Thursday, June 22, 2006

Contrast control set to max...

... or is this the defining "black and white"?


Remember the little document found in the house where Zarqawi was bombed? The one that set out all of Al Qaeda's plans for world domination and murder of Americans? How true it was!! How a propos as justification for killing Iraqis and anyone else standing in the way of the occupation!!!

How many are now debating the cable sent by Khalilzad to his ultimate boss in Washington, telling him how hard it has got to get good staff these days, how hard their life is outside of the Green Zone?

None that I have seen thus far.

So, I guess that the cable published by WaPo was a fake, a forgery?

It is not as if the news is "new". The earliest WaPo reference I can find at this moment is 7 June
here
-

By Al Kamen
Wednesday, June 7, 2006;

Vice President Cheney's been taking a few wholly unfair hits in recent days on the first anniversary of his observation that the Iraqi insurgency was in its "last throes."

...

And we won't be shocked if the throes go on for quite a while longer, based on a May 6 cable we got the other day from Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad .

"Crime in Iraq is rated by the U.S. State Department as critical and will continue to get worse for the foreseeable future," the embassy in Baghdad reports in the cable, which was addressed to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice .

"Crime, terrorism, and warfare are a significant threat in all parts of Iraq. Active military operations are ongoing. The Department of State continues to strongly warn U.S. citizens against travel to Iraq, which remains very dangerous. Remnants of the former regime, transnational terrorists, criminal elements and numerous insurgent groups remain active.

"Attacks against military and civilian targets continue throughout the country, including inside the international zone. These attacks have resulted in deaths and injuries of American citizens. Planned and random killings are common as are kidnappings for ransom and political reasons."


Fascinating...

UPDATE

Seems that I am not the only one who thinks so...
Summary: On June 18, The Washington Post published a cable sent from the U.S. Embassy in Iraq that detailed the deteriorating conditions observed in Baghdad in recent months. Despite the clear significance of the document, the media have almost entirely ignored its publication.
...
The near absence of coverage extended to print outlets as well. A Lexis-Nexis search of U.S. newspapers and wire services failed to turn up a single follow-up story on the Post's publication of the memo, nor a mention of it in the numerous June 19 articles on Iraq.


And the right whinge is always on about the corrupt liberal press? Here we are, we have the smoking cigar, and the only concrete reference to the cable that they quote is this -
.
By contrast, during an interview on CNN's Late Edition, host Wolf Blitzer challenged Snow's criticism of the war coverage by noting the June 12 cable, which he described as "very, very grim" and "a pretty damning indictment of the current situation." Blitzer said, "I know that many have complained that the news media is only focusing in on the negative, but here the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad paints a pretty stark picture of what's going on right now." In response, Snow argued that the embassy's account was outdated. "Well, that's taken in mid-May," he said. "Here we are, a month later, and I just told you, you've got 50,000 Iraqi troops that are now focusing on those problem areas in Baghdad."

So, in one month, the picture is changed completely?

And people believe this?
___________________________________________________________

At the end is this -
*Correction: The original version of this item incorrectly stated that the memo from the U.S. Embassy in Iraq was dated June 6, one week before President Bush's Baghdad visit. In fact, the memo was dated June 12, one day before Bush traveled to Iraq


Now that makes Al Kamen's op-ed piece REALLY interesting! Especially seeing the cable dateline reads R 121430Z JUN 06 which I would translate as 1430 Zulu 12 Jun 06 and that would tie with the correction on the MediaMatters piece.

4 comments:

Eugene Tan said...

P,
I think you have just made my readers realise your feet are a biological weapon of some sort. Or what boots do you wear that turn your feet into olfactory assault weapons?
Teflonman

The probligo said...

Heh!! I had forgotten that - I was trying to work out between that and my post!!

Goes back to my late teens early twenties when I used to do quite a bit of tramping and shooting...

Over 12 hours in your boots, a pair of boots that got wet yesterday crossing a stream, and two pair of socks that got wet today from crossing another stream, add hot weather and a 35Kg pack and you are "getting out there". Why two pairs of socks? Stops blisters!

After about three days all you can smell is the boots...

Eugene Tan said...

So it's more than 12 hours... That's a lot of work to get those boots to smell. Canvas boots, I presume?

By the way, reading your post above, Singapore is also a place in Australia. Go figure.

The probligo said...

No, leather, hobnailed, midcalf. Hand made for me by a family friend as his "retirement present" to me, renailed after 15 years by the same gent as his 85th birthday present to me. Cowhide outer, laminated leather sole, 3/8th inch thick, calf lined, full length double sewn and glued tongue to keep the water out. Good unless the water comes over the tops...

Anything else you want to know?