Say Anything Blog

Rob, who’s releasing this information?  The so-called MSM is reporting, so where are they getting the information, from the military.  Why aren’t you livid about that?

Was I not clear enough about being angry at the person who leaked the information in addition to the reporters who diseminated it?

Try reading the posts before you comment.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

I did read it and re-read it and it is still clear that your venom is directed at the “MSM”. so No, Rob, it isn’t clear.

Must have missed this part then:

Look at the statement bolded above. The official who gave these details to the press did so anonymously because of the sensitivity of the matter. That’s baloney. He/she did so because if they didn’t they’d be fired from their job.

Or conveniently overlooked it.

But, if it makes you feel better, I think the leaker should be fired for leaking this information.  And shame on the media for reporting it.

These troops deserve better than this.  There should be a presumption of innocence, and they aren’t getting it.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Rob: I thought you were very clear on the matter.  Furthermore, the anynomous leaker was only identified as a “defense official”.  That could be anyone, including a janitor in charge of emptying wastebaskets at the DOD.  The other lie here is that there was a coverup.  The military prefers to keep politics out of its investigations; that’s not a coverup.

Rob: I thought you were very clear on the matter.

Of course you did.  That’s because I was clear.

Puzzle doesn’t get it because she’s a partisan who can’t see past her biases and has an axe to grind.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

CNN on the troops involved

By Arwa Damon
CNN
Wednesday, May 31, 2006;

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN)—It actually took me a while to put all the pieces together—that I know these guys, the U.S. Marines at the heart of the alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians in Haditha.

Regarding leaks, it’s OK to be angry at both the leaker and the reporter who quoted them anonymously.  Both are complicit in establishing a very dangerous atmosphere for all of our soldiers over there.

Interesting side note; I got banned from someone else’s weblog because I dared to point out that using information like this was gossip.  Oh well.

(and no, I’m not going to name names!)

Doc I posted the intro paragraph and the link for people to read it. I hid nothing.

Peace it is Doc.  Your comments were not extreme by local community standards.

I just heard a report on the Haditha incident that listed 18 of the 24 killed were terrorists.  If true, there is another lie of omission in the MSM.  Let the truth come out!

R, where did that report come from?

rbb:  What did your report say about the composition of the dead?  Let the truth come out!  I can’t vouch for anything I’ve heard about this incident, so all info is equally in question for me.  It just raises some interesting questions, and since we are all simply speculating here, mine is as good as anyone else’s.

I’m sorry. I guess I my question wasn’t quite a clear as it should have been. Let me try again.
R, where did that report come from?

From the media, where all of yours come from.  They are all hearsay right now.  Thought I made that clear.  I don’t play the game of “diss the source”.  They are all equally questionable to me.

rbb: What did your report say about the composition of the dead?

Ah, the media.
Will you give us a link so we can have all of the info out there? I would like to be as well informed as you are.

I have not filed a report on dead, have you?

Here’s an example:  “Forensic evidence from corpses showed that victims had bullet wounds, despite the initial statements by Marines that the civilians were killed by a roadside bomb that also claimed the life of a soldier, a defense official said.”

The first reports I read said it was about retaliation, which was what Murtha spewed about with his stuff about the Marines not being able to handle the stress of the situation in Iraq. If so, the bullet wounds make sense.  It was not originally claimed that the dead were killed by a roadside bomb.  The dead Marine was killed by a roadside bomb, but not the Iraqis, be they terrorists, civilians who were being used as shields, or whatever.  Knowing something about Marine training, it isn’t credible to me that they couldn’t handle the stress of battle, but Murtha is on record as wanting more troops there, in service of his political criticism of this administration, so he has an axe to grind here.

rbb: Don’t be silly, now.  I meant the report upon which you base your criticisms.  Did it detail who was who among the dead bodies?

I would like to read that story.
Do you know how do make a link?

rbb: I’m asking you a specific question.  What did the report on which you base your conclusions say about the composition of the dead?  Can you answer that question?

If you dont know how to make a link, thats ok. I am not the best at it either.

