Associated Press: Voice of the Empire!

May 26, 2007

Should Associated Press be renamed to Voice of the Empire?

This is what happened today in Iraq:

In the early morning the U.S. military bombed a row of cars waiting in front of a gas station in Baghdad. Several civilians got killed and more wounded, some house were damaged as was the Habibiya maternity
hospital.

That’s the essence of the story as confirmed by eyewitnesses in the Reuters report and by the AFP’s account.

But what AP is reporting is tons of propaganda and only a tiny little bit of the truth.

5 killed after U.S. raid in Sadr City

A day after radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr resurfaced to end nearly four months in hiding and demand U.S. troops leave Iraq, American forces raided his Sadr City stronghold and killed five suspected militia fighters in air strikes Saturday.

Hmmm – typical revenge act – Sadr wants the U.S. to leave, the U.S. goes after Sadr folks.

But why suspected fighters? Didn’t they fight? Next graph:

U.S. and Iraqi forces called in the air strikes after a raid in which they captured a "suspected terrorist cell leader," the U.S. military said in statement.

Why call in air strikes after a raid?

The statement claimed the captured man was "the suspected leader in a secret cell terrorist network known for facilitating the transport of weapons and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from
Iran to Iraq, as well as bringing militants from Iraq to Iran for terrorist training."

EFP’s are deadly roadside bombs that hurl a fist-size slug of molten copper that penetrates armor, a weapon that has been highly effective against American forces over the past year.

Oh boy, these old lies again and again. But repeating lies is an effective propaganda technic as the Associated Press always carries them and never explain that these lies are indeed lies. It is not that AP does not know these are lies. They just don’t says so.

The EFPs are mass manufactured in Iraq. On at least three independently reported occasions U.S. troops raided shops in Iraq where lots of EFPs were manufactured (see here, here and here.) AP knows of these reports. It also knows that there was never a report of someone caught actually smuggling such mines over the border. The Brits have said there is no proof for such smuggling.

But AP will not tell you. They tell you what the "U.S. statement claimed" and they will explain to you what EFPs are, not that such WWI weapons are manufactured in metal shops in Iraq.

On with the babble:

The militia fighters were killed in air strikes on nine cars that were seen positioning themselves to attack American forces after the raid, the military said.

Hmm … nine cars positioning themselves. I’d like to know in what type of attack formation those cars positioned in – right flank , vee or maybe wedge?

An Iraqi police official said the attack occurred at 2 a.m. and that U.S. jets and helicopters hit the Habibiyah district in Sadr City, killing three civilians and wounding eight.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to release the information, said 10 cars lined up to buy gasoline were destroyed. The police report did not mention the capture of an alleged terrorist or the killing of any militia fighters.

So the "attack formation" was in-line. Like in "waiting in line at a petrol station …"

Why had I to walk through seven paragraphs of U.S. propaganda to get to the most likely real information?

The AFP report refutes the U.S. story in its second paragraph:

However, an Iraqi defence ministry official said an air strike launched
in support of the ground raid hit cars lined up to purchase gas at a
nearby petrol station, and that those killed were innocent civilians.

The Reuters report takes longer to get there. But most of the stuff in between is from Basra and more of British interest. It doesn’t mention the EFP bullshit at all. It also has several eye-witness and reporter accounts refuting the official U.S. version by facts:

Sadr City residents and police said the cars had been
queuing at a petrol station. A Reuters reporter counted at
least 11 burnt-out vehicles about 1 km from the station.
Lengthy petrol queues are common in Iraq.

"A plane came and started bombing the cars queuing for
petrol and the hospital," said a guard at Habibiya maternity
hospital, which was also hit in the attack.

Police said two people were killed and five wounded.

There can hardly be any doubt that the U.S. military did screw up again. They bombed civilians waiting in line to fill up there cars for no particular reason. That should be the news because such is what naturally feeds the resistance.

AP does report that. Yes they do. But only in a very reduced he-said/she-said way and only after spewing lots of very dubious propaganda.

But then, thanks to AP we finally know why the U.S. is in Iraq:

Al-Sadr’s reappearance in the fourth month of the U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown on Baghdad and environs was expected to complicate the mission to crack down on violence and broker political compromise in the country.

One has to love this one. The U.S. has the "mission to crack down on violence." Just like your friendly policemen patrolling around the block.

Is bombing cars in wait for gasoline and damaging maternity hospitals "cracking down on violence?"

And the U.S. military is doing this to "broker political compromise." Doesn’t that sound nice? The U.S., the very honest broker of compromise in Iraq?

