The U.S. military is calling it an "administrative error," but others are suggesting it was caught posing propaganda as news.
The military issued a news release on July 24, following a car bomb, that included a quote from an unidentified Iraqi man. But the quote was almost identical to one used in a July 13 release, following a separate car bomb.
Here's the kicker: After questioning from the U.S. news media, the military re-issued the July 24 release, minus the quote. Problem solved! Lt. Col. Clifford Kent, spokesman for the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division, told CNN that the quote was an "administrative error," and said the military was investigating.
And if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.
Even if the quotes were absolutely identical, the "administrative error" theory might not hold water. We'd have to assume that our military accidentally pulled a quote from July 13 and stuck it into a July 24 release. Doesn't make a lot of sense.
But the quotes aren't identical. They're almost identical. So the "administrative error" would be that our military accidentally pulled a quote from July 13, altered it slightly, then stuck it into a July 24 release.
An alternate theory, of course, is that the military interviewed the same unidentified Iraqi, who read his July 13 quote for use in the July 24 news release ...
***
How similar are the quotes? You be the judge.
The July 24 news release, on a car bomb that killed 25 near the al-Rashad police station, read: "'The terrorists are attacking the infrastructure, the ISF (Iraqi Security Forces) and all of Iraq. They are enemies of humanity without religion or any sort of ethics. They have attacked my community today and I will now take the fight to the terrorists,' said one Iraqi man who preferred not to be identified."
The July 13 news release, on a car bomb that killed several children, read: "'The terrorists are attacking the infrastructure, the children and all of Iraq,' said one Iraqi man who preferred not to be identified. 'They are enemies of humanity without religion or any sort of ethics. They have attacked my community today and I will now take the fight to the terrorists.
***
This article first appeared at Journalists Against Bush's B.S
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Temple Stark
Hands up those who think that's pretty fucking the definotion of "caught Red-handed."
Speaking as someone who values, you know "historical fact" (Naively? perhaps) this is god-foresakeningly terrible. Sorry. This isn't left or right. I don't see it that way. It's definitely not right. It's disgusting.
2 - Aaman
It might be a good idea to post the links to the news-releases, if one can call them that.
Maybe they keep going back to this same Iraqi man who keeps saying the same thing.
3 - Joe vestich
send this to Fox News
4 - Dave Nalle
hate hate hate. spin spin spin.
When have military press releases NOT been propaganda.
Here are some real quotes from real Iraqis:
"Terrorists in Iraq are paying a very high price but they're getting very little in return and their resources are being depleted while Iraq is getting stronger every week and whatever they're inflicting is not yielding the desired effects and in my opinion that's why they're trying to export their attacks to other targets they consider vulnerable or of high value. This change in plans and tactics was made after the terrorists realized that their plans in Iraq have been rendered sterile and that was only because they were faced with tremendous determination and patience from Iraqis and their allies." from Iraq the Model
"A man in his sixties, half-naked and his underwear stained with blood from shrapnel wounds from a US munition, cursed the insurgents as he greeted the advancing marines on Saturday night. "I wish the Americans had come here the very first day and not waited eight months," he said, trembling." from The London Times after the liberation of Fallujah by US Troops.
"Who anointed these monsters as the defenders of Iraq's sovereign honor? "Rebels" may fit neatly enough in a headline, but these blood-drenched thugs have been waging their war against Iraqi civilians, not on their behalf. Of course, the Iraqi civilians that really interest the U.S. press are generally those who have been killed or injured by U.S. forces." from Iraq Pundit
"It's not resistance, not insurgency and not guerilla war…it's terrorism. Sadly, some stand reluctant and afraid of that calling things with their real names might approximate them with the side they oppose politically. This kind of people usually find it easier to blame America or the Iraqi government as that would preserve their pride, and all we hear are things like "there would have been no terrorism if there were no Americans in Iraq….bla bla bla".
