Rebecca turned in a long essay this week that resulted in one e-mailer for apologizing for accusing her of going "soft" since she got married. (Rebecca soft? We snort.)
gail collins is on her way out - good riddance
betty's 'The Queen Bee Gets Stung' took a comic look at how gail collins (out in january as the editor of the editorial and op-ed pages) has done nothing. i couldn't agree more. i laughted at the chapter, it's very funny, but i nodded in agreement as well.
mainly because of the crap that made it into this morning's paper on gail's beat. c.i.'s 'SAFIRE WANTS OUT, THE TIMES WANTS A PHOTOSTAT COPY OF SAFIRE, WHY IS THAT?' charted the nonsense of the op-ed pages sometime ago. december 2004, in fact. gail collins didn't do damn thing for women. there were 2 spots filled on the op-ed page in the last 2 years. spots she had some say in. bill keller became executive-editor of the paper and his spot had to be filled. gail collins replaced middle of the road keller with david brooks, a right leaning white male. william safire retired and he was replaced with john tierney. if you're lost, the paper replaced a center columnist and a right leaning 1 with 2 right leaning 1s. that's what the 'breakthrough lady' gail collins gave you. that's her accomplishment.
she made the op-ed pages lean more right and she made sure that they continued to be white and male.
she got applause from women when she grabbed her token spot. she didn't deserve it.
she's worthless.
she's not even a whore. a whore works.
she was a kept mistress.
she was the paper's mistress doing whatever they wanted her to do.
and when she got too long in the tooth, she found out what many a 'other woman' had found out before, you're replaceable.
gail collins has been replaced.
and the new editor of the editorial & op-ed pages starts in january.
to no 1's surprise, it's a man.
it is 2006 and gail collins had a say in replacing 2 columnists, regular 1s who appear in the paper twice a week. she could have looked around and said, 'i only have one woman' and improved that. she could have looked around and said, 'i only have 1 person of color' and improved that.
instead she offered up 2 white, male, right-wingers. and she didn't have to.
even if safire's retirement meant that she needed a right-winger, bill keller was middle-of-the-road and there was no reason to replace him with a right-winger.
now gail collins didn't fight. she didn't fight for women, she didn't fight for people of color.
she was a tepid editor. she hemmed and hawwed and went along with what others wanted.
while she had power, roughly 6 years, she could have used to have made a difference but, as she said in that laughable e-mail that circulated in 2003, she doesn't care about gender, she looks for the best writer.
well then maybe she shouldn't have whored herself out for accolades from women and women's groups about how she was a '1st'?
she was a joke, reading that e-mail was to laugh at that stupid, stupid girl. not woman, girl.
and it was no surprise to anyone who read that e-mail that she would do nothing to help women.
and she hasn't.
and now she's trying to save face by acting like she wanted out.
so she can write another bad book about 'historical women.' save it gail. and no feminists better praise her crappy writing the way some did with the last book.
she's no better than phyllis the shaf-fly. when she had power, she refused to use it.
now, to save face, she's going to try to present herself, yet again, as a feminist.
i don't think the term's elastic.
i don't care her badly written clip-job books are about. i care whether she tried to make a difference and she didn't.
she went along, she didn't make waves and the fact that she was a '1st' ended up being wasted.
another woman, 1 committed to the present, would have argued up and down that it was shameful that the paper had only 1 regular columnist of color and 1 regular columnist that was a woman.
she would have noted that white males already were over represented on the op-ed pages with frank rich, paul krugman, bill keller (then david brooks), thomas friedman, nicholas kristoff, and william safire (then john tierney).
she would have said: 'women do not make up 1/8 of the adult population so why do they make up only 1/8th of our regular columnists?'
but she kept her mouth shut like a good little girl. so it's too damn late for her to try to bore us with another bad book that she'll try to sell by claiming it's something feminists should love.
feminists are aware that there are races, not just 1 race. not just white. they are aware that there is asian-american, that there is african-american, that there is . . .
but gail collins, who'll be trying to play the feminist card to sell another bad book, couldn't be bothered with that.
she couldn't be bothered with fighting or with making a case.
she just, as betty's chapter pointed out, banked her check and let things stay as they were. actually she let them get worse because times readers ended up with an extra right-winger.
