Associated Press gives America's enemies a clear channel

Leave it to the Seattle PI to give the AP a platform for terrorist propaganda. The AP has provided the mouth piece of the Baathists insurgency free rein with absolutely no attempt to balance the blatant Baathist propaganda against anything remotely supporting the American or Iraqi government position. Once again, America's enemies get a clear and silent stage with the AP while American leaders like Bush and Cheney get bashed by any so called expert the AP can dredge up to call them liars. (I remember one article where the "expert" who bashed Bush was a social worker or something close to that who was not even remotely an expert on politics or diplomacy)

DAMASCUS, Syria -- A man claiming to be the top spokesman for Iraq's former ruling party said the group will not stop aiding the insurgency or engage in national reconciliation efforts unless the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad accepts conditions that would lead to its end.

Among the demands are the complete withdrawal of American troops, the abolition of laws enacted since the ouster of Saddam Hussein's regime and trials of all Iraqis who cooperated with the United States and the U.S.-supported administration.

Okay so far, fair reporting

Neither the United States nor Iraq's Shiite Muslim-led government has shown any willingness to make such broad concessions to the Sunni Arab-dominated insurgents.

How about a statement here that the Baathists have refused to stop their terrorism against Iraqis? How about a statement that they are trying to overthrow a democratically elected Iraq government? Nope, it is the US and Iraqi government that are painted as unwilling to make concessions not the freaking terrorists.

But the comments in the interview late last week illustrate the thinking of some Sunni Arab hard-liners. The meeting came after repeated efforts by The Associated Press to make contact in Syria with Saddam's Baath party loyalists and other supporters of the insurgency in Iraq

Remember when Curt at Flopping Aces entitled the first post about the "burning six" as "getting the news from the enemy" and how indignant the AP (and other MSM) editors got about it? Here the AP is admitting they are trying to interview America's enemies.

And:

Other Baathist sympathizers and party members interviewed in Damascus, where many of them now live, confirmed the man's position and helped to arrange the interview. Al-Murshidi also appeared last month on Al-Jazeera television using the pseudonym Abu Mohammed.

Remember my article the other day drawing lines that appeared to connect AP and al Jazeera reporting? What do you know, al Jazeera gets the interview and a few days later the AP tracks him down. What an amazing coincidence.

And again, the terrorists are oh so reasonable:

Yet he said Baath loyalists would be willing to build relations with Washington once what he called a legitimate government in Iraq was restored.

Statements by American military officials to balance the enemies propaganda? NONE

Statements by American diplomats or politicians to balance the enemy propaganda? NONE

Statements by the democratically elected Iraqi government to balance the enemy propaganda? NONE

Number of evidential statements that remotely contradict the enemies propaganda? NONE

Acknowledgements that the Baathists are murdering Iraqis and American soldiers? NONE

Acknowledgements that these Baathists are trying to overthrow a democracy? NONE

This entire piece is nothing more than straight forward enemy propaganda from a writer for the AP named Salah Nasrawi.

Is there any difference between the AP and al Jazeera at this point? Try this, google "associated press" and "al Jazeera". For a competitor, the AP did a lot of fluff pieces on the start of al Jazeera TV in the west. So many that one has to wonder if they had some kind of stake in the enemy's propaganda network.

Update:

It would seem the AP is not the only US MSM gushing over the launch of al Jazeera in the west:

But the same left-wing crowd that claims to hate propaganda seems to be offering nothing but flowers and best wishes for the November launch of al-Jazeera English. The new network presents itself as a bold, adventurous news outlet to promote an Arab point of view, to redirect global news coverage to the point of view of the ‘‘South’’ — left-wing lingo for Third World monarchs and dictators. Its sugar daddy is the emir of Qatar, seriously wealthy and very much committed to an Islamic agenda.

Questions about the network’s radical ideology emerged quickly. CNN attempted to interview al-Jazeera talk show host (and former CNN International journalist) Riz Khan and discovered how al-Jazeera English won’t be speaking the truth to power, especially when it comes to the subject that has brought the greatest attention to it — terrorism. CNN’s Frank Sesno asked Khan, ‘‘Is Hamas a terrorist organization?’’ Khan went agnostic: ‘‘I’m not one to judge.’’ Then Sesno asked, ‘‘Is Hezbollah a terrorist organization?’’ Khan replied, ‘‘Same thing, you know — I’m not going to judge.’’

In an outbreak of common sense, this offshoot of the infamous channel best known as a video jukebox for Osama bin Laden and other Arab terrorist fanatics has so far been rejected by every major American cable TV operator.

And that, that has the liberal elites outraged and filled with contempt for the crazy cable companies for somehow denying the American public more enemy propaganda.