"They hate to admit the fact that terrorism existed in Iraq long before America came to Iraq; terrorism and the regime were one hand committing a genocide against the people of Iraq, only it was broader and crueler than today's war but the difference is that no one could hear of that genocide; concrete walls and basements that housed countless torture chambers and the bodies were buried in secrecy and under the cover of the night." from Iraq the Model
I could provide lots more quotes - but maybe you should check out the websites referenced and some of the sites they link to. Their opinion of the terrorists and of the American media and American leftists like Paul Krugman and Juan Cole is VERY revealing.
Dave
5 - David R. Mark
Dave Nalle -- the moderate who doesn't mind being lied to.
6 - David R. Mark
Also, what in my post constitutes "hate, hate, hate"?
7 - Dave Nalle
You know the answer to that, David. All it takes is the link to your blog of bushating.
Dave
8 - David R. Mark
Dave, for someone so bright, it amazes me how quick you are to reduce your arguments to glorified insults.
My blog, for the umpteenth time, is not a Bush-hating site. It is a reflection of my desire not to be lied to by our government. It alerts its readers regarding propaganda, hypocrisy and false (or flip-flop) statements.
That isn't a bad thing.
I attribute my posts. It's not like I'm just saying "Bush sucks." And I welcome comments from left and right -- something many right-wing blogs don't do.
Now, if you want to simplify that to "hate, hate, hate," so be it. But I don't think that's an argument against the military being caught red-handed lying to people.
9 - Dave Nalle
I guess you're not familiar enough with military press releases. They are and have always been propaganda. Announcing this as some sort of new discovery is either an example of naivete or a deliberate attempt to score points on the administration by pointing out something which is common knowledge as if it's some great scandal - a favorte technique of the bushating gang.
If you're going to have a blog with its focus primarily on attacking the administration and then you make a post like this which feigns a naivete which I just can't be convinced by, then you have to be prepared to be judged as one of the cabal of disingenuous bush hating propagandists.
Dave
10 - Aaman
Dave,
I don't see you applying the same level of clarity to other people with single-minded blogs, like the guy who did the aclu post, for example
11 - Aaman
Oops, I retract my comment after reading your comment in the ACLU post:) nicely put there
12 - Dave Nalle
The ACLU post was so stupid that I refrained from commenting on it for a while. I thought it should be allowed to stew in its own juices.
Dave
13 - David R. Mark
Dave, did you read my post, or just the headline?
I think this is an extraordinary situation. This isn't just "Things are going well in Iraq."
14 - Dave Nalle
I did read the post. I don't think it's an extraordinary situation.
Look, you've got a point bringing this to light, but you're off base on highlighting this particular press release. Military press releases are and have been utter crap for at least 60 years. This isn't news to anyone familiar with them. I accept your lack of familiarity, but the fact is that this is no better or worse than their usuall absolute lack of standards or competence. It's not even really propaganda, because they really are too clueless to realize it might be taken that way.
I have a friend who worked as a photojournalist for Stars and Stripes and for the Army press office which releases stuff like this. He was always putting together bogus feel-good stories for them, basically designed to make everyone happy about the military.
My point here is that this press release is no better or worse than anything else they've put out over the years. The quotes are bogus, the journalistic value of it is nil, and the accuracy is certainly in question. It's a press release from the US military, no more no less - absolute garbage from the word go. The military press officers are just dumb. Expecting anything competent from them is a waste of time, but at the same time they really are too incompetent to deliberately engage in deception. I can fully believe they had no idea they were reusing the same quote.
HOWEVER, the sentiments expressed in the quote are not innacurate, regardless of how many times it was reused out of context. The Iraqi people ARE fed up with the terrorists and generally glad that the Americans are there.
Dave
15 - MCH
"Honor the Fallen"
"Army Staff Sergeant Frank Tiai, 45 years old, of Pago Pago, American Samoa; assigned to the 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry, Army Reserve, Fort Shafter, Hawaii; was killed July 17 when an improvised explosive device detonated near his position in Baghdad."
