Robin Boyd's blog

The disinformation campaign against the Haditha Marines continues despite exonerations and dismissed charges. This was quite evident during Thursday night’s discussion on Hannity and Colmes.  Jason Mattera, the young man who dared confront John Murtha about his claims of “cold blooded murder” was a guest and Jane Fleming Kleeb represented the dissenting viewpoint.

Alan Colmes gave us a hint about the latest tactic to diminish the results of the 2 year Haditha investigation when he questioned the integrity of  General James Mattis.

The Democrats hit General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker with the results of an ABC/BBC poll of Iraqi citizens during the two days of testimony. Barbara Boxer was so immersed in the poll results that she couldn't even muster up a question for General Petraeus. Since the poll results were not released until Monday September 10, 2007, it left little time for an indepth look at the poll, the sampling size, the surveyors and the results from all the questions.

First of all - the sample size. The number of Iraqis questioned for the poll was approximately 2100 people. 2100 people in a country with an estimated population of 27,499,638 according to the CIA Factbook. That means the poll results were from 1/1000 of the population. How can a sample size that small even be considered partially representative of the population?

Every time there is an anti-war rally, march, die-in, puke-in etc. you can find several protesters dressed in official military uniforms. The ones in uniform usually claim to have served in Iraq or Afghanistan. While some are truly vets, others are obvious posers (i.e. Jesse Macbeth). The uniforms are typically defaced with IVAW slogans or logos done in black marker. The tops are unbuttoned to show off the latest protest t-shirt. Medals and ribbons are usually in plentiful supply as a sign of "real service".

Two of the members of IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against the War), Adam Kokesh and Liam Madden are facing hearings by the Marine Corps for their protest attire. But if you read David Montgomery’s article, Antiwar to the Corps, in the Washington Post, you would think that the Marines were attempting to silence an anti-war voice. Not only did Montgomery miss the entire reason for the hearings, but he overlooked a few facts in his reporting.

The media outlet, known for faux photography, crossed the line again this week with false and biased reporting of the testimony in the Article 32 Hearing for one of the Marines charged in the Haditha incident. Marty Graham is covering Capt Randy Stone's hearing for Reuters. Graham filed two separate stories with Reuters with patently false claims about the testimony of Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz.

In both articles, Graham claimed Sgt. Dela Cruz testified that the 5 Iraqi men, who jumped out of a white car immediately after the IED explosion, were standing with their hands tied behind their backs when they were shot by Sgt. Wuterich. Here's Graham's exact words...

Dela Cruz also said he watched squad leader Sgt. Frank Wuterich shoot five men whose hands were tied up near a car.

On his show tonight, Bill O’Reilly asked Al Sharpton if he was going to go after the rap music “stars” who consistently denigrate women and glamorize violence. The Rev told Bill that after “getting rid of Mr. Imus”, his National Action Network will “start looking” at some of the corporations that backed Imus. Sharpton claimed that some of those corporations also own some of the record companies. Sharpton told O’Reilly that this was “just the beginning of a long war” to deal with this type of language and behavior.

But in March 2005 Sharpton defended the content of rap music while condemning the violence surrounding the industry. He made it quite clear that it was “not about the lyrics” but the violence committed by the rap artists. Sharpton even went so far as to invoke the rap artists’ First Amendment rights to rap and sing about violent acts. Here is what Sharpton had to say in his March 9, 2005 interview on CNN...

Last night I predicted that CAIR would be demanding an apology from FOX for the depiction of Muslims in "24" within 24 hours. Well it's not CAIR but ABC has started the ball rolling...

Sut Jhally, co-producer and co-director of the film "Hijacking Catastrophe," says the dramatic action in the show creates a dangerous climate in which the public loses some of its perspective on what's real and what's not. Of course that may be a minority opinion given the show's enormous popularity.
Television shows like '24' also reinforce stereotypes about Arabs, he said, and in this episode connections are drawn between terrorism, Arabs and nuclear war. With the U.S. wrestling with Iran over its nuclear capabilities, these associations are dangerous, he said.
"This television show is very political, and it's no accident that it's on Fox," said Jhally, who directs the Media and Education Foundation and is professor of communications at University of Massachusetts. "Given their propaganda system, it doesn't surprise me."

We already know that two of the Reuters' reporters covering Haditha were once imprisoned by Coalition forces for their terrorist ties. Now we hear that Reuters is communicating with Mullah Omar (or one of his reps) via email...

"PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar has added to the mystery over Osama bin Laden, saying he hasn't seen his ally and fellow fugitive since U.S.-backed forces ousted the Taliban from Afghanistan in late 2001.
"No, I have neither seen him, nor have I made any effort to do so, but I pray for his health and safety," Omar said in an e-mailed response to questions sent by Reuters.
The questions were relayed to Omar through his spokesman Mohammad Hanif, and a reply was received late on Wednesday."

Okay - Reuters has email contact with Mullah Omar, Taliban chief, fugitive, terrorist, etc. and reports it as if it is no big deal. What the heck is wrong with this picture? Where did Reuters get the email address from - Omar's MySpace page? Has Reuters shared this email address with the authorities - i.e. the military hunting for terrorists? Or is the email addy for personal communication only. Which Reuters' employee was involved with the email communication?

Why do we continue to tolerate this blatant terrorist enabling so-called media organization? These journalists are responsible for "telling us the story" from the front of the war on terror. I just didn't realize it was only the terrorists' story they were interested in promoting.

This is truly amazing - a major media organization with direct ties to major players in an incident in which 8 American soldiers are charged with murder and/or coverup. Yesterday I exposed the background of Majid Hameed, a Reuters reporter who had been incarcerated in Iraq due to questionable terrorist ties. Hameed wrote the Iraqis demanding justice story for Reuters on Friday 12/22.

Today while reviewing the excellent recap of Haditha reporting over at Euphoric Reality, I stumbled across a blurb about another Reuters reporter that was taken into custody along with Majid Hameed. This other Reuters employee's name is Ali Omar Abrahem al-Mashhadani.

Despite all the claims of standing by their stories, the AP now admits to the use of unauthorized sources.  The infamous Qais al-Bashir posted another sectarian violence story via AP this morning. Al-Bashir offered up the typical Sunni-Shiite blood-letting but this time he was honest about his sources:

On Sunday morning, clashes erupted between Sunni and Shiite militants in Baghdad's mixed western Amil district, a policeman said. One Shiite militiaman was killed and six people — five Sunnis and one Shiite — were wounded, the officer said on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the media.

Qais al-Bashir, the AP reporter responsible for the burning Sunnis story, is up to the same old tricks. His article did not make it to the American media but was published in The Guardian. Guess the AP forgot about the Internet.

This time al-Bashir reported on the Baghdad Market bombing. While we know that the bombing did actually happen, the tall tale weaver ran with an inflated casualty count from one of the unauthorized sources from CentCom's list.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Three parked car bombs exploded in central Baghdad on Saturday near a predominantly Shiite area packed with vendors, killing at least 91 people and wounding dozens, officials said.The bombs were about 100 yards apart in the busy al-Sadriyah shopping district and exploded nearly simultaneously, according to police Lt. Ali Muhsin.

I don’t even know why I bother but I frequently check out the editorial cartoons on yahoo.com. Sometimes they are funny (yes I do laugh at some of them that reflect poorly on the Republicans because they are usually spot on) but most of the time I feel like I’ve been hit in the gut when I read them. Today was one of those days.

I made the unfortunate choice of clicking on Ted Rall’s editorial cartoon for 9/16/06. It is one thing to ridicule the President politically but another to attack him in a personal manner that hurts his family. The same thing goes for Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. Why would anyone think it was appropriate to do an editorial cartoon about the sex life of Madame Secretary? Rall has already depicted Sec Rice in a racist manner so I guess portraying her as a woman of loose morals is no big deal to him.

According to Rall’s little drawing, Rice has slept her way around the world including a one night stand with Chirac. Rall then promotes the sick fantasy that so many Libs are obsessed with by depicting the President of the United States in bed with Madame Secretary. Rall’s caption for that panel is simply nauseating – “Gossips say she is stroking more than George W’s ego during their weekends together at Camp David.”

Have you heard about the young Muslim man who was forced to change his shirt at JFK Airport because it said "We Will Not Be Silent" in English and Arabic? Here's a piece of the story from Newsday...

An Arab human rights activist says he was prevented from boarding a plane at Kennedy Airport while wearing a T-shirt that said "We will not be silent" in English and Arabic. The incident happened Aug. 12 when Raed Jarrar, 28, was preparing to board a JetBlue flight from Kennedy to Oakland, Calif. Four officials from JetBlue or from a government agency stopped him at the gate and told him he couldn't get on the plane wearing his shirt, Jarrar said in a telephone interview yesterday.