"Compromise" by pressing to allow oil production sharing agreements with U.S. companies, i.e. thinly disguised theft, of Iraqi oil?

What is the compromise when the Iraqis by a huge majority, a majority in parliament and one of the major political leaders say the U.S. should leave?

Oh yeah, bomb the people – and call AP and let them justify the shit.

To top that even more junk further down in the piece:

Al-Sadr went underground — reportedly in Iran — at the start of the U.S.-led security crackdown on Baghdad 14 weeks ago. He also had ordered his militia off the streets to prevent conflict with U.S. forces.

Reportedly? Who has ever reported such?

Only the U.S. military claimed that Sadr was in Iran. Such to smear Sadr in the mind of Iraqi nationalists. Sadr speakers have consistantly refuted these claims, saying he is in Iraq.
Iran said Sadr wasn’t there. There never was any independent report that Sadr was in Iran.

But whatever the U.S. military might claim, no matter how implausible, it is reportedly so?

Your Associated Press: Voice of the Empire!

Posted by b on May 26, 2007 at 19:11 UTC | Permalink

Comments

as i’ve been watching the events unfold in somalia this year & following how the big wire services cover it, it really is disgustingly clear. all of them — ap, reuters, afp, … — have been so biased in their sourcing & have propagated enough lies & misinformation that, if the somali coverage is any representation at all, it is no wonder that ruthless imperialism shows no sign of slowing down.
a few days ago, during a period where there is an escalation of deliberate fear-mongering on the part of the bush regime’s evocation of the al qa’idah bogeyman at home, as the new u.s. envoy to somalia informs reporters in nairobi that roadside bombs in somalia are identical to those used by AQ against the occupiers in iraq, AP ran an exclusive on a suicide bomber video that set off the BS meter. i checked for a day after the AP was out & carried in multiple media & was unable to find any other references to the video, which seems strange. no mentions in the somalian or neighboring countries media. how does one verify such?
the article reads like propaganda, as it certainly attempts to legitimize u.s. concerns about AQ in somalia, despite the intelligence & informed opinions i’ve pointed out previously which clearly state that the ICU was not connected w/ AQ or any global terrorist network and that AQ, in any description or conjuring, does not have a presence in somalia.
AP Exclusive: Somali Islamists produce martyr video, the latest tactic aligning them with global extremist groups

…
Islamic courts leaders deny any connection with al-Qaida, but the two groups appear intertwined.
…

how to change the tune the wurlitzer is cranking out?

Posted by: b real | May 26 2007 20:58 utc | 1

b real
i think the truth now just requires immense amount of work & the kind of comradeship that you exhibit in doing that work on africa, for example – it is a good a solid foundation – that makes very powerful incursions against their morbid lies
what i am surprised by tho – is that the beast is falling apart – what michael dibden describes as ratking in one of his books – & that the press just like its ancestor julius streicher is licking the boots of that self destructing empire

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 26 2007 21:43 utc | 2

aljazeera has a form of logo where it repeats shimon perez saying, ” without a moral foundation there can be no jewish state”
what kind of blindness is he suffering from, what kind of blindness are the people of israel suffering from, what kind of blindness are we suffering from that permits us to exist with the terrible knowledge of what the state of israel is committing. every day. every night
how can they not see that the moral foundation of israel has dissapeared
the state dishonours the memory of jewish civilisation – ancient & modern – in every conceivable way
every leader of her state – almost without exception has been a terrorist or an enabler of terrorism or has carried out a policy towards the palestinians in particular & the arab people in general – that she has inherited from european anti semitism of the catholic & exterminatory kind. everything she has learnt fromp her suffering has been reproduced against the palestinians
today i feel not not the least sympathy for her cause. she does not represent what is best in the middle east – she represent amongst the worst elements that can be found
& the american apologists of her cause – like the learned law professor dershowitz who from their hole at harvard – hollow out the heart of the middle east & call on their earth to be covered in arab blood. their aloofness from the blood & soil of the middle east – & that too of the jewish people is contemptible

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 26 2007 23:02 utc | 3

& it seems to me in the last weeks the deaths of american soldiers have dissapeared from the media – i hear – french radio in the morning & they have announced death of 9 soldiers about 2 weeks ago – then 8 last week & 8 this week – & i see little or no coverage of it -i don’t know whether it has been because i have not seen it – or that they are silencing it as they have done before
i’m just curious – as they start increasing their numbers on the ground – they commence to hide the number of casualties – it was also a policy in vietnam