(www.militarycity.com/valor)
American soldiers killed in Iraq...1,782
American soldiers wounded in Iraq...13,189
(www.icasualties.org/oif/)
"Support the Troops, Oppose the Policy"
Veterans Against the Iraq War
www.vaiw.org/vet
Iraq Veterans Against the War
www.ivaw.net/
- MCH, Vietnam Era vet
16 - Dave Nalle
MCH, why don't you start a thread for these death counts rather than disrupting meaningful discussion.
Dave
17 - David R. Mark
Dave: even if what you say is true -- and I'm not conceding that this case follows your overall view of military press releses -- I don't see the value of building an argument by misrepresenting my blog, or insulting the blog's name for the umpteenth time.
18 - gracefulboomer
MCH- Thank you for posting the Veterans Against The War site.
Very informative, easy to navigate, working links.
I had missed the article on Bush's nominee Judge John G. Robert's decision opposing the right of seventeen American soldiers tortured and held as P.O.W.'s during the Gulf War to sue for compensation.
Three judge panel and Robert's was the dissenting opinion.
I will save this site because it has a remarkable running tally of the cost of the Iraq War entitled 'Your Tax Dollars At Work' located on the lower left hand side of the web page.
Agree of disagree with this war, watching those dollars clicking over and rising is remarkable and amazing.
More on point, this is just another example of a psych ops operation like the faked staged toppling of Saddam's statue.
However common in war for deceitful incidents like these to be reported, it does not negate the effect on our creditibility as a country and it does absolutely nothing to benefit our soldiers ..
19 - AmeriPundit
This was discussed on the floor of the House yesterday and brings up an interesting point. I reference Dave Nalle's comment:
"Military press releases are and have been utter crap for at least 60 years. This isn't news to anyone familiar with them. I accept your lack of familiarity, but the fact is that this is no better or worse than their usuall[sic] absolute lack of standards or competence. It's not even really propaganda, because they really are too clueless to realize it might be taken that way."
Bring up that you dislike being lied to and you run the risk of being insulted, "I appreciate your lack of familiarity", by someone who is superior to all the minds in the military, "this is no better or worse than their usuall absolute lack of standards or competence", and get ready for a built in excuse for the behavior, "It's not even really propaganda, because they really are too clueless to realize it might be taken that way."
The point, I assume, you're trying to make is that it's not a surprise to you but rather it's a pain in the "a" to have to clarify this for the very people Dave implicitly refers to in his statement, "This isn't news to anyone familiar with them (military press releases)". The implicit reference is to those who aren't familiar with military press releases. That's a large audience. In fact, I'd venture to bet that in any room of randomly chosen people, the vast majority would be unfamiliar with military press releases.
Unfortunately for Dave's argument, THAT is the target audience. Obviously, it works. It's left for decent people not to excuse it, accept it as "old hat", and ignore it- it's the responsibility of those that are aware of it to bring it to light so that as much of the population as possible sees how opinion is being manipulated.
20 - Dave Nalle
>>I don't see the value of building an argument by misrepresenting my blog, or insulting the blog's name for the umpteenth time.<<
Sorry, is your blog no longer called "Journalists Against Bush's B.S."? Is it's objective no longer to "push journalists to stop lazily repeating conservative spin, and to help expose Bush propaganda." Does it not have a link to notorious CPUSA/moveon.org front site buzzflash.com? Which, btw, overwrites your main column text because of a formatting error.
You want to stop Bush propaganda, yet your own site is a leftist propaganda organ. You show no discernment or journalistic integrity. From the very name of your site you assume that Bush and the administration are putting out BS. Rather than assess what they say and analyze it's genuine flaws or merits objectively, you have as your starting point the belief that all they want to do is lie to you. How can anyone take your site seriously given that premise?
