43 lines
2.9 KiB
Plaintext
43 lines
2.9 KiB
Plaintext
If the Shoe Fits…
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<p>From <a href='http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/150533.php'>Confederate<br />
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Yankee</a> comes the story that an Iraqi journalist named Ali<br />
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Fadhil claims U.S. soldiers invaded and shot up his home, then hustled<br />
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him off for questioning before inexplicably returning him unharmed.<br />
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What’s supposed to make this especially shocking is that he was<br />
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working for a British newspaper, the <cite>Guardian</cite>.</p>
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<p><span id="more-250"></span></p>
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<p>Yes, that would be the same corrosively anti-American left-wing rag<br />
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known to some pro-war bloggers as “al-Ghardiyan”, the one that has<br />
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called for the assassination of George Bush on its editorial page, and<br />
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that cheerfully serves as a megaphone for la Pilger and la Fisk and la<br />
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Galloway and every frothing nutcase of a Wahhabist cleric in the<br />
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British Isles.</p>
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<p>My first thought on reading this was “What’s the big deal here?” I<br />
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mean, I’ve <em>read</em> the <cite>Guardian</cite>; if I were an<br />
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American intelligence officer in Baghdad, I’d feel safe in assuming<br />
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that anybody working for that particular newspaper was not only having<br />
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sloppy sex with the local terrorists every night of the week, but<br />
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collecting a bonus from the head office for doing it without a<br />
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condom. <cite>Confederate Yankee</cite> says “This story, as<br />
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reported, is shocking and should result in an immediate<br />
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investigation”, but to hell with that — if anything, some G2<br />
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ought to be congratulated on intelligent target selection.</p>
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<p>Alas. On reading further, it looks like the whole story is probably<br />
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a put-up job a la Juliana Sgrena. There are no witnesses, no physical<br />
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evidence, and (most tellingly) Fahdil’s description of the soldiers’<br />
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behavior doesn’t match the way American troops are trained to secure<br />
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prisoners. Not that any trifle like the mere lack of evidence is<br />
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likely to stop al-Ghardiyan from ranting about “proven American<br />
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brutality” until well into the next century!</p>
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<p>I wish I could expect that CENTCOM would issue an unapologetic<br />
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statement reminding everybody that Iraq is a war zone, and that any<br />
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“journalist” believed on information received to be actively<br />
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cooperating with terrorists is at exactly the same risk of being<br />
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interrogated, jailed, and consequently shot as any other collaborator<br />
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with the enemy.</p>
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<p>But naah, that won’t happen. If they truly held journalists<br />
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responsible for aiding and comforting the enemy, they’d have to shoot<br />
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half the <em>American</em> correspondents in Iraq. I’m not yet disgusted<br />
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enough with our mainstream media to wish that fate on them. Not quite,<br />
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though they’re pushing it.</p>
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