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 26 2007 23:33 utc | 4

You have to wonder why Democrats rolled over on the timetable.
?What possible self-serving reason, losing election campaign funds they stash after Vote 2008? Nobody lets go of the gravey boat, they would sell their own mother to Prince Bandar first.
Look at Kerry, he walked away with $25M large. Cut, and ran.
You have to wonder why Republicans rolled over on the surge. After all, “compassionate conservatives” in the Reagan mold don’t vote a $360B a year riser on $750B DoD/DHS/INS/DEA/ATF welfare program, especially not when it’s funded entirely on deficits, and not when they’re planning a national lockdown.
Red Army, Blue Army, allatime same-same. $360B surge would build a new World Trade Center in every US city over 50,000.
Instead, that $360B deficit is keeping our crude oil prices high, keeping low-cost Iraqi production off the Saudi market, costing US an extra $1.27B every day, that we don’t have.
The combined cost of the surge and artifically-inflated oil supply reduction is $869B a year, on top of the $750B a year that disappears down the black hole of DoD/DHS/INS/DEA/ATF, making that profit center the greatest con in world history.
It’s as though the Senators all want to play Tom Cruise in ‘Rain Man’, and we’re left counting marbles in a dixie cup.
FreePress: “You use me, you use America, you use everybody.”
Congress: “Using America? Hey America, am I using you? Am I using you America?”
America: “Yeah.”
Congress: “Shut up! He’s answering a question from a half hour ago!”
America: “But not on Monday, definitely not on Monday.”
Monday we salute our fallen troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Congress has to stand there and toe the dirt, nervously waiting to get back to their latest two week golf vacation.

Posted by: Dua Duché | May 27 2007 5:05 utc | 5

Frank Rich (liberated version): Operation Freedom From Iraqis

Since the 2003 invasion, America has given only 466 Iraqis asylum. Sweden, which was not in the coalition of the willing, plans to admit 25,000 Iraqis this year alone. Our State Department, goaded by January hearings conducted by Ted Kennedy, says it will raise the number for this year to 7,000 (a figure that, small as it is, may be more administration propaganda). A bill passed by Congress this month will add another piddling 500, all interpreters.
In reality, more than 5,000 interpreters worked for the Americans. So did tens of thousands of drivers and security guards who also, in Senator Kennedy’s phrase, have “an assassin’s bull’s-eye on their backs” because they served the occupying government and its contractors over the past four-plus years.
…
[A]s Mr. Holbrooke also points out in the current Foreign Affairs magazine, the real forerunner to American treatment of Iraqi refugees isn’t that war in any case, but World War II. That’s when an anti-Semitic assistant secretary of state, Breckinridge Long, tirelessly obstructed the visa process to prevent Jews from obtaining sanctuary in America, not even filling the available slots under existing quotas. As many as 75,000 such refugees were turned away before the Germans cut off exit visas to Jews in late 1941, according to Howard Sachar’s “History of the Jews in America.”
Like the Jews, Iraqis are useful scapegoats. This month Mr. Bremer declared that the real culprits for his disastrous 2003 decision to cleanse Iraq of Baathist officials were unnamed Iraqi politicians who “broadened the decree’s impact far beyond our original design.” The Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, is chastising the Iraqis for being unable “to do anything they promised.”
…
While it seems but a dim memory now, once upon a time some Iraqis did greet the Americans as liberators. Today, in fact, it is just such Iraqis — not the local Iraqi insurgents the president conflates with Osama bin Laden’s Qaeda in Pakistan — who do want to follow us home. That we are slamming the door in their faces tells you all you need to know about the real morality beneath all the professed good intentions of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Though the war’s godfathers saw themselves as ridding the world of another Hitler, their legacy includes a humanitarian catastrophe that will need its own Raoul Wallenbergs and Oskar Schindlers if lives are to be saved.

Posted by: b | May 27 2007 6:05 utc | 6

Juan Cole buys into the AP (U.S. military) propaganda and further spreads it around:
Pointing to a AP account in a Canadian newspaper he writes:

The US military raided Sadr City on Saturday and arrested a Mahdi Army commander whom they accused of being involved with smuggling weapons from Iran. The arrest provoked clashes, and the army called in air strikes on JAM positions, killing 5 persons.

No Juan, they didn’t bomb JAM positions, they bombed cars waiting at a petrol station.