The Bush administration may produce propaganda some of the time. I wouldn't be surprised. But your site is all propaganda and all bias all the time - that is the specific purpose which you cite for running the blog.
Dave
21 - Dave Nalle
>>The point, I assume, you're trying to make is that it's not a surprise to you but rather it's a pain in the "a" to have to clarify this for the very people Dave implicitly refers to in his statement, "This isn't news to anyone familiar with them (military press releases)". The implicit reference is to those who aren't familiar with military press releases. That's a large audience. In fact, I'd venture to bet that in any room of randomly chosen people, the vast majority would be unfamiliar with military press releases. <<
You're right, David. Having been brought up on the military press, I didn't consider how little awareness the public has of these things. Of course, with the time I spent in Soviet Russia I have a generally cavalier attitude towards propaganda. What I see her in the US is so much less pervasive and so amateurish in comparison that I find it amusing rather than troubling.
>>Unfortunately for Dave's argument, THAT is the target audience. Obviously, it works. It's left for decent people not to excuse it, accept it as "old hat", and ignore it- it's the responsibility of those that are aware of it to bring it to light so that as much of the population as possible sees how opinion is being manipulated.<<
There's a flaw in your argument here, of course. The military press is not really aimed at the general public, and the ignorance you mention is the result of that fact. Normal people don't generally see these press releases. They get filtered through the civilian press whose responsibility is to fact check them and present a more balanced report to the public.
Dave
22 - John Bambenek
Any good news out of Iraq is by definition propaganda by certain crowds...
23 - RKC
Anyone who does not want to hear the truth, whether or not it supports his political leaning, is an imbecile.
24 - David R. Mark
Dave, at no time do I suggest on my blog that everything the Bush Administration says is propaganda.
I can only defend my site, not every last thing that is posted on the sites I link to.
As I said before, I attribute my stories -- to things such as White House press conferences, reports from the Homeland Security inspector general, testimony before various Senate committees, reports from newspapers like the NY Times, the Washington Post and the LA Times, magazines such as PR Week. I don't try to pull any fast ones on my audience.
You and I disagree on politics. Fine. But to reduce yourself to insults as a way to argue against my posts is not only juvenile, it's insulting to the others who read blogcritics.
Tell me all the times you have gone onto conservative blogs, or all the times you have lambasted conservative posters on blogcritics, for being lopsidedly conservative and pro-Bush.
You don't know me. You don't know my politics. You don't know how many times I've voted Republican, or what my beliefs are on a host of issues facing our country today. You look at my blog name and scream "Bush-hater," when in fact all my blog is trying to do is isolate instances when the Bush administration -- IMHO -- has lied or misled the American people. That includes undocumented video news releases, government contracts for international psyops campaigns, paying conservative "media" to tout administration points in columns and on television, giving favoritism to a Texas GOP staffer posing as a journalist, offering misleading statements on social security privatization, the "success: of the Patriot Act, the war in Iraq, our "war on terror," and so on.
It is my right as an American to dissent from our leadership if I choose to. It isn't un-American -- it's the most American thing one can do. I choose to shine a bright light on items in the news, statements made by our leadership, etc., that I believe show that our government is not being truthful.
But in no way does that demonstrate hatred of Bush or any other member of his administration -- no matter how many times you try to smear me by saying so.
And before you talk about my integrity, get a clue about who I am and what I have done in my career. I am very proud of my 17 years as a journalist, 15 years as a business journalist, and, yes, my one-plus year as a blogger. I've had personal battles that I've overcome, too, but all you see is "hate, hate, hate."
Shame on you for your ignorance.
25 - Temple Stark
It's OK David. He doesn't see what he's doing as a personal attack. He's very miopic when it comes to his own behaviour.
Can I ask what publication (s)? You can e-mail the info if you like.
I'm currently a report for the Casa Grande Dispatch in Casa Grande, Ariz. ALways interested in people a long time in the biz; those who maybe know the meaning of truth as compared to being willing to swallow falsehoods of any administration.