When I first heard of this incident sometime around New Years the word was this patrol ate an IED, troops dismounted and secured the area and prepared to Medvac their casualties. It was 30 to 40 minutes later that they began taking fire from residential structures. One rifle team gave suppressive fire while the second maneuvered to engage. They cleared the structures and during weapons collection and search of enemy dead they found several women and children. None of which was ever official, just the woed around the campfire, as it is said. This is a set of circumstance that is repeated regularly in Iraq. When your enemy uses children and women as cover and sheilds this shit will happen. Why are we blaming the Marines? Why no condemnation of the terrorists?

Liberating the Iraqis one person at a time.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. forces killed two Iraqi women — one of them about to give birth — when the troops shot at a car that failed to stop at an observation post in a city north of Baghdad, Iraqi officials and relatives said Wednesday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060531/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_women_killed_7
Oh yeah, they hate us because of our Freedumb.

As I said, boob, why no condemnation of the terrorists? Who has created an enviroment in which speeding cars which refuse to stop are fired on? OH! I know! It was Starbucks! No, that ain’t it. Had to be J.C. Penney’s! Yea! Those evil, corporate, satanic, boogerheads. Naw. Couldn’t a been them. I know!! It was the ACLU! Those paganistic, Godless, commie bastards! Nope. They ain’t got the mental capacity for anything that complicated. AWW! Now it comes clear. It is the terrorists. A basic part of their strategy from the beginning. See? That was not so hard to figure out. Even for a fucking idiot like you.

Who has created an enviroment in which speeding cars which refuse to stop are fired on?

The U.S. military.

Remember when they splattered the parents’ brains and blood all over little children in the back seat?

And then there was this boy:
http://www.ccmep.org/2003_articles/Iraq/040603_one_boys_war.htm

It was because of people like you little Idiot Savant, who dress up in chickenhawk flight suits and go scare the living crap out of Iraqis.  And you love that, don’t you?

Jassim’s brother, who was wounded by broken glass, said he did not see any warnings as he sped his sister to the hospital. Her husband was waiting for her there.

“I was driving my car at full speed because I did not see any sign or warning from the Americans. It was not until they shot the two bullets that killed my sister and cousin that I stopped,” he said.

We weren’t there so we don’t know what happened. But some more innocent Iraqis are dead and we paid for it.

Jassim’s brother, who was wounded by broken glass, said he did not see any warnings as he sped his sister to the hospital. Her husband was waiting for her there.

“I was driving my car at full speed because I did not see any sign or warning from the Americans. It was not until they shot the two bullets that killed my sister and cousin that I stopped,” he said.

We weren’t there so we don’t know what happened. But some more innocent Iraqis are dead and we paid for it.

Your so right Dhimi diane, American troops drive cars filled with explosives into crowded markets and Mosque courtyards. Not terrorists! They are happy, shiny people who only want to hand out candy and give children face paintings of flowers. Your such a lame assed moron.

rbb: I don’t play the “trading links” game.  I gave you the info I have, and asked for the info you have on the same subject.  Is that so difficult?

Yeah, there is doc.  That’s why I normally don’t respond to them.

Hahahaha.  Robert can’t find links.  So dependable.

American troops drive cars filled with explosives into crowded markets and Mosque courtyards

Well, we’ve caught the British SAS doing that sort of thing.

I ain’t debating. Like I said the other day, this is like shooting fish nailed to a board. Just too easy.

And I do have the link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Air_Service

On 19 September 2005, two supposed SAS members were arrested in the city of Basra in Iraq. Iraqi police claimed the two were arrested trying to plant bombs dressed in civilian clothing and had shot at police officers. The arrests sparked clashes in which British armoured personnel carriers came under attack from petrol bombs. Later, official Iraqi sources said that British tanks knocked down a wall storming the city’s jail and rescuing the soldiers. The British Ministry of Defence initially said that the men’s release was negotiated and the tanks were merely trying to collect them. They later, however, claimed that the police had illegally handed the men over to Shi’a militia and it was from these that they had to be rescued.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2005/200905stagedterror.htm

In another example of how the Iraqi quagmire is deliberately designed to degenerate into a chaotic abyss, British SAS were caught attempting to stage a terror attack and the media have dutifully shut up about the real questions surrounding the incident.