AND

How soft are these media types? Some of them not only didn’t want to beat al-Jazeera, they joined it. Not only CNN’s Khan, but CBS’s David Hawkins and, most visibly, ABC’s Dave Marash, the network’s new Washington anchor, are drinking the Qatar Kool-Aid. Their most pathetic spin line is that al-Jazeera English is somehow entirely different than the Arab-propaganda channel that shares its name.

Roger that. I just read an MSM article about the launch of Jazeera TV in the west where they tried to distance al jazeera from al jazeera.com without noting that al jazeera.net, the actual affilited online news site is just as bad. Any kind of slight of hand it takes, I guess.

Comments

[Nabil Ahmad]

The Mainstream Media is ideologically driven to hate George W. Bush and all that he stands for. If it was Bill Clinton leading this war, they would be cheerleading him and vilifying our enemies in the Middle East and elsewhere.

But because George W. Bush is a conservative Republican, he is a worse enemy than the Baathists and others because a victory for Bush would translate into a defeat for liberalism and socialism.

And the Mainstream Media will have none of that. They'd rather see the USA torn to shreds than admit that their warped ideology is really what is is...rubbish.

The War on Terror needs to be fought in more than one front. The main front is being fought by our military against the Baathists, Al Qaida and their allies. A second front needs to be opened up against reporters and journalists who actively or passively work with America's enemies. They need to be exposed and pilloried and disgraced in front of TV screens for the general public to see. They need to be brought low and disgraced beyond redemption to the point where they throw hysterical fits in front of TV cameras. They need to be made into the story.

It can be done. Dan Rather was brought down, along with Mary Mapes, and now they've become screaming, shrieking, hysterical nothings. Who's next?

[1st Cav]

There are already several websites and public access TV channels airing enemy propaganda.

In Louisiana you have Acadiana Open Channel (AOC), http://www.aocinc.org/welcome_aoc/welcome.html , that is a publicly funded non-profit entity that feeds to many other public access TV channel nationwide and internationally. One program in particular that is of particular concern is the disinformation "Current Issues" program. It's produced by a Hesham Tillawi aka Hesham Mohd. Tillawi also runs the website www.currentissues.tv that is known to broadcast outright lies.

This is just the tip of the iceberg in public funding of enemy propaganda.

[Scott Malensek]

(as posted elsewhere)
They told us that removing a dictator was immoral.

They told us that Pres Bush was so brilliant, and they so stupid that he was able to manipulate intelligence reports and trick them into authorizing war. Later we found out from the WP that only a handful of members of Congress even looked at the intelligence reports before authorizing the war. Nearly a half dozen bi-partisan, independent, and international investigations have found that it was a decades-old decrepit intelligence network that lead to 911 and the pre-war Iraq intelligence failures.

Then they sent us an ambassador to tell us Bush made up all the claims about uranium, but it turned out the ambassador was lying and so too were his claims that the President outed his spy wife (yeah, real low key cover being the wife of an ambassador).

Then they told us there was no connection between Iraq and 911, but the attacks' mastermind conceded that they were set in motion immediately after Pres Clinton's 12/98 attack on Iraq, and Bin Laden's strategic planner, Zawahiri, is on record has having "vow[ed] to retaliate for what the Americans have done to their brothers in Iraq."

Then they told us that Saddam was just "a bad guy" and compelled us to look the other way on the idea that he'd killed half a million Iraqis who rose up-at America's insistence in 1992-for Democracy.

They sent us poorly photo-shopped press photos of terrorists being oppressed in Lebanon, and they denied the lie as long as they could.

They sent us a long list of faked stories from un-named sources who later turned out to be making up stories to further their political agendas, and they denied it as long as they could.

They showed us videos made by terrorists sniping American soldiers and claimed that they were showing the terrorist propaganda videos as news-while looking the other way that it was still propaganda (you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig).

They show us pictures that insurgents stage, turned in to them, and then claimed that the photos are "representative" of what's happening, but encourage us to look the other way at the remaining fact that they are not actual captures of time (rather captures of imagination).

Now it's been revealed that not just the WP, NYT, LAT, Reuters, but also AP have chosen to publish and circulate around the world false stories that have likely been provided by the enemy (yeah, the insurgents are in fact...the enemy), and they've done so (again) out of either utter stupidity coupled with complete unprofessionalism, OR they've done it deliberately as part of supporting the enemy's propaganda effort to distort the picture of what's happening in the war on terror.

When will the truth outweigh the lies-uh, I mean, "errors in reporting"?

When will people swallow hard and realize that their partisan disdain, their post911 fears/concerns, and the shadow of their own personal Vietnam experiences have been played upon by people with their own political agendas, their terrorist campaigns, and/or their sensationalist reporting schemes in search of career-building scoops and awards given no longer for great news, but for the greatest fiction?

Until then, we have to wait for our friends, our neighbors, our brothers, our fathers....our soldiers...to come home and tell us the truth following their shock and awe at returning and seeing the reports that we see.