john tierney who writes like an idiot and looks like an idiot. today he flaunts his stupidity by arguing wal-mart deserves the nobel peace prize in 'Shopping for a Nobel' and he lies through his teeth to do so and omits every known fact. he claims wal-mart is good for business but fails to note that their demands are breaking vlassic pickles and have already resulted in a bicycle company shutting down. he claims that they lift workers from poverty. which is why wal-mart advised workers to get on food stamps? oh, he leaves that out. he leaves everything out.
and gail collins can tell herself whatever lie she wants but considering the sex discrimination in wages and promotions that have led to so many law suits against wal-mart, the fact that the man (1 of 2) that she ushered in wants to ignore sex based discrimination is her fault. she needs to accept it. and women don't need to cover for her.
she was a 1st? well she was a worst. that link goes to ava and c.i.'s nah-nah-nah sisterhood and that captures gail collins perfectly. she was elevated and instead of attempting to lift even 1 woman up (as a regular columnist), she was happy to reinforce the out of date stereotypes by ushering in 2 white males.
she should be ashamed of herself and, when she tries to book tour her next piece of crap, she should face tough questions about that, about how she failed women and about that laughable e-mail where she went on and on about how she didn't believe in hiring a woman to replace maurren dowd (who was on vacation). she didn't think it was important that while maureen dowd was gone (for weeks) that any woman be brought on. she didn't care about role modeling or making sure that women, especially young females, got the message that there was a place for them in writing columns. her desire was to hire the best.
and, no surprise, the best didn't include any women.
that e-mail getting circulated forced her, when thomas friedman went on vacation, to use 2 women during his lengthy vacation.
when it hit my inbox, i sent it out to every 1 in my address book and 1 woman wrote back that maybe it wasn't fair to circulate it? well it was fair. and thank god to the person who 1st was willing to circulate it.
the fact that it went around and around and around embarrassed her enough to use some women (to fill in for 1 male). and then? and then she lost interest again.
she was riding the easy high that the uninformed gave her, praising her decision as progressive when all it was was face saving.
2 columnists stepped down while she was in charge. she could have brought the op-ed pages into this century. instead she gave more of the same. a man could have done that, any man. so she doesn't deserve to be praised for being a '1st' when all she did was hold down the line, all she did was push the glass ceiling down a little further.
she's a disgrace as any sort of feminist (which only gets loosely claimed when it's time to schill for her bad books) and she's lost the right to use that term in my book.
it's not elastic. she had a chance to make a difference and instead she did what the most sexist man in the world would: hold down the line.
there was nothing brave about that, there was nothing feminist about that.
when women refuse to help other women, they stop being feminist. betty rightly writes about how it wasn't feminism, it was gail collins-ism. that's all it was.
she made no difference. she helped no 1 but herself.
so when she tries to help herself to your hard earned cash and you read some fool tell you that her book on frontier women (or whatever topic she's going to doodle about) is a purchase to make in the name of feminism, realize that she's gotten enough applause already and she never earned any of it by helping other women. she just helped herself.
if that's too difficult for you to grasp, grasp this: before the illegal war started, she turned down a column by a woman. it was against the war. well, you say, there are a lot of submissions to go through. this column? the author? alice walker.
remember that. she, who wasn't concerned about adding color or women to the op-ed pages, turned down 1 of the most noted authors in america. no surprise, it was a woman, a woman of color. alice walker is also a best seller, she's also a pulitzer prize winner. that's what gail collins did, she kept women off the op-ed pages, no matter their honors, no matter their merits.
gail collins was in it for gail collins. she demonstrated that over and over.
she can play the face saving 'i'm leaving for my book' but every 1 knows she was fired. she'll reutrn with the occasional column. she was fired. and i won't pretty it up or pretend like she made a damn bit of difference in all her years in charge. what she did do was allow the times to add 2 more white males and hide their racism and sexism behind the fact that a woman had the title of 'editor'.
she was the mistress providing the alibi.
closing with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Tuesday, October 17, 2006. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, US "officials" issue statements and watch how Balad gets rewritten, an estimated 3,000 Iraqi police officers are told "no job!", and Cindy Sheehan focuses on the numbers that matter (and unlike the big news orgs, doesnt' feel the need to rewrite them).