What is admitted is that two British soldiers in Arab garb and head dress drove a car towards a group of Iraq police and began firing. According to the Basra governor Mohammed al-Waili, one policeman was shot dead and another was injured. Pictured below are the wigs and clothing that the soldiers were wearing.

rbb, notice the pattern.  They blather off the top of their heads.  We post legitimate links that shoot them down.

It just keeps going on and on that way.

I’m bored.  See you later.

Diane here is some more feul for you

No. Once again your lame. They were caught planting explosives against the outer wall of a house being used as a militia arms cache. And the second story was never attached to any foriegners. The disguises appeared to be someone trying to pass themselves off as women, not Iraqis. Try again, lame ass.

Puzzlefeet:

I did read it and re-read it and it is still clear that your venom is directed at the “MSM”. so No, Rob, it isn’t clear.

I see reading lessons in your future.  In the mean time, let me help:

e official who gave these details to the press did so anonymously because of the sensitivity of the matter. That’s baloney. He/she did so because if they didn’t they’d be fired from their job. If the sensitivity of this matter were of importance to anyone in the media reporters wouldn’t be blaring confidential preliminary findings in headlines.

The ambiguity is exactly...where?

r108 said

It was not originally claimed that the dead were killed by a roadside bomb. The dead Marine was killed by a roadside bomb, but not the Iraqis, be they terrorists, civilians who were being used as shields, or whatever.

News24.com says

Forensic evidence from corpses showed that victims had bullet wounds, despite the initial statements by marines that the civilians were killed by a roadside bomb that also claimed the life of a soldier, a defence official said.

Canada.com said

Initial reports by the Marine Corps had suggested that 15 civilians and one Marine were killed by a roadside bomb on November 19, 2005, and that eight insurgents were subsequently killed when the Marines returned fire against those attacking the convoy.

John Gibson of Fox News said

The original story of the incident said the civilians were also killed by the roadside bomb that killed the Marine. That appears to be not true and the military is running a full-scale investigation.

Can you recall the source of your information?

Forgot to link this.

For all you “linkers” out there:

HADITHA MARINE: INSURGENTS USE KIDS
By Michelle Malkin · May 31, 2006 09:30 PM

The Marines speak(It’s the first article on the page):

http://www.michellemalkin.com

It’s just nice to get something other than the MSM version of things, which I have come to mistrust, and for good reason.

MikeA: Hope that answers your questions.  For whatever reason, this is the first version of the story I ever heard; the vehicle was destroyed by an IED, the Marine was killed, and the other Marines went looking for the guys who did it.  What happened after that is the subject of conjecture.  This other version then became popular later, possibly because it smeared the Marines with the allegation of a coverup as well as an “atrocity”.  For me, it’s all too convenient, and what the Marine reports jibes with the earlies reports I heard, and with Marine behavior in general.  Anything is possible, I guess, but today’s behavior of the MSM in bringing up the specter of My Lai, which I predicted yesterday, just smells bad to me. 
Whenever the enemy uses civilians for cover, which is what the terrorists have done in Iraq, bad things can happen.  The MSM doesn’t seem to factor this in, however.  Shame on them!

Hmmmm..my Michele Malkin article last night talked about how horrific the Marine alleged killings were.

Maybe Michelle is becoming confused on where she stands.  It eventually gets to people on the Right.

No. Once again your lame. They were caught planting explosives against the outer wall of a house being used as a militia arms cache. And the second story was never attached to any foriegners. The disguises appeared to be someone trying to pass themselves off as women, not Iraqis. Try again, lame ass.

TwoHotel9 on May 31, 2006 at 7:55 PM

Hahaha.  Little Idiot Savant spouts off the top of his head again with absolutely no links or proof.  Go ahead, little Idiot Boy.  At least post a link.  As if anyone in their right mind would take your word for anything.  If I can read it from some source other than the Tourette Foundation, I’ll give you a gold star.

