"You're nothing but a pack of cards!"
Posted on 05/14/2004 6:44:09 AM PDT by Boot Hill
HEAD NOTES:
John Loftus made two references in his report tonight about Nick Berg in relation to the Enemies List situation as well as some derogatory comments about this website. Those quotes are highlighted below in red.
THE JOHN LOFTUS REPORT
The John Batchelor Show
WABC 770 AM News Talk Radio
New York City
Thursday, May 13, 2004
7:35pm, EST
[transcriber's notes in brackets]
JOHN BATCHELOR: I'm John Batchelor, ABC radio. John Loftus is "The Secret War Against the Jews" at John Loftus, [pause] John hyphen Loftus dot org, joins me. We have several stories. We are going, going to approach them circuitously because we are going to get back to the Berg story, eventually. We're going, going to start with Zarqawi and get back to Berg in the second segment because we have combat information from the ground in Iraq. This is a war on terror, there are combat troops in action, right now, as we speak. It is lighting up its theatre. There are combat troops at Fallujah, there are combat troops in the South of Iraq. First we start with Zarqawi. Uhh, information today that Zarqawi IS ON the video tape of Berg's murder and that it's Zarqawi's voice. I go to you John because is that confirmed? What else tells us that it's Zarqawi, the Jordanian mastermind of the chaos in Iraq?
JOHN LOFTUS: Well, a couple of things. First of all, the tape that, uhh, is on the internet, and by the way, I do NOT recommend that you watch it. Umm, the last forty-five seconds are nightmare material, you don't even want to see it. But, the tape is in two parts, first was Berg's message, then apparently, uhh, twelve hours later, approximately, they line him up again in the same chair, and that was when Zarqawi came out and killed him. Now, the voice that spoke in the first tape is pretty conclusively identified as Zarqawi's. Now, the person in the second half of the tape looks like the same man as in the first part of the tape, and the, uhh, the text gives credit to Zarqawi kills an American. So, you know, the CIA is probably on pretty solid ground saying, "yeah it looks like Zarqawi killed him". Umm, a few odd things, he's wearing a gold ring on his hand, which is unusual for a Moslem. He's got the little bit of a limp, which is consistent with Zarqawi's, uhh, a little bit of a shape shifting posture, which is consistent with a guy who's lost his leg. He had that from previous surgery. The Zarqawi beheading tape is sooo sickening to Moslems there's a huge backlash. Now, this for the rumor that this was an American, umm, false tape, that Zarqawi himself was actually killed, someone else is claiming credit for it, they're backtracking all over the place, but the damage has been done.
JOHN BATCHELOR: Alright, Zarqawi's identified by the OGA's [refers to either: Other Government Agency (slang for the CIA), or the private CIA spec-ops subcontracting firm, OGA, Inc.] as on the tape. I...
JOHN LOFTUS: [talk-over, unintelligible] will publicly acknowledge that they believe the voice prints confirm that the person who spoke on the first part of the tape is Zarqawi. Uhh, the man who screamed: "ala akbar", while sawing off his neck, in the second part of the tape, looks [pause] almost certainly to be the same man as the first part.
JOHN BATCHELOR: Alright, I read them backwards, John and you just let me read them backwards here, because there's information in all directions, and these are still early moments here of this video tape. It, it is passing [sic] strange to me that they, the enemy wanted to give us the video tape, but now that it's here, let's look at it. Zarqawi is said to kill Berg on the tape, video tape.
JOHN LOFTUS: Yeah.
JOHN BATCHELOR: They don't have it with...they don't [sic] running a clock when they do that, but at some time of last weekend, which is five days ago...
JOHN LOFTUS: There are two different composites of the tape, yeah...
JOHN BATCHELOR: ...Berg's body is found last weekend in Baghdad, on the roadside outside of Baghdad. And he's said to have been found, his body's said to have been found within the, a day of having been killed. That means, reasoning backwards, that Zarqawi is somewhere within a day's drive, because the...
JOHN LOFTUS: No, I know the roads you're talking about, 250 miles, maximum...
JOHN BATCHELOR: ...of Baghdad. And Zarqawi wants us to know that. We can not presume the enemy is stupid here. So Zarqawi wants to signal that he is within striking distance of Baghdad. All that goes out to his forces. They see him as a powerful, ahh, a Saladin figure, an avenger, who is not frightened of the Americans, who taunts the Americans, within a driving distance of Baghdad.