Posted by: b | May 27 2007 12:15 utc | 7

If one compares the Lancet figures (600 000 Iraqi dead from shock and awe to their publication date, from US violence) and the current figure, which has been estimated at a round million, you have to wonder? How did these Iraqis die?
I mean, diarrhea deaths, maiming and wounding leading to eventual death (that is complicated though); illness, lack of health care, suicide (often i suppose collective), disappearance, death in detention, etc. are not counted, or were so only in part by Lancet – big mistake not to make it clear… (.. therefore their no. of over 650 thousand.)
They died from bombings. As they did during sanctions.
Nick Turse on Tom dispatch attempts a round up:
link

Posted by: Noirette | May 27 2007 17:19 utc | 8

Since the 2003 invasion, America has given only 466 Iraqis asylum. Sweden, which was not in the coalition of the willing, plans to admit 25,000 Iraqis this year alone. Our State Department, goaded by January hearings conducted by Ted Kennedy, says it will raise the number for this year to 7,000 (a figure that, small as it is, may be more administration propaganda). (Rich, see above)
Iraqis have no status.
They are not nationals of a sovereign country; they are not a ppl under illegal occupation; they are not at war; their resistors have no status; they are not part of the US or the EU, etc. Only their particular personal circumstances, such as torture and rape (proved) can grant them asylum under existing international law, as exceptions for ‘humanitarian’ reasons. Even the horse trading – we will take so many, you take that number, etc. rests on no base and is fake. And then there is the opposition – US -:
link
The US is fighting a war, after all, against the Iraqi ppl. Iraqis have killed US soldiers. Still US Iraqis have not been interned.
In case anyone might imagine the US is alone in refusing to allow entry to these unclean, disgusting and ungrateful people, here is France:
La France étudiait 132 dossiers d’Irakiens sur un total de 39 332 demandes d’asile pour la même année (2007)
France has (2007) 39 thousand Iraqi asylum requests and is at present bureaucratically busy shunting around 132 of these, none of which, I guess, will be admitted.
link in French
The no. of 7 000 as a contingent admitted into the US is completely fanciful, a few tokens will be let in to figure in the press – ppl who have worked for the Americans.
One was admitted recently, she had her picture taken next to Pres. Bush in the White House, on a ‘womans junket’ trip, and that got her in. I can’t find a link right now.
One ! One !

Posted by: Noirette | May 27 2007 18:17 utc | 9

Irak: dix soldats américains tués dans des attaques
BAGDAD (AFP), 18:00
© AFP
Des véhicules blindés de l’armée américaine sont garés dans un camp de Falloujah, dans l’ouest de Bagdad, le 27 mai 2007
Dix soldats américains sont morts dans des attaques à travers l’Irak, faisant du mois de mai l’un des plus meurtriers pour l’armée américaine depuis le début de l’invasion en 2003, a annoncé dimanche l’armée américaine.
Dans l’incident le plus meurtrier, trois soldats de la Task Force Lightning ont été tués et deux blessés quand une bombe a explosé au passage de leur patrouille samedi dans la province de Salaheddine, au nord de Bagdad.
Un soldat a été tué et deux ont été blessés dans une autre explosion samedi, cette fois dans le sud de la capitale irakienne, qui a également blessé un interprète irakien. Un soldat a aussi été tué et quatre autres ont été blessés samedi dans une attaque dans l’ouest de la capitale.
Dans la province de Diyala (nord de Bagdad), un autre soldat de la Task Force Lightning a été tué et deux ont été blessés samedi dans l’explosion d’une bombe au passage de leur patrouille.
Un Marine est également mort samedi au cours d’opérations de combat, dans la province d’Al-Anbar, le foyer de l’insurrection sunnite à l’ouest de Bagdad.
Un autre soldat américain a été tué et trois ont été blessés dans une attaque à la bombe et à l’arme légère contre leur patrouille vendredi près de Taji (nord de Bagdad), a ajouté l’armée américaine.
Enfin, deux soldats ont été tués et trois ont été blessés dans l’explosion d’une bombe mercredi au passage de leur patrouille à l’est de Bagdad.
Ces décès portent à au moins 103 le nombre de soldats américains morts en Irak en mai. 104 autres avaient péri en avril, le sixième mois le plus meurtrier depuis l’invasion de mars 2003.
Ils portent également à au moins 3.455 le nombre de soldats et personnels assimilés américains tués en Irak depuis l’invasion, selon un décompte de l’AFP basé sur des chiffres du Pentagone.
Ces nouvelles pertes pour l’armée américaine interviennent alors que le président américain George W. Bush a signé vendredi la loi de financement de la guerre en Irak après avoir résisté aux efforts de ses adversaires démocrates pour lui imposer un début de retrait des troupes.
M. Bush a indiqué s’attendre “à d’intenses combats dans les semaines et les mois à venir” et prévenu que “le mois d’août pourrait être un mois très dur, parce que ce que (les insurgés) essaient de faire, c’est de tuer autant de gens innocents que possible pour essayer d’influencer le débat ici”.
Une évaluation du succès ou non de la stratégie actuellement mise en oeuvre en Irak doit être rendue en septembre par le commandant des troupes américaines en Irak, le général David Petraeus.
Aux Etats-Unis, la guerre en Irak est de plus en plus impopulaire.