On the slaughter in Balad, Al Jazeera magazine notes a "New York Times editorial". It's not an editorial, it's a report by Michael Luo. It's a report that the Times is now hiding online and have replaced with a new version. The original is entitled "Iraqis Ask Why U.S. Forces Didn't Intervene in Balad." That's the print headline and the headline if you use the link. But that story doesn't show up on the Middle East page of the website. Instead, a weaker version entitled "Fighting in Iraqi Town Killed Over 60, U.S. Says" with John O'Neil appearing in the byline and also in the end credit "in New York"! Because, surely, to report on Balad, you need O'Neil in New York.
The original, with only Luo in the byline, reported: "Killing also continued to besiege the capital on Monday with the discovery of at least 64 bodies across the city, and two car bomb attacks that appeared to kill 22 people." The white-washed attempt to suck up to "officials" opens with: "The American military said today that more than 60 people were killed in four days of sectarian fighting in Balad . . ."
If you find that disgusting, and you should, take comfort in the fact that there's griping at the paper about the watering down of a fairly straight-down-the-middle report. The original may disappear from the website so if you're interested in what alarms "officials," check it out now. The whitewash tries to reassamble the article but mainly demonstrates how idiotic the paper is. Well over 60 people have died in Balad from Friday to Monday and that was reported by other US outlets -- mainstream sources. [Ellen Knickmeyer and Muhanned Saif Aldin (Washington Post) put it at 80 in their report in today's paper -- which, please note, the Post hasn't felt the need to rewrite to appease "officials."] The original article did not ignore the opinions of the military but, such is the reality of the war, "officials" need things distorted and, such is the cowardice of the paper, that "offiicals" must be appeased.
For those still attempting to follow Balad, CBS and AP report that "sectarian fighting in Balad . . . has killed close to 100 people" since it "began Friday with the slaying of 17 Shiite Muslim workers. Revenge-seeking Shiite death squads then killed 74 Sunnis, causing people flee across the Tigris River to the nearby Sunni-dominated city of Duluiyah." This as CNN also chases down 'official' pleasure, though they claim they're not revising earlier reporting, just noting what 'officials' say and, it is true, they do include this statement: "The number of deaths vary". Reuters harkens back to their earlier days (when they fronted for the US government as revealed during Congressional hearings in the wake of Watergate) by not even attributed their lowered figures to US "officials" or US "military." Monday, before 'official' statements, Ellen Knickmeyer and Muhanned Saif Aldin (Washington Post) reported: "By Sunday afternoon, 80 bodies were stacked in the morgue of the Balad hospital". But watch as the mainstream media grabs onto "official" statement and trashes all that was previously reported. Christopher Bodeen (AP) reports that "at least 91 people" have been killed since Friday in Balad. A report the Times runs online but forgets to rewrite.
Those who watch network or cable news should pay attention to see who carries water for the administration and who notes the reality that was already well established in the mainstream (US) press reports. AFP reports that despite 'official' US claims, US forces are not in control in Balad and that, according to "Malik Laftah, the head of Balad city council," corpses are lying in the streets.
Let's note some of the reported violence but keep in mind that most outlets don't have the guts to stick with their own reporting in the face of a bold face lie from US 'officials' so who knows how the following will be rewritten?
Bombings?
Reuters, right now at this second because who knows how they'll cave tomorrow, reports that, in Baghdad, a car bomb killed killed two police officers and wounded nine, while a roadside bomb left five people wounded and that two different attacks with mortar rounds left a total of three people dead and and three wounded. CBS and AP report that "two Katyusha rockets" left twenty wounded in Baghdad. Al Jazeera notes a bombing in Karmah that claimed the lives of five Iraqi soldiers.
Shootings?
CBS and AP report that, in Hillah, one man was shot dead and five were wounded when "unidnetified gunmen attacked a facility belongint to the central Euphrates electricity distribution authority". They also note a home invasion in Balad Ruz that claimed the lives of "the mother and four dault sons" and left the father wounded; a drive by shooting in Falluja two police officers were shot dead. AFP reports that four students were shot dead in Basra and, also in Basra, "gynaecologist Dr Youssra Hashem became the latest female professional to be killed amid a rise in violence against women by conservative Muslim factions". Al Jazeera reports the shooting death of "a member of the Patriot Union of Kurdistan" in Mosul."
Corpses?
