malloch Brown's defense of the U.N.'s procurement practices.

"Not a penny was lost from the organization," he insisted last year, following an audit of the U.N.'s peacekeeping procurement by its Office of Internal Oversight Services. In fact, the office found that $7 million had been lost from overpayment; $50 million worth of contracts showed indications of bid rigging; $61 million had bypassed U.N. rules; $82 million had been lost to mismanagement; and $110 million had "insufficient" justification. That's $310 million out of a budget of $1.6 billion, and who knows what the auditors missed.

. . . Mr. Malloch Brown never made any serious attempt to reform the U.N. beyond the cosmetic, while doing everything he could to block the real reforms proposed by Americans Christopher Burnham and former Ambassador John Bolton. He was, however, energetic when it came to lecturing Americans about what they owed the U.N., such as joining the "reformed" Human Rights Council (whose only achievement to date has been to castigate Israel), pursuing a "new multilateral national security," and otherwise empowering the likes of Mr. Malloch Brown, his multilateral mates and their tax-free salaries.

Views like these help explain why Mr. Malloch Brown is in such favor with Mr. Soros, who has publicly suggested the U.S. will need a "de-Nazification" program to erase the taint of the Bush Administration. So close are the two that Mr. Malloch Brown lives in a suburban New York home owned by Mr. Soros. Mr. Malloch Brown says he pays market rent, though reporting by the New York Sun's Benny Avni disputes that. In any case, it's safe to assume that Mr. Soros's widely published views are close to Mr. Malloch Brown's somewhat more guarded ones.

So it's not surprising that many on the World Bank staff would cheer Mr. Malloch Brown: He's perfect for an institutional culture in which "progressive" thinking goes hand-in-glove with a tolerance for corruption. That culture has been on vivid display in the Euro-coup against Mr. Wolfowitz.

. . . Mr. Malloch Brown warned on Monday that, if Mr. Wolfowitz stayed as president, European countries might withhold funding from the next financing round for the bank's International Development Association.

. . . If the Bush Administration now abandons Mr. Wolfowitz as he faces a decision from the bank's board of governors, it will not only betray a friend but hand the biggest victory yet to its audacious enemies in the George Soros axis.

Read the entire story here. This is one where the Bush administration needs to stand solidly behind Mr. Wolfowitz. Further, one hopes that, with his position secured, Mr. Wolfowitz will start taking a much closer look at the personnel decisions to be made inside the World Bank. The stench emenating from the World Bank Headquarters is palpable. A thorough house-cleaning seems wholly in order.

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Ethical Problems In Our Military?

The Washington Post has a front page article titled "Troops At Odds With Ethical Standards." I challenge you to read this and then decide which is the ethically challenged party here, our soldiers or the Washington Post that ran the story on their front page under that headline:

More than one-third of U.S. soldiers in Iraq surveyed by the Army said they believe torture should be allowed if it helps gather important information about insurgents, the Pentagon disclosed yesterday. Four in 10 said they approve of such illegal abuse if it would save the life of a fellow soldier.

How is holding that belief the failure of an ethical standard? Acting on it would be a failure of a standard under current U.S. policy, but that is a different animal entirely. Wanting to do harm to someone and actually doing it are two widely different situations.

Further, given what our soldiers have been exposed to in Iraq - the utter lack of any morality on the part of an enemy who revels in civilian carnage, makes use of human shields, and has on several occasions used children to effect suicide bombings - it is no surprise whatsoever that many a soldier feels that torturing these bastards is appropriate to save an American life or to stop such future acts of mindless carnage. That is not the failure of an ethical standard, its simply a different standard then one finds being bandied about several thousand miles away in the safety of the ACLU headquarters, or in a speech being given by Ted Kennedy or Dick Durbin.

In addition, about two-thirds of Marines and half the Army troops surveyed said they would not report a team member for mistreating a civilian or for destroying civilian property unnecessarily.

That is part of building a team that has to rely on one another for their own life on a 24/7 basis. Its not desirable, but it is not surprising either. I would like to know similar results from major police departments in high crime areas to assess whether this is unusual. I am willing to bet it is not.

