[UPDATE BELOW]
We saw a good example of our news media reporting enemy propaganda under the guise of "news" with CNN showing a clip of a sniper shooting one of our soldiers.
Mrs. Cheney took the issue head on to Wolf Blitzer, when she went on his show to discuss her book and he tried to side swipe her with political questions. She nailed him and CNN to the wall for acting as an agent of propaganda for the terrosists.
Cheney showed that she knows exactly how to deal with the liberal media when she asked Blitzer "what is CNN doing running tapes of terrorists shooting Americans," more than once. Her sharpest question "Do you want us to win?” echoed the sentiments of conservatives everywhere who are fed up with the bias and anti-American pap served up by CNN and other liberal media outlets.
I have also mentioned quite often here that our news media refuses to report the full story in Iraq, they distort and they focus on the headlines that only bad news can bring... I have showed here on this site the good news coming from Iraq that is very easy to find right here.
Centcom gives the good news as well as the bad, they do not focus one one while ignoring the other.
With all that said, after reading Patterico's piece on the news that came out of Iraq, reported by a source in our mainstream media, that has been investigated and turned out to be a downright lie. THAT is very disturbing. Brings into question any and all reports that come from Iraq, such as this one right here.
I will high light a few parts from Patterico's piece and link to the whole post....be sure to read it, because it should give you cause for concern.
Is the L.A. Times reporting unconfirmed enemy propaganda from an Iraqi stringer with ties to the insurgency? Or is the paper simply misreporting the facts, and failing to seek out and report the military’s side of the story.
You be the judge.
On November 15, the L.A. Times ran an article titled Iraqi residents say U.S. airstrike kills 30. The article emphasized that 30+ people, including women and children, were killed in an airstrike. A headline proclaimed: “Victims include women and children, witnesses in Ramadi say. The military has no immediate comment.”
Last Friday, my reader Tom Blumer sent me a link to an interesting blog post, by a blog called “One Oar in the Water,” which attacked the L.A. Times story about the Ramadi airstrike. The post quoted what purported to be an e-mail from a soldier who was involved in the Ramadi incident. The e-mailing soldier claimed that the “Times correspondent in Ramadi” has ties to the insurgency, and is knowingly repeating enemy propaganda:The [L.A. Times article] is an example of why you simply cannot believe most media reports coming out of Iraq. The LA Time[s] reporter, Solomon Moore, is not in Ramadi. He relies on an Iraqi stringer here who has ties to insurgents. In this article, Moore repeats almost verbatim, insurgent propaganda we have intercepted. The fighting in question occurred in my battle space within Ramadi and I was personally and intimately involved.
The soldier then disputed certain assertions made in the L.A. Times article. The soldier said that there had been no airstrike, and that only a few insurgents had been killed, by small-arms fire and tank fire. The solder concluded the e-mail with a slap at the L.A. Times:Every target engaged was well within what our restrictive rules of engagement authorize. I am disgusted by the editorial slant of this article, by what passes from journalistic integrity at the LA Times, and by their complicity with our mortal enemies. My Soldiers fight with great precision and skill on a very difficult urban battlefield. The LA Times dishonors them and give aid and comfort to my enemies.
I have often asked whether we should believe our soldiers who are on the ground in Iraq or the media outlets that are simply looking for headlines and have their own political agenda. After all, our soldiers only agenda is to stay alive and complete their mission... what is the medias agenda? Ever asked yourself this? To me the question is a no-bainer... the soldiers win, hands down.
Patterico takes it a step farther and decides to investigate this himself... to assure himself that this soldiers letter was real and that the LA Times deliberately lied and you will be amazed at what he found... some will be amazed, myself, I am not surprised because I have been saying this from the beginning.
Finish reading Patterico's piece here and see if it disturbs you as much as it did me.
Once again, there are dozens of military blogs on the web, words from our soldiers, which I have showed here many times... listen to your troops, hear them and understand that out of the two, the media or the troops, the troops are the only ones that have YOUR best interest at heart. Why else would they be willing to give their lives for you?
Understand that our media, some willing as CNN was, or some unwilling allies to the enemy are not getting the full truth to you. What else might they be telling you that is an outright lie? Knowing not many will independently verify their stories as Patterico did, they can tell you anything...and sadly, alot of you will swallow it, hook, line and sinker.
[UPDATE] 11/25/06- Flopping Aces shows another accont of the media either jumping to conclusions or telling outright lies.
Doing a search via Google I began reading the stories printed about the burned six and each and every one had one thing in common. The only person stating that this incident happened was one Capt. Jamil Hussein. Every news report printed this man as the source of the information.
If you do a search for this name you come up with ten pages of pretty much the same article describing the burning six.
Trying to dig up some information on this man as we speak.
UPDATE II
Since this guys name is in every single story printed about the burning six I have to dig way down to get to older stories involving this guy.
This one from April:
In yesterday’s worst violence, the bodies of six handcuffed, blindfolded and tortured men were found in the Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, said police Capt. Jamil Hussein.
Flopping Aces goes on to show four other stories with this Capt. Jamil Hussein's name on them, but here is the kicker.
UPDATE V
Got an update from Centcom. I sent them an email asking if they had any information on this Capt and I received:
We are checking with the Iraqi Government to verify that Capt. Jamil Hussein is a legitimate Iraqi Government spokesperson. We haven’t heard back yet. Unfortunately, people posing as government officials often do call the media to make statements.
We have no confirmation that this event happened; so it is very likely that this is not a legitimate source. In addition, of the four mosques that were suppose to have been burned/destroyed at that time; we only confirmed one mosque was damaged by a fire that lasted an hour and then was extinguished with no casualties.
Read the rest from Flopping Aces, linked above. Seems that many stories we are getting from Iraq are simply fairy tales. So, how DO we weed through the bull to get the truth? Better yet, how many prefer the truth and how many prefer the fairy tales they are getting? Good question.