CBS and AP report that two corpses were discovered in Baghdad ("blindfolded and bound").
Now who knows what will be asserted tomorrow because some lose spines when officials' gums start flapping. Staying on those who buckle, last week, Richard Dannatt caused a stir with criticism of the Iraq war and the suggestion that it was time to pull troops. As Demetri Sevastopulo (Financial Times) notes, "the new chief of the Britsh army" stated troops should leave because just being there "exacerbates the security problem." He buckled quicker than a media boardroom. Despite the fact that British soldiers strongly agreed with his statements.
Now, Lachlan Carmichael (AFP) reports that Tony Blair "has vowed to keep British troops in Iraq until their 'job is done' as her rejected claims that their presence fueled Muslim extremism at home and abroad." The report focuses on Blair and Dannat and apparently missed Colin Brown (Independent of London) reporting that: "John Reid, the Home Secretary, conceded last night for the first time that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have played a part radicalisizing young Muslims."
AFP also reports that Bully Boy went on Bloated Men & Bleached Women (aka Fox "News") to declare his opposition to dividing the nation of Iraq into three autonomous regions. Apparently, while cooing sweet nothings to Nouri al-Maliki on Monday, Bully Boy forgot to raise that issue (last week the parliament took another step in that direction). As Simon Tisdall (Guardian of London) notes, predicting "the worst is yet to come," "One sign came last week when the Shia parliamentary majority rejected Sunni opposition and passed a law allowing partion into autonomous federal regions. It is but a small step from there to national disintergration."
A little noted "official" statement by "US army Lieutenant Colonel Jeffery Martindale" is covered by AFP, this is regarding the violence in Balad: "Marindale also, however, confirmed that two Iraqi police officers had been arrested for taking part in the massacre which triggered the orgy of violence." No, we're not returning to Balad -- the whole 'coverage' is too disgusting. But keep that in mind: two police officers were part of triggering "the orgy of violence." AFP reports that Iraq's interior ministry spokesperson (Abdel Karim Khalaf) held a press conference today to announce "that 1,228 [police officers] had been sacked for breaking the law while nearly 2,000 more were dismissed for derelection of duty."
The Interior minister is Jawad Bolani and, for those who've missed it, the militias are thought by some to have free reign via that ministry. Borzou Daragahi (Los Angeles Times) reported, Saturday, that when reminded that his ministry has been "accused of complicity in sectarian death squad killings," Bolani denied it. Ellen Knickmeyer (Washington Post) noted that not only did Bolani deny the accusations, he "blamed the Facilities Protection Service, or FPS, a massive but unregulated government guard force . . . . Bolani and his predecssor as interior minister, Bayan Jabr, both have minimized the possibility of any police involvement in the nightly killings."
Whether the purge, which also includes moving three police commanders to administrative jobs, is just an attempt to stop the questions from continuing to being asked or whether it's genuine, who knows? But it's worth remembering Rick Jervis (USA Today) reported Monday on how al-Maliki refused to addres disarming militas "until later this year or early next year".
While many supposedly brave press outlets fudge the numbers to please the US administration, Cindy Sheehan (at BuzzFlash) notes some other numbers: 4, 4, 655,000 and more. The first four is "Republican Congresspeople [who] have had to resign from scandals this past year" (Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, Mark Foley, Tom DeLay); the second four is the number of "staff members of the corrupt adminstration [who] have resigned in disgrace this year" (Andrew Card, Scooter Libby, Susan Ralston and Snotty McClellan) while 655,000 is the estimate for the number of Iraqis who have dies since the start of the illegal war as a result of the violence. She also reminds that Gold Star Families for Peace will be holding a sit around the White House November 7th and 8th and "Also, go to Progressive Democrats of America to sign the petition to support Congressman Jim McGovern's bill, HR4232, which cuts funding for the continuing occupation. Ending the funding is what stopped Vietnam. Let's cut Iraq off before it becomes as bad as Vietnam."
Also in peace news, Courage to Resist notes Ricky Clousing's statement to the judge in last Thursday's court-martial and sentencing: "My experiences in Iraq forced me tto reevaluate my beliefs and ethics. Ultimately, I felt like I could not serve." Clousing is a war resister and he will serve three months, be reduced in rank and then dishonorably discharged. Clousing took a brave stand and Courage to Resist notes:
Ricky is currently being held in a military brig at Camp LeJune in North Carolina and it is urgent that he receive your words of encouragement and support! Please write to Ricky today!