"Less than half of Soldiers and Marines believed that non-combatants should be treated with dignity and respect," the Army report stated.

I wonder how the question was framed and what were the reasons given for the answers? To the extent that it means soldiers are just pissed because of the difficulty distinguishing enemy from non-combatants, that is one thing. Acting out on that frustration is something else entirely. But the Washington Post again does not answer that question - yet. We are left to contemplate how evil and unethical our soldiers are for a bit longer.

About 10 percent of the 1,767 troops in the official survey -- conducted in Iraq last fall -- reported that they had mistreated civilians in Iraq, such as kicking them or needlessly damaging their possessions.

That is not surprising in a group as large of the army, that ten percent actually act out their frustrations or sadism. The numbers do not jibe with the answer to the above question on dignity and respect. In any event, insuring that this does not happen is a function of leadership at the platoon and squad level. If isolated incidents occur among ten percent of the soldiers, that would seem just unfortunate reality - again, not a systemic breach of ethics.

Army researchers "looked under every rock, and what they found was not always easy to look at," said S. Ward Casscells, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. The report noted that the troops' statements are at odds with the "soldier's rules" promulgated by the Army, which forbid the torture of enemy prisoners and state that civilians must be treated humanely.

Hmmm, I wonder if the researchers asked the soldiers why they had different rules? Without that answer, it is impossible to evaluate whether the rules are unrealistic for the situation, or whether we need to be doing a better job with our junior NCO's and officers.

Maj. Gen. Gale S. Pollock, the acting Army surgeon general, cast the report as positive news. "What it speaks to is the leadership that the military is providing, because they're not acting on those thoughts," she said. "They're not torturing the people."

WOW. Finally, after telling us about how bad are our soldiers, the Washington Post finally gets to the meat of it. This is ridiculous. This is should be the lead paragraph, not all this other crap which is just pure insinuation under a misleading headline. Good job Washington Post. Suppose you might be running a post on al Qaeda ethics anytime soon, just for balance?

But human rights activists said the report lends support to their view that the abuse of Iraqi civilians by U.S. military personnel was not isolated to some bad apples at Abu Ghraib and a few other detention facilities but instead is more widespread. "These are distressing results," said Steven R. Shapiro, national legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union. "They highlight a failure to adequately train and supervise our soldiers."

My suggestion, let's embed the ACLU and other human rights activists with units in Iraq so they can get a dose of reality to go along with their utopian ideals and beliefs that the U.S. and its military are the source of all evil. Let them get a different perspective in an embed. Somebody call al Qaeda, let's see if they will accept a delegation.

The study also found that the more often soldiers are deployed, the longer they are deployed each time; and the less time they spend at home, the more likely they are to suffer mental health problems such as combat trauma, anxiety and depression. That result is particularly notable given that the Pentagon has sent soldiers and Marines to Iraq multiple times and recently extended the tours of thousands of soldiers to 15 months from 12 months.

"The Army is spread very thin, and we need it to be a larger force for the number of missions that we were being asked to address for our nation," Pollock said.

Yes. This is precisely why increasing the size of our military needs to be at the top of the list of Congressional priorities. This is a legitimate screw up by Bush and company. It is not, however, a reason to declare surrender.

. . . Overall, 20 percent of the soldiers surveyed and 15 percent of the Marines appeared to suffer from depression, anxiety or stress, the Army reported. That was in keeping with findings of past surveys, as was the conclusion that more than 40 percent of soldiers reported low morale in their units.

The stress and anxiety numbers actually seem low. I wonder how they match up with similar complaints of depression, stress and anxiety in the U.S. population? Will have to ask Dr. Sanity that one. As to the low morale, I wonder which unit types were asked that question, and whether there was any evaluation of the basis for the low morale. It is a different problem entirely if the cooks in Division Headquarters Company have low morale, as opposed to infantry soldiers who are being asked to carry the fight to the enemy. And I would love to know what impact Harry Reid and Jack Murtha have played into the low morale? Wouldn't you?

Read the entire article here. It says alot, tells us next to nothing, and besmirches our troops. Just another day at the Washington Post. I will see if I can get a copy of the report and try to fill in the gaping blanks. There are no systemic ethical problems with our soldiers - just the Washington Post's news desk.

