Friday, November 25, 2011

Finding news . . . weeks and weeks later

To be sure we're all on the same page, long after we were explaining (near daily) that negotiations were ongoing for US troops in Iraq, Antiwar.com's John Glaser did one article on that fact.

And then they began rewriting history and distorting. And to be clear, that refers to John Glaser, Jason Ditz and Scott Horton.


Scott Horton who never seems to get that the definition of a pig is someone who hates the policies of the current White House yet spends all his time blaming . . . Hillary Clinton. It's sexism. He doesn't even notice that whole discussions -- especially when he pairs up with fellow pigs -- revolved around the Secretary of State while they ignore Barack. Had Hillary gotten the nomination, I was aware that she'd be held accountable (if she'd gotten the nomination, she would have won the presidency -- 2008 was a Democratic year as a result of 8 years of Bush). Fine. We'd all have to live with that criticism which would include sexism. But she didn't get the nomination and it's really disgusting to hear the unhidden glee in Horton's twangy voice as he attacks Hillary over and over and over.

Barack's president. If you are unhappy with what the White House is doing, your criticism would go to him. You would name him, you would attack him with the same zest and vigor that you do Hillary. Last time I checked, Hillary didn't order the death of American citizen. That alone should have outraged Horton enough to drop his sexist attacks on Hillary. It didn't.

Worse than the attacks on Hillary are when Scotty wants to knock cocks with Gareth Porter and they tug on each others limp members while telling you how wonderful Barack is. Yes, Antiwar Radio can't stop f**king over the world in its zest to portray the Great Savior Barack as peace and love.

The last time we noted that show -- "Welcome back, ya'll" -- was that disgusting interview with Gareth where Horton couldn't shut up about 2002 or 2004 and Gareth was allowed to maintain Barack was a person of peace. Remember that? Poor little Barry, person of peace, pressured but overcoming, delivering on campaign promises?

You expect that garbage from the now thankfully defunct Air America Radio -- now scaring more people on TV because TV has "pictures" -- but from Antiwar Radio?

That was garbage. Setting aside the worship of Barack going on, they couldn't even get their other facts right.

It's no surprise that convicted pedophile Pig Scott Ritter was a regular on Antiwar Radio. He had nothing to offer, no facts of value, nothing about the Iraq War after it started, but he was a repeat guests over and over. Guess now that he lost his appeal, he'll have to call in from a prison phone for future segments. It really is amazing the silence on Pig Ritter from all who pimped him. It truly is amazing. But telling.

John Glaser? We were very kind to him when we called out his awful 'report.' If that had appeared in the New York Times, we would have nailed him to the wall. But we did call it out.


And now that bad report is 'source material' at Antiwar.com. Here's the opening to Jason Ditz's bad, bad 'report:'

Iraqi officials say that an agreement has been reached to keep 740 US trainers inside Iraq after December, even after weeks of making a fuss about how no agreement could ever be reached that would keep US troops in the nation.


Where does that link go? The 'fact' backing up the claim? It's Glaser's article about the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, his awful piece of trash article.

Ditz de Jason apparently means "ever after weeks of" the US government "making a fuss about how no agreement could ever be reached that would keep US troops in the nation" since no Iraqi testified at the hearing.

In this community, we covered that hearing in great detail and we covered it accurately. Antiwar.com can not claim to have covered it either in great detail or accurately. Here, you can refer to "Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot," "Scott Brown questions Panetta and Dempsey (Ava)," "The costs (Wally)" and Kat's "Who wanted what?" -- and as we pointed out in the first snapshot, the Committee heard that negotiations with Iraq were ongoing.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta: Senator, as I pointed out in my testimony, what we seek with Iraq is a normal relationship now and that does involve continuing negotiations with them as to what their needs are. Uh, and I believe there will be continuing negotations. We're in negotiations now with regards to the size of the security office that will be there and so there will be -- There aren't zero troops that are going to be there. We'll have, you know, hundreds that will be present by virtue of that office assuming we can work out an agreement there. But I think that once we've completed the implementation of the security agreement that there will begin a series of negotiations about what exactly are additional areas where we can be of assistance? What level of trainers do they need? What can we do with regards to CT [Counter-Terrorism] operations? What will we do on exercises -- joint-exercises -- that work together?

It's a detail Antiwar.com ignored. John Glaser's article was a mismash of bad reporting in the MSM and I really don't think Antiwar.com is supposed to just regurgitate what the MSM (mis)reports. This was not a closed hearing. It was open to the public. I have no idea how much Glaser and Ditz are paid by Antiwar.com but they are paid. They should have been able to attend the hearings as we did or at the very least streamed it online or caught it on CSpan [CSpan broadcasts all Senate (full) Committee hearings -- sadly it doesn't do the same with the House]. But apparently that was too much work. Better to ignore the hearing and glom on bad reporting, or at least that's the impression Glaser's work left and Ditz's work now does.

Ditz can't get his facts right today.

As usual, he builds around the reporting of others. A foreign newspaper whose report includes:

A US military official had said about 700 civilian trainers were expected to remain, along with 157 military personnel attached to the US Embassy's Office of Security Cooperation and a contingent of about 20 to 25 Marine guards.

That's not really accurate. Nor is it new. That foreign newspaper article is really a rip-off of W.G. Dunlop's AFP article published Wednesday -- an article that Reuters had already ripped off and that Press TV had wrongly passed off as an article by The Daily Star.

If Ditz had bothered to attend (watch or stream) the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, he'd know that (a) "Office of Security Cooperation" is a bit more complex than portrayed in the paragraph above, (b) that OSC will have ten "enduring bases" (Gen Martin Dempsey offered that testimony in the hearing in response to questions from Senator Kay Hagan) and that US troops stationed on them are not being included in that count as the paragraph reads and (c) the only thing worse than being day-old news, is being month-old news.

It's a real shame they can't bother to find even one staff member who can read Arabic.

It leads to embarrassing 'reports' like Jason Ditz' report today.

Negotiations continue and what Ditz has reported is not new or recent. Dunlop made it 'new' by speaking to a military official. But what Ditz emphasizes is what was already known to anyone who was paying attention.


And, in fact, those paying attention know a great deal more. (Including that Iraqi officials are stating negotiations right now are exploring "partial immunity" and that the numbers being discussed are in the thousands.)


Antiwar.com should have re-reported the hearing. They didn't. They didn't even correct the article.

Marcia and Mike posted last night:






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