More information on war resisters who have gone public can be found at Courage to Resist.
mainly because of the crap that made it into this morning's paper on gail's beat. c.i.'s 'SAFIRE WANTS OUT, THE TIMES WANTS A PHOTOSTAT COPY OF SAFIRE, WHY IS THAT?' charted the nonsense of the op-ed pages sometime ago. december 2004, in fact. gail collins didn't do damn thing for women. there were 2 spots filled on the op-ed page in the last 2 years. spots she had some say in. bill keller became executive-editor of the paper and his spot had to be filled. gail collins replaced middle of the road keller with david brooks, a right leaning white male. william safire retired and he was replaced with john tierney. if you're lost, the paper replaced a center columnist and a right leaning 1 with 2 right leaning 1s. that's what the 'breakthrough lady' gail collins gave you. that's her accomplishment.
she made the op-ed pages lean more right and she made sure that they continued to be white and male.
she got applause from women when she grabbed her token spot. she didn't deserve it.
she's worthless.
she's not even a whore. a whore works.
she was a kept mistress.
she was the paper's mistress doing whatever they wanted her to do.
and when she got too long in the tooth, she found out what many a 'other woman' had found out before, you're replaceable.
gail collins has been replaced.
and the new editor of the editorial & op-ed pages starts in january.
to no 1's surprise, it's a man.
it is 2006 and gail collins had a say in replacing 2 columnists, regular 1s who appear in the paper twice a week. she could have looked around and said, 'i only have one woman' and improved that. she could have looked around and said, 'i only have 1 person of color' and improved that.
instead she offered up 2 white, male, right-wingers. and she didn't have to.
even if safire's retirement meant that she needed a right-winger, bill keller was middle-of-the-road and there was no reason to replace him with a right-winger.
now gail collins didn't fight. she didn't fight for women, she didn't fight for people of color.
she was a tepid editor. she hemmed and hawwed and went along with what others wanted.
while she had power, roughly 6 years, she could have used to have made a difference but, as she said in that laughable e-mail that circulated in 2003, she doesn't care about gender, she looks for the best writer.
well then maybe she shouldn't have whored herself out for accolades from women and women's groups about how she was a '1st'?
she was a joke, reading that e-mail was to laugh at that stupid, stupid girl. not woman, girl.
and it was no surprise to anyone who read that e-mail that she would do nothing to help women.
and she hasn't.
and now she's trying to save face by acting like she wanted out.
so she can write another bad book about 'historical women.' save it gail. and no feminists better praise her crappy writing the way some did with the last book.
she's no better than phyllis the shaf-fly. when she had power, she refused to use it.
now, to save face, she's going to try to present herself, yet again, as a feminist.
i don't think the term's elastic.
i don't care her badly written clip-job books are about. i care whether she tried to make a difference and she didn't.
she went along, she didn't make waves and the fact that she was a '1st' ended up being wasted.
another woman, 1 committed to the present, would have argued up and down that it was shameful that the paper had only 1 regular columnist of color and 1 regular columnist that was a woman.
she would have noted that white males already were over represented on the op-ed pages with frank rich, paul krugman, bill keller (then david brooks), thomas friedman, nicholas kristoff, and william safire (then john tierney).
she would have said: 'women do not make up 1/8 of the adult population so why do they make up only 1/8th of our regular columnists?'
but she kept her mouth shut like a good little girl. so it's too damn late for her to try to bore us with another bad book that she'll try to sell by claiming it's something feminists should love.
feminists are aware that there are races, not just 1 race. not just white. they are aware that there is asian-american, that there is african-american, that there is . . .
but gail collins, who'll be trying to play the feminist card to sell another bad book, couldn't be bothered with that.
she couldn't be bothered with fighting or with making a case.
she just, as betty's chapter pointed out, banked her check and let things stay as they were. actually she let them get worse because times readers ended up with an extra right-winger.
john tierney who writes like an idiot and looks like an idiot. today he flaunts his stupidity by arguing wal-mart deserves the nobel peace prize in 'Shopping for a Nobel' and he lies through his teeth to do so and omits every known fact. he claims wal-mart is good for business but fails to note that their demands are breaking vlassic pickles and have already resulted in a bicycle company shutting down. he claims that they lift workers from poverty. which is why wal-mart advised workers to get on food stamps? oh, he leaves that out. he leaves everything out.