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Dirty Dianne - Making Duke Cunningham Look Like An Amateur

It seems that the biggest case of corruption coming out of our modern Congress is not Duke Cunningham, nor even Cold Cash Jefferson. It seems Senator Dianne Feinstein may have these guys beat by "orders of magnitude." This from The Hill:

. . . California Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) . . . until last year was for six years the top Democrat on the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies (or “Milcon”) sub-committee, where she may have directed more than $1 billion to companies controlled by her husband.

If the inferences finally coming out about what she did while on Milcon prove true, she may be on the way to morphing from a respected senior Democrat into another poster child for congressional corruption.

The problems stem from her subcommittee activities from 2001 to late 2005, when she quit. During that period the public record suggests she knowingly took part in decisions that eventually put millions of dollars into her husband’s pocket — the classic conflict of interest that exploited her position and power to channel money to her husband’s companies.

. . . [T]he director of the Project on Government Oversight who examined the evidence of wrongdoing assembled by California writer Peter Byrne told him that “the paper trail showing Senator Feinstein’s conflict of interest is irrefutable.”

It may be irrefutable, but she almost got away without anyone even knowing what she was up to. Her colleagues on the subcommittee, for example, had no reason even to suspect that she knew what companies might benefit from her decisions because that information is routinely withheld to avoid favoritism. What they didn’t know was that her chief legal adviser, who also happened to be a business partner of her husband’s and the vice chairman of one of the companies involved, was secretly forwarding her lists of projects and appropriation requests that were coming before the committee and in which she and her husband had an interest — information that has only come to light recently as a result of the efforts of several California investigative reporters.

This adviser insists — apparently with a straight face — that he provided the information to Feinstein’s chief of staff so that she could recuse herself in cases where there might be a conflict. He says that he assumes she did so. The public record, however, indicates that she went right ahead and fought for these same projects.

During this period the two companies, URS of San Francisco and the Perini Corporation of Framingham, Mass., were controlled by Feinstein’s husband, Richard C. Blum, and were awarded a combined total of over $1.5 billion in government business thanks in large measure to her subcommittee. That’s a lot of money even here in Washington.

Interestingly, she left the subcommittee in late 2005 at about the same time her husband sold his stake in both companies. Their combined net worth increased that year with the sale of the two companies by some 25 percent, to more than $40 million.

In spite of the blatant appearance of corruption, no major publication has picked up on the story [and] the Senate Ethics Committee has reportedly let her slip by . . .

Read then entire article here. This certainly smells of blatant corruption on a grand scale. Do you think your Senators might like a copy of this story along with a querry about how this has slipped by and a demand to know when the formal ethics charges will commence. If so, you can find the contact information for your Senators here.

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The Washinton Post Lacks Any Journalistic Integrity

What article is the top billed story on the Washington Post website now? It is this atrocity of a WP news article titled "Afghan Civilians Killed After U.S. Marines Convoy Attacked." It is listed on the WP website as the "most viewed" article.

Before continuing, let me review the background. Afghanistan is a war zone, and the unfortunate truth of war is that, in fighting an indiscriminate enemy that uses civilians as shields in their attacks, or otherwise attacks in and from civilian areas, it is unavoidable that civilians will die. That is a reality forced on our soldiers by the actions of an amoral enemy.

But as you can gather, civilian deaths seen in that context are not why this is headline news. It is headline news because the AP found an Afghani who blamed the deaths on the Marines.

First, here are the uncontested facts. A Marine convoy was passing through a town near Jalalabad. An IED exploded next to their convoy, and that was followed up by enemy small arms fire from multiple directions -- a textbook ambush. The Marines returned fire. At some point, either from the IED explosion or the small arms fire, eight civilians died. A reporter questioned the Marine Corps about the civilian deaths. The jist of Marine Corp’s response was that they would debrief the Marines involved in the fight, conduct an investigation with the Afghani government, and then get back to the reporter.

So, explicitly, why did this becomes top line news?

The Associated Press quoted several wounded Afghans as saying that the Marines had fired indiscriminately as they fled the explosion.