This is the childish “diss the link” game.  Like any intelligent person, Michelle updates all the time.  Since this is a developing story, Murtha and the MSM notwithstanding, new stuff keeps coming out. Let’s wait until the whole story comes out, if you want justice.  If you want fodder for your partisan attacks, why bother with the truth?

Well, here’s an update for Michelle:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13071849/

Haditha probe finds false reports
Inquiry also expected to call for changes in how U.S. troops are trained

The U.S. military investigation of how Marine commanders handled the reporting of events last November in the Iraqi town of Haditha, where troops allegedly killed 24 Iraqi civilians, will conclude that some officers gave false information to their superiors, who then failed to adequately scrutinize reports that should have caught their attention, an Army official said yesterday.

Even before the final report is delivered, Army Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to order today that all U.S. and allied troops in Iraq undergo new “core values” training in how to operate professionally and humanely. Not only will leaders discuss how to treat civilians under the rules of engagement, but small units also will be ordered to go through training scenarios to gauge their understanding of those rules. “It’s going to include everyone in the coalition,” the official said.

*************

Now if they can retrain the lying leftie MSM to report the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, we might have something there.

Let’s not forget here that we have yet to hear from an official source.  All of what is being discussed here is gossip, nothing more, nothing less.

Maybe if we quit aiding and abetting leakers, we’d be blessed as we heard only from those who are honest enough to name their names with their reports and provide a reason that we should take them seriously.

If reports are true and there was a cover up, we would never have heard of this (or Mei Lai for that matter) without whistle blowers and the pro American media.

Now that the story is out, let’s have the truth, all of it.

Yeah, we’ll get the ‘truth’ and they’ll most likely be put on trial and disappear into a black hole for awhile, to re-emerge into society without fanfare, roaming the streets among the rest of us, angry, PTSD’d up the yim yam and angry and sick as heck.

That’s the kind of thing we have to look forward to alot here.

All together now:  Oh, Ted Rall, you mean that leftie commie subversive cartoonist???????

The heck with y’all.

*************

The 10,000th Haditha.

By Ted Rall

06/01/06 “Information Clearing House”—-- NEW YORK--

Months after Time magazine reported that U.S. Marines had carried out a My Lai-style massacre of at least two dozen innocent Iraqi civilians, the average “support our troops” American is waking up and smelling the butchery.

As usual, the U.S. government tried to cover up the mass murder--it initially claimed that the victims were blown up by an insurgent IED. But, as Time reported in March, the “civilians who died in Haditha on Nov. 19 were killed not by a roadside bomb but by the Marines themselves, who went on a rampage in the village after the attack, killing 15 unarmed Iraqis in their homes, including seven women and three children.” As at My Lai, the bloodlust was not easily sated. “The raids took five hours and left at least 23 people dead.”

Jane and Joe Sixpack are shocked. (NOT HERE ON THE OL’ BLOG, TED!!!)Congressional Democrats are calling for an investigation and, for once, will probably get one. Political analysts worry that the Haditha massacre could hurt U.S. propaganda efforts even more than the infamous photos of torture at its Abu Ghraib concentration camp. 

So far reaction to Haditha has been the reverse of what you might expect. Republicans and other pro-war types are running around like it’s the end of the world. Meanwhile the streets of Arab capitals, recently ablaze over the Danish Mohammed cartoon controversy, are quiet.

The reason is simple: For Iraqis, American atrocities are old news, dating back to the invasion in March 2003 and a full decade earlier. (U.S. planes dropped so many bombs on Iraqi schools, hospitals and power plants during the 1990s that they ran out of targets.) So are the boulevards of New York, San Francisco and other cities where hundreds of thousands of American lefties once marched against the invasion of Iraq.

“As the war in Iraq rages on,” CBS News’ Dotty Lynch asks, “Where are the young people this time around? Where are the campuses? Where are the new Tom Haydens and Sam Browns and where are the Noam Chomskys, William Sloane Coffins and Daniel Berrigans?” Well, Chomsky’s still around. Over a million young Americans, many of them college students, protested Iraq. They certainly had allies in the media. (Hi.)