and gail collins can tell herself whatever lie she wants but considering the sex discrimination in wages and promotions that have led to so many law suits against wal-mart, the fact that the man (1 of 2) that she ushered in wants to ignore sex based discrimination is her fault. she needs to accept it. and women don't need to cover for her.
she was a 1st? well she was a worst. that link goes to ava and c.i.'s nah-nah-nah sisterhood and that captures gail collins perfectly. she was elevated and instead of attempting to lift even 1 woman up (as a regular columnist), she was happy to reinforce the out of date stereotypes by ushering in 2 white males.
she should be ashamed of herself and, when she tries to book tour her next piece of crap, she should face tough questions about that, about how she failed women and about that laughable e-mail where she went on and on about how she didn't believe in hiring a woman to replace maurren dowd (who was on vacation). she didn't think it was important that while maureen dowd was gone (for weeks) that any woman be brought on. she didn't care about role modeling or making sure that women, especially young females, got the message that there was a place for them in writing columns. her desire was to hire the best.
and, no surprise, the best didn't include any women.
that e-mail getting circulated forced her, when thomas friedman went on vacation, to use 2 women during his lengthy vacation.
when it hit my inbox, i sent it out to every 1 in my address book and 1 woman wrote back that maybe it wasn't fair to circulate it? well it was fair. and thank god to the person who 1st was willing to circulate it.
the fact that it went around and around and around embarrassed her enough to use some women (to fill in for 1 male). and then? and then she lost interest again.
she was riding the easy high that the uninformed gave her, praising her decision as progressive when all it was was face saving.
2 columnists stepped down while she was in charge. she could have brought the op-ed pages into this century. instead she gave more of the same. a man could have done that, any man. so she doesn't deserve to be praised for being a '1st' when all she did was hold down the line, all she did was push the glass ceiling down a little further.
she's a disgrace as any sort of feminist (which only gets loosely claimed when it's time to schill for her bad books) and she's lost the right to use that term in my book.
it's not elastic. she had a chance to make a difference and instead she did what the most sexist man in the world would: hold down the line.
there was nothing brave about that, there was nothing feminist about that.
when women refuse to help other women, they stop being feminist. betty rightly writes about how it wasn't feminism, it was gail collins-ism. that's all it was.
she made no difference. she helped no 1 but herself.
so when she tries to help herself to your hard earned cash and you read some fool tell you that her book on frontier women (or whatever topic she's going to doodle about) is a purchase to make in the name of feminism, realize that she's gotten enough applause already and she never earned any of it by helping other women. she just helped herself.
if that's too difficult for you to grasp, grasp this: before the illegal war started, she turned down a column by a woman. it was against the war. well, you say, there are a lot of submissions to go through. this column? the author? alice walker.
remember that. she, who wasn't concerned about adding color or women to the op-ed pages, turned down 1 of the most noted authors in america. no surprise, it was a woman, a woman of color. alice walker is also a best seller, she's also a pulitzer prize winner. that's what gail collins did, she kept women off the op-ed pages, no matter their honors, no matter their merits.
gail collins was in it for gail collins. she demonstrated that over and over.
she can play the face saving 'i'm leaving for my book' but every 1 knows she was fired. she'll reutrn with the occasional column. she was fired. and i won't pretty it up or pretend like she made a damn bit of difference in all her years in charge. what she did do was allow the times to add 2 more white males and hide their racism and sexism behind the fact that a woman had the title of 'editor'.
she was the mistress providing the alibi.
closing with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Tuesday, October 17, 2006. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, US "officials" issue statements and watch how Balad gets rewritten, an estimated 3,000 Iraqi police officers are told "no job!", and Cindy Sheehan focuses on the numbers that matter (and unlike the big news orgs, doesnt' feel the need to rewrite them).