They were firing everywhere, and they even opened fire on 14 to 15 vehicles passing on the highway," Tur Gul, 38, told the AP. Gul was standing on the roadside by a gas station and was shot twice in his right hand. "They opened fire on everybody, the ones inside the vehicles and the ones on foot."

So how many problems are there with this particular article and this kind of reporting:

1. Anyone with no military background reading this report will likely be left with the impression that this is just another example of our military out of control. This report, as headline news, defames our soldiers.

2. The results of the debriefing will likely be published in a report buried deeply in the bowels of the WP several days from now. The damage done to the reputation of our soldiers and the nobility of their efforts under fire and in an ambush will not be undone.

3. When the results of the debriefing are released by the Marine Corps in a few days, I have little doubt that they will not show anything other then that the Marines returned suppressing fire towards the locations from which they were being fired upon. Anyone who has been a member of the United States military knows that our troops are trained and drilled repetitively to do precisely that. Wildly spraying bullets is counterproductive. If you are not firing in the direction of an enemy, you will be exposing yourself while at the same time allowing the enemy to keep his head up. That is something untrained or poorly trained soldiers do. The U.S. military, by comparison, is the most highly trained force in the world today. That is not to say that something else might have occurred on this occasion, but it is to say that the AP and WP should be suspect of claims to the contrary until they have all of the facts. That is certainly not what the AP and WP do in this case.

4. The jist of this piece turns morality on its head. It puts moral blame on our soldiers, and completely ignores the fact that the enemy are using civilians as shields, either directly or by staging attacks in areas were civilians are sure to be caught in the fire. This is an enemy wholly lacking in any sense of morality, and the cynical loss of civilian life for them is a plus because of hit pieces like this. Yet any reader who does not analyze what is going on will again just adopt the WP/AP thesis that it is our soldiers who are out of control.

5. Who is Tur Gul, the man making the accusations against the Marines. It is reasonable to assume that if Taliban were able to set up an extensive ambush in the area, including setting up IED's, that just about every civilian in the local area had do know about it. Further, they had to be complicit in it to the extent of not warning the coalition forces. I am not saying that such makes the civilian deaths justified. My point is only that there had to be civilians loyal to the Taliban in the area for this ambush to take place. So, is Tur Gul one of those loyal to the Taliban? We know nothing about him besides his name. By naming him, the W.P. gives a paper thin veneer of reliability to its article. What most readers will not know, however, is that just because the W.P or A.P. provides a name, that alone is no indicia of reliabity. Just do a search on Michelle Malkin's website for "AP."

6. The basic thesis of this hit piece is very damaging in another regard. It incrementally moves the public, and our government, to place an ever greater burden on our ROE -- "rules of engagement" -- that govern when and how our soldiers can fire and protect themselves in hostilities. Let me give you some idea of how the ROE -- and our soldiers who, unlike the enemy, place a value on human life -- operate by quoting from this article in the Guardian from February 22, 2007. And just for the record, as you read this article, know that the Guardian is the U.K.'s leading far left newspaper and it's editorial position is vehemently opposed to the war in Iraq.

Boys on bikes cycle backwards and forwards on a footbridge over a small canal lined with houses and groves of date palms. Women in headscarves look anxiously in groups from windows. Men walk with shopping bags. A gunman, clutching an AK-47, bobs his head around the corner of an alleyway close to a school. Once. Twice. On the third occasion a child, a boy seven or eight years old, is thrust out in front of him. The gunman holds him firmly by the arm and steps out for instant into full view of the Bradley's gunner to get a proper look, then yanks the boy back and disappears.

"That is really dirty," says Specialist Chris Jankow, in the back of the Bradley, with a mixture of contempt, anger and frustration. "They know exactly what our rules of engagement are. They know we can't fire back."

A few minutes and a few hundred metres later the performance is repeated. A woman and three small children emerge uncertainly from behind a building, little more than a shack. They stare at the approaching armour. After a few seconds they retreat from view; then the process is repeated. The third time they emerge, a fighter is crouching behind them with a rocket-propelled grenade aimed at Jankow's Bradley. The group disappears.