I was watching this video from Fox News' Greg Palkot (click on Video and select "Deadly Airstrike") reporting on the Qana incident when something caught my eye. I got a screen shot of the guy with the torn shirt getting UP from the stretcher to show that he was not "stretcher" material like they presented it when I noticed something in the corner of the video. Here's the screenshot...

Everyone is just kinda standing around. Mr. Checkered Shirt is talking on his cellphone. Not a lot of emotion despite the tragedy that has taken place. Even Mr. StretcherMan looks bored. But look at the top right hand corner. There is Mr. White TShirt putting little Zaynab with the pink shirt on display. There is no scene audio to the video - just Greg Palkot reporting.

Amazing what you can find with a little digging and an intense desire to find out what really happened...

Remember the AP congratulatory memo to the staff about the pictures taken at Qana? Here's a portion of that memo...

"Rumors surfaced early Sunday morning that an Israeli airstrike had flattened a house in the southern Lebanese village of Qana. The number of deaths wasn’t immediately known, but the seriousness of the incident was clear. Beirut-based photographer Hussein Malla immediately called AP photographers Nasser Nasser, Lefteris Pitarakis and stringer Mohammed Zaatari and advised them to rush to the scene."

One of Zaatari's pictures from Qana 2 was the one of a dressed down Mr. Green Helmet holding the little female victim outside of the ambulance.(caution - GRAPHIC!!)

Mohammed Zaatari is quite a busy fellow. Not only is he a stringer for the AP, he is a Lebanese Red Cross Volunteer. From Newsweek...

"Many of the Red Cross volunteers at the bomb site on Sunday sat quietly and looked at the rubble. Mohammad Zaatar, 32, had seen this kind of scene before..."

Thanks to some intrepid digging from commenters Lancelot and Harris at EU Referendum, another video of the events at Qana has been found. This is one that I have never seen before and really shows what was going on that day. It is truly a must see for anyone that believes that the photos at Qana were staged. It completely debunks the "our photographers do not set up photos" and "the rescuers were not holding up the children for photos" claims.

Believe it or not, it is a link from Wikipedia of all places. Here's the direct link to the video. If you can't the video to load through the direct link, go to Wikipedia and scroll down to External Links (Resources) and click on the first video listed. The video is approx 13 minutes long and does have a good bit of anchorperson commentary in Arabic. Also be advised that some of the images are graphic...

Pay close attention to this footage...

At 0:53 there is new footage of Mr. Green Helmet serving as director of the scene. He's standing over some victims and gesturing to someone off camera. One thing is for sure - he is in NO HURRY in this footage.

At 8:29 we see Mr. Green Helmet taking off for his run with the little girl in the multicolored pants. What makes this interesting is Mr. Green Helmet is standing still with the child, then turns and starts off at a quick pace. As Mr. GH turns, a cameraman crosses behind him. It is obvious that Mr. GH was posing with the child for the cameraman prior to his "run".

How much do researchers at the Washington Post get paid? How much training does it take to learn how to pull selective items as "research" but ignore some facts that are easily accessible on the Internet?

Once again, I'm doing the job the mainstream media absolutely refuses to do...

Today's WaPo has an article about the six US soldiers charged in the rape and murders in Mahmoudiya and the connection to the barbaric murders of Pfc Menchaca and Pfc. Tucker. Here's some lines from the article, Amid War, Some Violence May Be Personal, by Sonya Geis and John Pomfret with research by Julie Tate ...

"On March 12, a 15-year-old Iraqi girl was raped, and she and her father, mother and sister were gunned down in their home.
Three months later, three U.S. soldiers were slain by insurgents. One was shot and two others were kidnapped and killed and their bodies mutilated in what a group linked to al-Qaeda declared was retribution for the attack on the Iraqi family."
"One of the questions surrounding two of the most dreadful incidents of the war is whether they are connected. Did the alleged rape and murder of Iraqi civilians by U.S. troops beget the torture and slaying of their own comrades?

Earlier this month, the Mujaheddin al-Shura Council posted a gruesome video on the Internet showing the soldiers' disfigured bodies and said they were executed to "avenge" the rape and homicides. Army investigators deny the claims and say there is no connection between the incidents, though military spokesmen did not respond to questions last week about why they believe that."