On the slaughter in Balad, Al Jazeera magazine notes a "New York Times editorial". It's not an editorial, it's a report by Michael Luo. It's a report that the Times is now hiding online and have replaced with a new version. The original is entitled "Iraqis Ask Why U.S. Forces Didn't Intervene in Balad." That's the print headline and the headline if you use the link. But that story doesn't show up on the Middle East page of the website. Instead, a weaker version entitled "Fighting in Iraqi Town Killed Over 60, U.S. Says" with John O'Neil appearing in the byline and also in the end credit "in New York"! Because, surely, to report on Balad, you need O'Neil in New York.
The original, with only Luo in the byline, reported: "Killing also continued to besiege the capital on Monday with the discovery of at least 64 bodies across the city, and two car bomb attacks that appeared to kill 22 people." The white-washed attempt to suck up to "officials" opens with: "The American military said today that more than 60 people were killed in four days of sectarian fighting in Balad . . ."
If you find that disgusting, and you should, take comfort in the fact that there's griping at the paper about the watering down of a fairly straight-down-the-middle report. The original may disappear from the website so if you're interested in what alarms "officials," check it out now. The whitewash tries to reassamble the article but mainly demonstrates how idiotic the paper is. Well over 60 people have died in Balad from Friday to Monday and that was reported by other US outlets -- mainstream sources. [Ellen Knickmeyer and Muhanned Saif Aldin (Washington Post) put it at 80 in their report in today's paper -- which, please note, the Post hasn't felt the need to rewrite to appease "officials."] The original article did not ignore the opinions of the military but, such is the reality of the war, "officials" need things distorted and, such is the cowardice of the paper, that "offiicals" must be appeased.
For those still attempting to follow Balad, CBS and AP report that "sectarian fighting in Balad . . . has killed close to 100 people" since it "began Friday with the slaying of 17 Shiite Muslim workers. Revenge-seeking Shiite death squads then killed 74 Sunnis, causing people flee across the Tigris River to the nearby Sunni-dominated city of Duluiyah." This as CNN also chases down 'official' pleasure, though they claim they're not revising earlier reporting, just noting what 'officials' say and, it is true, they do include this statement: "The number of deaths vary". Reuters harkens back to their earlier days (when they fronted for the US government as revealed during Congressional hearings in the wake of Watergate) by not even attributed their lowered figures to US "officials" or US "military." Monday, before 'official' statements, Ellen Knickmeyer and Muhanned Saif Aldin (Washington Post) reported: "By Sunday afternoon, 80 bodies were stacked in the morgue of the Balad hospital". But watch as the mainstream media grabs onto "official" statement and trashes all that was previously reported. Christopher Bodeen (AP) reports that "at least 91 people" have been killed since Friday in Balad. A report the Times runs online but forgets to rewrite.
Those who watch network or cable news should pay attention to see who carries water for the administration and who notes the reality that was already well established in the mainstream (US) press reports. AFP reports that despite 'official' US claims, US forces are not in control in Balad and that, according to "Malik Laftah, the head of Balad city council," corpses are lying in the streets.
Let's note some of the reported violence but keep in mind that most outlets don't have the guts to stick with their own reporting in the face of a bold face lie from US 'officials' so who knows how the following will be rewritten?
Bombings?
Reuters, right now at this second because who knows how they'll cave tomorrow, reports that, in Baghdad, a car bomb killed killed two police officers and wounded nine, while a roadside bomb left five people wounded and that two different attacks with mortar rounds left a total of three people dead and and three wounded. CBS and AP report that "two Katyusha rockets" left twenty wounded in Baghdad. Al Jazeera notes a bombing in Karmah that claimed the lives of five Iraqi soldiers.
Shootings?
CBS and AP report that, in Hillah, one man was shot dead and five were wounded when "unidnetified gunmen attacked a facility belongint to the central Euphrates electricity distribution authority". They also note a home invasion in Balad Ruz that claimed the lives of "the mother and four dault sons" and left the father wounded; a drive by shooting in Falluja two police officers were shot dead. AFP reports that four students were shot dead in Basra and, also in Basra, "gynaecologist Dr Youssra Hashem became the latest female professional to be killed amid a rise in violence against women by conservative Muslim factions". Al Jazeera reports the shooting death of "a member of the Patriot Union of Kurdistan" in Mosul."
Corpses?
CBS and AP report that two corpses were discovered in Baghdad ("blindfolded and bound").