There is a long pause, a moment of excruciating moral conflict for the soldiers and for the gunner in particular. Not to shoot would be to imperil their own lives or those of their colleagues, both American and Iraqi. To shoot would be to risk killing civilians who have been shoved in front of their guns to shield insurgent fighters.

7. This WP/AP article is one more in the mosaic of the MSM cynically and deliberately attempting to influence public opinion against our wars overseas.

8. On the very outside chance that there is a shred of truth to this story, it should be headline news -- ONLY AFTER THE MARINES HAVE BEEN DEBRIEFED AND THE MARINE CORPS IS ABLE TO RESPOND SUBSTANTIVELY TO THE ALLEGATIONS. That would hold our troops to appropriate standards and allow the newspaper to report facts, not shill for the anti-war crowd and their de facto allies, the radical muslims with whom we are at war. This AP/WP story, as headline news, is an atrocity.

9. I would urge you to complain to the Washington Post about their ethical, moral, and journalistic standards in running this piece as headline news. The Washington Post contact information is:

Newsroom: foreign@washpost.com

Main Phone: 202.334.6000
800.627.1150

Letters to the Editor: Letters to the Editor
The Washington Post
1150 15 St. NW
Washington, DC 20071

and by e-mail at: letters@washpost.com

Update: The New York Times has a similar article, though, and I never thought that I would say this, the NTY provides a much more balanced article. The NYT at least includes the following:

The United States military said the unit came under fire after a suicide bomber detonated his explosive-laden car near their convoy “as part of a complex ambush involving enemy small-arms fire from several directions.”

Members of the unit, on patrol near Jalalabad airfield, returned fire, and the civilians were killed and wounded in the cross-fire during the battle, according to a statement from the military press office at Bagram Air Base, 40 miles north of Kabul.

“We regret the death of innocent Afghan citizens as a result of the Taliban extremists’ cowardly act,” Lt. Col. David Accetta, a military spokesman, said in the statement. “Once again the terrorists demonstrated their blatant disregard for human life by attacking coalition forces in a populated area, knowing full well that innocent Afghans would be killed and wounded in the attack.”

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Pelosi's Unique Take on Ethics

Speaker Pelosi hammered home the theme of ethics in government for years, and indeed, made it a centerpiece of the Democratic '06 campaign. So where is the ethical standard set when Pelosi seeks to appoint William Jefferson, he of the ongoing "cold cash" investigation -- to a spot on the House Panel that deals directly with the important -- and often classified -- issue of Homeland Security?

House Republicans are wondering about that exact question.

[Rep.] Blunt blasted Speaker Nancy Pelosi . . . for her endorsement of Jefferson for the Homeland Security Committee, calling the selection "ludicrous."

"I won't support that - it's such a contradiction of what the Speaker said," Blunt told reporters, referring to Pelosi's promise to run the most ethical Congress in history.

The FBI found $90,000 in cash in Jefferson's freezer when they raided his home last year as part of an investigation into whether he accepted bribes related to a telecommunications deal in Africa. Although the FBI probe is ongoing and the congressman has not been indicted, the ethics cloud hanging over Jefferson's head has caused headaches for Pelosi. Pelosi stripped Jefferson of his seat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee last year. That move angered members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who argued that Jefferson had not been indicted or found guilty of any crime and that ousting him from the tax-writing panel created an unfair precedent. Despite the demotion and the ongoing FBI investigation, Jefferson was reelected in November, leaving Pelosi in a quandary about how to handle his committee assignments. Before the recess, Pelosi announced that Jefferson would be placed on the Homeland Security panel.
. . . .
Jefferson's nomination to the panel likely will come to the floor as part of a slate of new committee assignments. Usually, nominations are non-controversial and are approved by unanimous consent, but Blunt indicated that Republicans plan to call for a recorded vote on Jefferson's committee assignment, a move that would force members to approve or disapprove of his selection for the panel.

Read the whole story here

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PELOSI NOT LIVING UP TO CAMPAIN PROMISES

Nancy Pelosi is falling short on her election campaign promises, such as ethical reform and bipartisanship, according to the Politico.

Hattip: Drudge

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