But The System is even less responsive to protest now than it was during Vietnam. State-run media made fun of antiwar activists as tattooed neo-hippies, called them treasonous and refused airtime to Administration critics. When is the last time a hard-hitting opponent of the Iraq war showed his or her face on national TV? Those of us who raised our voices against this war from the start, having fruitlessly complained about stories of battlefield abuse reported by the European media, are suffering from marginalization fatigue.

Meanwhile, in the “new” Iraq, Abdel Salam al-Qubaisy of Iraq’s Sunni Muslim Scholars Association says, U.S. massacres of civilians occur routinely. “The American soldier has become an expert in killing,” he shrugs.

Abd Mohammed Falah, a Ramadi attorney, says: “U.S. forces have committed more crimes against the Iraqi people than appears in the media. The U.S. defense secretary and his generals should be sent to court instead of two or three soldiers who will be scapegoats.”

Newspapers don’t bother to report when the sun rises in the east nor do they assign reporters to cover when dogs bite men. Likewise, says Baghdad newspaper boy Imad Mohammed, Iraqi newspapers haven’t mentioned Haditha. Same-old, same-old massacres of Iraqis by American forces are no longer news: “The Americans see a Muslim go into a mosque and just assume he is a terrorist. They either arrest him or blow it up.”

Rami Khouri, editor at The Daily Star in Lebanon tells NPR that Haditha is “not a huge story [in the Middle East]. It’s getting a lot of coverage in the United States, obviously, but most people in the Arab world are against what the United States did in Iraq...They say look, this was a catastrophe from the beginning and they’re not surprised that this is happening. They kind of take it in stride because everything the United States is doing in Iraq is seen as morally and politically unacceptable.”

Most of the world’s population--including virtually every Muslim and about a third Americans--always believed that the war against Iraq was a genocidal attempt to intimidate the Muslim world and extort its oil at gunpoint. They don’t see a difference between Haditha and the thousands of other Iraqis killed by U.S. forces since 2003. Because the entire exercise was morally bankrupt from the outset, sold and perpetuated with countless lies, all of the 200,000-plus civilians and Iraqi soldiers who have died--whether by bomb or by bullet--were effectively murdered by the U.S. military.
Haditha, where two dozen were executed, was merely the 10,000th Haditha.

The morality-come-latelies still don’t understand that nothing good will ever come out of the U.S. war against Iraq. Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says that massacres of civilians by U.S. soldiers do “not happen very frequently, so there’s no way to say historically why something like this might have happened.” Actually, similar incidents have taken place in every war, including World War II. Pace’s statement is either a dazzling display of ahistorical ignorance or a bald-faced lie--take your pick. Pace adds that if some of his men committed an atrocity at Haditha, they “have not performed their duty the way that 99.9 percent of their fellow Marines have.”

That’s not what the Iraqis say.
Ted Rall is the editor of “Attitude 3: The New Subversive Online Cartoonists ,” a new anthology of webcartoons. Visit his website http://www.tedrall.com

Not only Iraqi insurgents use kids.

Palestinians, who seem to hate their own children, use them to test IDF vigilance.

Go and take a look at the picture of the future Islamic fascists-in-training.

Just disgusting.

Diane, please consider your sources.  Ted Rall?  The head of the “Muslim Scholars Association?” Come on! 

Yes, it’s true that a flawed source does not necessarily impeach the content.  However, the fact that a known biased source (Rall) uses other known biased source ought to compel us to use other sources to verify or deny this.

And when this happens (using private, not state run media as Rall claims), Rall’s claims are not corroborated.

Like McCrackpot and others’ completely unbiased sources here?

Sure, Robert Perry.  If you impose the same rules on them as on me.

Living monument to journalistic integrity, Ted Rall. Nope. Lightning did not strike me down.

Diane, the Jerusalem Post is a respected regional newspaper.  Ted Rall is...well, I’m guessing that Rob wants to keep this a family website.

Naw, come on, RP! Don’t hide your light under a bushel basket, tell us what you really think.