Sunday, February 19, 2006

Breaking News

In other words, "How to use the truth to lie." Break up the whole story and discard important qualifying facts. Here's an example:

In 1995 an Iraqi defector testified before the UN Special Commission. His name was Hussein Kamel. He was Saddam Hussein"s Weapons chief and son-in-law. He testified that indeed Iraq had been developing WMDs in secret.

"The order was to hide much of it from the start, and we hid a lot of that information. These were not individual acts of concealment, but were as a result of direct orders from the top."

As far as the MSM is concerned, that's the whole story. Newsweek did a "breaking news" bit in 2003 about it. Just last week ABC dragged it back out for Nightline and World News Tonight. The interesting thing about all three of these , aside from being 8-10 years after the fact, is the line of testimony they don't talk about.

"All chemical weapons were destroyed," he said. "I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons- biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed."

So, Iraq's top Weapons man testifies a decade ago about Saddam's Secret Weapons program and its subsequent destruction (in '91) and for reasons unknown half of this information is deemed important enough for repeated scoops, while the other half is deemed unmentionable. At least with the ABC coverage, they have tapes of Kamel and Saddam talking about it. Of course, it is still the same information and UN testimony is generally considered to be more credible than audio tapes. Apparently Newsmax did not cover this story when it broke in 95' or during its earlier return.

"Secret audiotapes of Saddam Hussein discussing ways to attack America with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) will be the subject of an ABC "Nightline" program Wednesday night, a former federal prosecutor told Cybercast News Service.
The tapes are being called the "smoking gun" of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The New York Sun reported that the tapes have been authenticated and currently are being reviewed by the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence."-
Newsmax 2-15-06
At least when CNN and FOX usually put the consumer advisory label "breaking news" up on the screen when they do this type of crap.

On a side note, Kamel went back to Iraq and was killed in '96 by Hussein's forces. Seems Saddam did not like the testimony.

10 comments:

Hellpig said...

OK here's what you left out REV

"Kamel said Iraq had not abandoned its WMD ambitions. The stocks had been destroyed to hide the programs from the U.N. inspectors, but Iraq had retained the design and engineering details of these weapons. Kamel talked of hidden blueprints, computer disks, microfiches and even missile-warhead molds. “People who work in MIC [Iraq’s Military Industrial Commission, which oversaw the country’s WMD programs] were asked to take documents to their houses,” he said. Why preserve this technical material? Said Kamel: “It is the first step to return to production” after U.N. inspections wind down."

The rest of Kamels interview

Reverend X said...

Good point. Damn, two days and we seem to have achieved discourse. I should have posted that information as well. I did not find it. Honestly, I didn't even remember that bit till I read it just now.
That brings up the question of intent. The definition of lying includes- Something meant to deceive or give the wrong impression.
A statement that deviates from or perverts the truth.


Does the additional information alter the message? I do not think so. We did not go to War because Iraqi's had designs for WMDs or because Saddam wanted to posses them. Saddam's ambitions were limitless. No one has ever disputed his power hunger. We went to war because the White House Iraq Group, WHIG, successfully sold the idea that Saddam was engaged in and capable of producing WMDs. He was neither. The WHIG had full knowledge of the testimony, yet only used parts of it in order to give the wrong impression and most definitely deceive the public about Iraq's ability to violate UN Security council resolution 1441.
They lied. Their lies are directly responsible for the War in Iraq and the deaths incurred. Is that insufficient cause to warrant investigation by an adequately authorized and empowered independent body? Congress seems to think so, but I have yet to hear a good reason. The Administration is currently repeating this pattern with Iran. There are serious questions that need to be answered immediately. If they are not addressed before the White House is able to get us into yet another military engagement, it may well be too late. Each deployment weakens our domestic defenses. Without investigation, how can we know that the continued military depletion is not an intentional weakening of our defenses. With each new action taken, this administration asks us to trust them more while giving us less reason to do it. The UAE situation is the perfect example of this behavior. Declare the Arab world out to get us then give them the keys to the castle.

Bush really does not know the cliche:
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!
We had better explain it to him.

Hellpig said...

"Does the additional information alter the message? "NO

"That brings up the question of intent. The definition of lying includes- Something meant to deceive or give the wrong impression.
A statement that deviates from or perverts the truth."


Here's the way I see the intent
Quran quote

sparringK9 said...

is nice with you ReverendX and hellpig together for both side. good werk to study both of you! dank u!

Reverend X said...

Hellpig,
That is a pretty damning list of quotes. I will go through the whole thing when I get time. Remember, I am not defending Islam.
You say Liberalism is a mental illness. Think about this,
"Religion is the only known contagious mental illness."

I will agree that Islam is one of the worst. All three of the El Shaddai Cults are crimes against Humanity. Our only disagreement there is in which cultists pose the more immediate threat to the US.

Reverend X said...

Freya,
Agreed, we somehow managed to present a fairly balanced and thorough overview of this topic. I gotta admit, I'm starting to like the guy. Just had to get past the "Death to all Fanatics!!" first impression. Course I still can't believe he snowballed my Dad and paid a buck to do it! What a perv!!

Hellpig said...

Reverend X said... "Just had to get past the "Death to all Fanatics!!" first impression."

I still think we need to glass over the entire Middle East,But I get to spew that at D.T's site and the Pub Philosopher blog in the EU

"Using their links to refute their points is friggin awesome."

Yeah I some how find it strangly fulfilling although I found myself going overboard yesterday on BOGSBLOG..Too much coffee

Hellpig said...

Thanks for the new avatar Rev I was fed up trying to get it to work

Hellpig said...

I just wached your sidebar flash that ROCKS Rev,,,I love CoC you ever think about sending it to them?

Reverend X said...

Hellpig,
Yeah, i sent it to them. Repeatedly and it is all over their forum. I was supposed to meet up with Pepper last fall when they were scheduled to play the NW, but Katrina stopped the tour. He lives in Nola so...
I rip off material from the MSM, but I do not do that to Musicians. Of course, I did not get the chance to talk to them, so I have to make up for it later. I actually am using 3 of their songs for flashes.
Infotainment
and
Crimeline
are also theirs.

No problem on the Pig Pic, I had fireworks open at the time. Thanx for arguing, better.