Hearts and minds watch:
By on Mar 31st, 2006 at 1:41 pm
Hearts and minds watch:
“The U.S. military was trying to send a ‘little reality jab‘ to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr when American and Iraqi troops raided a Shiite community center and shrine over the weekend, says a top U.S. military official.”
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We need to get our troops out of Iraq before they go completly nuts.
March 31st, 2006 at 1:45 pmSo are we protecting the citizens or Iraq? Or are we actively fomenting hate toward the US?
Heck of a job, Bushy.
March 31st, 2006 at 1:48 pm“Reality Jab”..Nice euphemism.
March 31st, 2006 at 1:48 pmHow to Win Friends….
March 31st, 2006 at 1:58 pmWho is in control there – who is in control here?
Much more of this type of “reality” and the US will be in much more trouble in Iraq than Georgie could ever imagine.
March 31st, 2006 at 2:03 pmSo next time the shiites let a “sticky” at the door of the Green Zone, don’t brag about it. Only means that they “remind” you of something.
March 31st, 2006 at 2:04 pm“says a top U.S. military official.”
This is not news, it’s all speculation and heresay. Oh wait, I just heard this:
“Top Democrat calls for Wednesday to become Prince Speghetti day again”
“An Unnamed but highly decorated soldier claims he hung the moon”
“Writer of a Progressive webblog states that all dogs are really cats in dog suits”
At least lets try and use real sources for things here.
March 31st, 2006 at 2:16 pmIf Moqtada al-Sadr is a problem, if Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is not bothering to read instructions from Bush and if we don’t get to choose the next Iraqi President, is it likely that we might re-declare war on Iraq?
March 31st, 2006 at 2:31 pm8,
If a reporter does not cite a name and legally does not have to as far as I am concerned it is a waste of time article.
I know the NYTimes is another far right paper and all but ever hear of Jayson Blair? He use to make stuff up and was quoted as saying he did it because he could.
In anything I invest any credit to I demand that it has sources. I just don’t blindly trust any reporters. It could be my cynical nature though.
March 31st, 2006 at 2:33 pmNothing says I Love You like a little invasion.
March 31st, 2006 at 2:47 pmIs “Reality Jab” supposed to be an upgrade over “swatting at flies” that BushCo accused Clinton of doing to al-Qaeda?
March 31st, 2006 at 2:54 pmIs this how liberators treat those they liberate.
So, is Sadr in his last throes.
Freedom is on the march……in a mosque near you.
Mission accomplished…bombing a mosque.
We won’t call them insurgents….we will call them clerics.
You’re doin’ a heckofa job Bush.
I am sure it is Saddam’s fault we bombed that mosque.
So, if we bombed this mosque, who’s to say we didn’t bomb the Golden Mosque?
March 31st, 2006 at 2:56 pm#13, Of course we blew up the Golden mosque. We wanted to instigate a civil war that would give us an excuse to stay there for a long long time. What the Neo-Con idiots did not know, surprise surprise, was that the mosque was holy to BOTH the fractions that we were trying to incite against each other. If it was holy to both the factions, why would the Muslims blow it up?
March 31st, 2006 at 3:10 pm“If a reporter does not cite a name and legally does not have to as far as I am concerned it is a waste of time article. Tundra”
Good thing this isn’t the standard, otherwise watergate, Abu Ghraib, the warrantless spying scandal and any number of other breaches of american trust would never have gotten reported or investigated. Sorry, but you’re wrong on this point.
March 31st, 2006 at 6:03 pmSorry, but you’re wrong on this point.
Your point is that if a Liberal reporter says something with zero facts and unnamed sources you will believe it blindly on their word that they actually talked to someone?
You’re just used to Imus, Hannity and O’Liely that just make crap up.
If it’s a conservative journalist, they lie anyway and everything out of their mouth is wrong?
any number of other breaches of american trust would never have gotten reported or investigated.
I’m not saying to “not investigate them” I’m saying that it’s dangerous to blindly accept what some reporter says as fact.
Personally I consider CNN to be more left than right, there happened to be a little incident where Ted Turner himself had to apologize for his people being ummm wrong about claiming the US used Nerve Gas on it’s own troops.
I remember not too long ago watching all 3 major news networks during the Mine tragedy and they kept citing unconfirmed reports that they were all alive except one. After about 30 minutes they reported it as fact and stated the miners would be coming to the church to see the families before going to the hospital, because none were that seriously wounded. For about 3 hours all you heard were stories about how they had a triage setup by the mine and the guys were laughing and joking in there. I must say good high quality sources they had there (If you wern’t watching they all were dead except one). If you are comfortable following stories like that and accepting it all as fact, more power to you.
Feel free to call me wrong for questioning mindless non-cited sources.
March 31st, 2006 at 7:12 pmTundra
I agree and disagree. A reporter should protect his or her source, but s/he has to also got to verify what that source is saying. It is not enough to have the mysterious top pentagon official saying something anymore, we need to have the reporters actually going out and verifying it as the truth. We need the editors to run fact checks, and we need a watchdog body to make sure that those fact checks are run.
Actually with the Rightwing pundits in America, a lot of the time the fact is that we go on precedent. They have told us lies, repeatedly, and we no longer believe them. Unfortunately, a large portion of the media falls under this category, so it is generally a case of having to check everything you read right back to source.
What we need is a return to the researched and corroberated truth. We need to adopt an idealogy of “Freedom of speech is for the opinion section, the News must be true.”
April 1st, 2006 at 1:36 amTundra, U.S. News quoting top officials is reasonably trustworthy. It’s not like they quoted an unsubstantiated quote on a random Blogspot account.
Of course, the Cons will suggest the “liberal media” shouidn’t report this story, because it’ll “undermine the war.” Don’t the people doing these things take “personal responsibility” for THEIR actions?
April 1st, 2006 at 2:00 amHere is what we need:
Where was the community centre?
Did it get raided?
If so, what about some corroboration from the Shiites whose community centre got raided?
April 1st, 2006 at 2:42 amIn Vietnam, we used to say “When you got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow”. Yep, that program worked out real well(for the Vietnamese).
April 1st, 2006 at 6:45 pmLet’s see if this works….
April 5th, 2006 at 10:46 am