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 27 2007 21:09 utc | 10

The story of the people killed in a gas-line makes it into the Washington Post:

After detaining a suspect in a similar raid on Saturday, U.S. troops detected an insurgent ambush as they were preparing to withdraw from the neighborhood and called in air support, which fired on several cars, killing at least five people, officials said. Mahdi Army sources said the cars were waiting in a line for gasoline and that all the dead were civilians.

“Mahdi Army sources…”
In the AP story it is a “police official”
In the AFP story a “Iraqi defence ministry official” is saying so
In the Reuters story they have “Sadr City residents and police”, a Reuters reporter and a guard at a hospital
But in the WaPo only “Mahdi Army sources” refute the official US story. As they are the “bad guys”, the readers will not believe them …

Posted by: b | May 28 2007 5:39 utc | 11

now here’s an AP article that makes u.s. propaganda beaming into darfur sound fun!
Radio offers new voice on Darfur border

May 28, 2007 (GOZ BEIDA) — Men driving donkey carts to the market and refugees crouching in the shade finally have something to break the boredom of life in this arid Darfur border village — news, hip-hop and Arabic music coming in on cranky transistor radios.
It’s Radio Sila, the village’s only radio station, funded mostly by U.S. taxpayers and pumping some fun into a violence-region suffering the spillover from the Darfur conflict next door.
“People follow our car in the streets, shouting ’radio, radio,’” said Fiacre Munezero, the station’s supervisor. “It’s a good start.”
Broadcast from a metal cargo container converted into a studio, the station is run by Internews, a California-based aid group spreading news and music to crisis zones.
“First and foremost, we’re a community radio,” said Jocelyn Grange, a French journalist who manages the program in eastern Chad. “We try to be directly useful to our listeners.”
…
Radio Sila is modeled after two others opened by Internews in 2005 and mid-2006 in eastern Chad, which offer a mix of local news and music seven days a week from morning to dusk. The stations also alert listeners to dangers, such as a recent janjaweed raid on a Chadian village that left 400 people dead.
On a recent day, the news on radio Sila covered a U.N. VIP’s visit, an upsurge in attacks on a nearby refugee camp, and a calendar of junior league soccer matches.
…
Internews’ three stations operate on a $1 million budget for this year, with most of the funding provided by the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Along with news and music, the stations feature six weekly shows addressing topics such as health and safety in the camps. The star program, “She Speaks, She Listens,” addresses women’s issues.
“We consider there’s no taboo, as long as you’re careful about how to address things,” Grange said. “The only topic we carefully avoid is politics.”
Music outplays news, and men glued to their radio in the Koubigou refugee camp said they preferred it that way.
“Life is so, so boring in the camps,” said refugee Abakar Hamid. “At least listening gives us something to do.”

Posted by: b real | May 29 2007 3:28 utc | 12

Gotta admit “Associated Press: Voice of The Well Meaning Incompetents”
just doesn’t have the same ring of thruthiness to it

Posted by: jcairo | May 29 2007 13:40 utc | 13

AP loves our steely President, lots
In what seems little different from Bush cheerleading, a White House correspondent covered the president’s Memorial ay speech with the romantic and commentary-based (rather fact based) claim that he’d been expressing his steely resolve to succeed in the war in Iraq. That would be the war of invasion and foreign occupation, rather than the current civil war. It seems this cheerleader’s phrase didn’t escape the president’s lips at all, and a later version of the same story, still under the same AP writer’s byline, dropped it.
Here’s the first first draft of the story, as carried online but little, it seems, in print.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070528/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush

Posted by: kunino | May 30 2007 20:47 utc | 14

Is AP still owned by Moon?

Posted by: beq | May 31 2007 0:42 utc | 15

from kunino’s link He noted that 174 Marines — nearly one-fourth of a battalion — recently asked to have their enlistments extended. this is a completely meaningless statement when stated as it was in the story. 174 out of 174 eligible? or total in the Marine Corps? As I recall, this admin spends a lot of money on “communications” and the writer of that story is obviously on the payroll.
beq, Moon owns UPI

Posted by: dan of steele | May 31 2007 2:36 utc | 16

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