Posted on 09/29/2005 7:23:43 PM PDT by jmc1969
An interesting Newsweek story this week – that references CT Blog among its sources – claims scoring a point against what it paints as a “questionable” Bush administration portrayal of Abu Azzam.
In short, the authors of the article, Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball claim the Administration’s leaders aggrandized the real importance of the killed al Qaida commander basing their conclusion on a number of non-identified U.S. counter-terrorism officials and a report posted by our colleague Evan Kohlman on the blog. The “charge” by Newsweek is about the hierarchy of the man. Was he or was he not the “number two” of abu Mussab? In fact, the article’s real problem is in semantics. Was Abu Azzam number two, deputy commander, a top lieutenant, the second most powerful man, or even a future heir for the organization? What seems to be journalistically a one status are in fact multiple functions with various consequences on the War in Iraq, and different statements made by different people. Isikoff and Hoseball are right to “investigate” the matter, as all experts should do, but their fast conclusion missed crucial nuances, crashing analytically.
In their hurry to score a point against “Bush’s War in Iraq” the level of analysis was mixed up ultimately playing in the hands of the Jihadists propaganda as one would forecast in the last paragraph.
(Excerpt) Read more at reportingwar.com ...
The roll will be called.
"Falling for" jihadist propoganda? More like spreading it.
Back before their Koran down the toilet fiasco, I had to subscribe to those News Weak for my Government class. I remember as the buildup to the war was going on, they published a frontpage story entitled, in huge letters, "THE ARROGANT EMPIRE" in reference to the US. They devoted, like, page after page of people slamming "the evil imperialist America."
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Not just spreading it, but also creating it and making it up. The leftwing rags and networks do nothing but aid and abet our enemies on a daily basis.
I also remember, a long time after the fall of Saddam, another front page story that had a picture of insurgents actually POSING for them. They were made on the cover to look like some kind of elite fighting heroes or something. The title screamed: "THE INSURGENTS: WHO THEY ARE, WHY THEY'RE FIGHTING...subtitle: AND WHY ELECTIONS WON'T STOP THEM!!!"
Real fair and balanced.
At the risk of appearing to agree with the article in question, it does sometimes seem that Zarqawi has more "lieutenants" than the average infantry division.
We killed something like 8 Emirs of Mosul (which the media all called Zarqawi aid) in the past year, each one that stepped up was worse then the last and less experienced then the last. Now no one even calls themself al-Qaeda's leader in Mosul out of fear of being targeted.
The pool does dry up it just takes some time. This guy we killed was one of the old guard that led al-Qaeda operations against us at the battle of Fallujah.
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