Now who knows what will be asserted tomorrow because some lose spines when officials' gums start flapping. Staying on those who buckle, last week, Richard Dannatt caused a stir with criticism of the Iraq war and the suggestion that it was time to pull troops. As Demetri Sevastopulo (Financial Times) notes, "the new chief of the Britsh army" stated troops should leave because just being there "exacerbates the security problem." He buckled quicker than a media boardroom. Despite the fact that British soldiers strongly agreed with his statements.
Now, Lachlan Carmichael (AFP) reports that Tony Blair "has vowed to keep British troops in Iraq until their 'job is done' as her rejected claims that their presence fueled Muslim extremism at home and abroad." The report focuses on Blair and Dannat and apparently missed Colin Brown (Independent of London) reporting that: "John Reid, the Home Secretary, conceded last night for the first time that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have played a part radicalisizing young Muslims."
AFP also reports that Bully Boy went on Bloated Men & Bleached Women (aka Fox "News") to declare his opposition to dividing the nation of Iraq into three autonomous regions. Apparently, while cooing sweet nothings to Nouri al-Maliki on Monday, Bully Boy forgot to raise that issue (last week the parliament took another step in that direction). As Simon Tisdall (Guardian of London) notes, predicting "the worst is yet to come," "One sign came last week when the Shia parliamentary majority rejected Sunni opposition and passed a law allowing partion into autonomous federal regions. It is but a small step from there to national disintergration."
A little noted "official" statement by "US army Lieutenant Colonel Jeffery Martindale" is covered by AFP, this is regarding the violence in Balad: "Marindale also, however, confirmed that two Iraqi police officers had been arrested for taking part in the massacre which triggered the orgy of violence." No, we're not returning to Balad -- the whole 'coverage' is too disgusting. But keep that in mind: two police officers were part of triggering "the orgy of violence." AFP reports that Iraq's interior ministry spokesperson (Abdel Karim Khalaf) held a press conference today to announce "that 1,228 [police officers] had been sacked for breaking the law while nearly 2,000 more were dismissed for derelection of duty."
The Interior minister is Jawad Bolani and, for those who've missed it, the militias are thought by some to have free reign via that ministry. Borzou Daragahi (Los Angeles Times) reported, Saturday, that when reminded that his ministry has been "accused of complicity in sectarian death squad killings," Bolani denied it. Ellen Knickmeyer (Washington Post) noted that not only did Bolani deny the accusations, he "blamed the Facilities Protection Service, or FPS, a massive but unregulated government guard force . . . . Bolani and his predecssor as interior minister, Bayan Jabr, both have minimized the possibility of any police involvement in the nightly killings."
Whether the purge, which also includes moving three police commanders to administrative jobs, is just an attempt to stop the questions from continuing to being asked or whether it's genuine, who knows? But it's worth remembering Rick Jervis (USA Today) reported Monday on how al-Maliki refused to addres disarming militas "until later this year or early next year".
While many supposedly brave press outlets fudge the numbers to please the US administration, Cindy Sheehan (at BuzzFlash) notes some other numbers: 4, 4, 655,000 and more. The first four is "Republican Congresspeople [who] have had to resign from scandals this past year" (Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, Mark Foley, Tom DeLay); the second four is the number of "staff members of the corrupt adminstration [who] have resigned in disgrace this year" (Andrew Card, Scooter Libby, Susan Ralston and Snotty McClellan) while 655,000 is the estimate for the number of Iraqis who have dies since the start of the illegal war as a result of the violence. She also reminds that Gold Star Families for Peace will be holding a sit around the White House November 7th and 8th and "Also, go to Progressive Democrats of America to sign the petition to support Congressman Jim McGovern's bill, HR4232, which cuts funding for the continuing occupation. Ending the funding is what stopped Vietnam. Let's cut Iraq off before it becomes as bad as Vietnam."
Also in peace news, Courage to Resist notes Ricky Clousing's statement to the judge in last Thursday's court-martial and sentencing: "My experiences in Iraq forced me tto reevaluate my beliefs and ethics. Ultimately, I felt like I could not serve." Clousing is a war resister and he will serve three months, be reduced in rank and then dishonorably discharged. Clousing took a brave stand and Courage to Resist notes:
Ricky is currently being held in a military brig at Camp LeJune in North Carolina and it is urgent that he receive your words of encouragement and support! Please write to Ricky today!
More information on war resisters who have gone public can be found at Courage to Resist.
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