JOHN LOFTUS: Well, the intel is coming to the opposite conclusion, that Zarqawi has been chased from pillar to post, his organization's getting chewed up, uhh, people are in prisons, people are being, uhh, captured or killed and he had to do something to show that he's still in charge. Zarqawi apparently convinced what remains of leadership of al-Qa'ida, that he should be given command of a whole new department of al-Qa'ida for Iraq. And this is a very rare bureaucratic shift in their organizational structure. So Zarqawi says I'm the big fish, I have to prove to my followers I'm still here, I'm doing something, therefore let me do something outrageous.
JOHN BATCHELOR: Alright, that's what he's done. So, now, now that we've fixed him, we'll come back to this, we'll come back to Berg in the next segment, I want to go to Fallujah. Ahh, the combat situation on the ground is very quiet, John. Perhaps the prison abuse scandal overwhelmed the media. What do we know that's going on in Fallujah?
JOHN LOFTUS: Well, about eighty percent of the city is, uhh, being patrolled by the new Iraqi forces and as of today we had American forces going in with them, no one was shooting. So, it looks as if the tactic has worked. That eighty percent of the city didn't like the Americans coming in, but now that we have, umm, a force recruited, in substantial part of, ahh, native Fallujans, working for, native Fallujans working with America, that seems to be the magic formula to save face. Now the Fallujan answer is that, "oh, there are no more foreigners here, they left a month ago, they all took off and hid". It's possible. Umm, the new, ahh, Fallujah brigade is notoriously lax on checking the papers of cars going in and out. A lot of that is probably a good thing, you want to give the city a sense of calm. What I hear is that its going to take another week and then the hammer will fall, that some of these guys may still be in there, but, uhh, you know, we're trying to make that we're not fighting the entire city of Fallujah, just the little bad guys in one little corner of it.
JOHN BATCHELOR: Moving to the South. Sadr. I played a clip from several days ago about a strike against Sadr, Sadr's forces in the South. It, it's spread out over sev... several cities, Karbala, Najaf and others in the South...
JOHN LOFTUS: It's everywhere, but Kufah. It's Karbala, Najaf, we had U.S. troops in tanks rolling into, uhh, the center city today. And, umm, the people in the street are just overjoyed, they're saying, look, you know, umm, we've been without food for three days, we can last another week, we've gotta get these guys outta here. There is just real disgust. The test comes tomorrow, there's supposed to be a massive march of, umm, Najaf Shi'ites to protest al-Sadr's continued presence. We'll see if that happens, uhh, last time they attempted this, uhh, al-Sadr's supporters started firing guns in the air. There was a similar rally with a shoving match where, you know, al-Sadr's people were chanting: "all the people are behind al-Sadr", and the whole crowd started roaring back: "all the people are behind al-Sistani".
JOHN BATCHELOR: Al-Sistani is the, is the Shi'ia Imam leader of Southern Iraq.
JOHN LOFTUS: Yeah, he is the leader of the four grand Ayatollahs and they really, really don't like al-Sadr. So his troops are being attrited substantially in Karbala, substantially in Najaf, umm, they're blowing up their ammo warehouses, they're taking them out, we have Marine snipers and military snipers on every three and four story building in Najaf and Karbala and they're doing a really good job of attriting these guys.
JOHN BATCHELOR: Now, it is Friday morning, it is coming Friday morning in Iraq, there'll be prayers this morning, so for the last many weeks, Sadr comes out and makes and inflammatory and accusatory and threatening and damaging, umm, umm, speech and that played in al-Jazeera and that lead to, ahh, a weekend of violence.
JOHN LOFTUS: You know John, this may be one of the best weeks we've had [laughter], coming up. And here's this guy al-Sadr, who says: "everybody rally behind me, let's kill the Americans", and al-Jazeera jumps on his bandwagon, the Europeans jump on his bandwagon, and you know what? The Iraqis didn't.
JOHN BATCHELOR: Now nothing happened...
JOHN LOFTUS: ...nothing happened.
JOHN BATCHELOR: ...it's the dog that's not barking, at least in terms of Najaf and Karbala and Southern Iraq and that, uhh, that attack on the, uhh, British troops as Basra did not continue. So, so we're going to come back to Zarqawi, Zarqawi who may be within a day of Baghdad, uhh, you don't have to comment, John. But we'll come back to this, because I want to talk about Berg. Some of the information that's coming out about Berg, the murdered Nick Berg, that is, umm, that, that has to be dealt with. We have to deal with the information, because it's been all pieces all over the place.
JOHN LOFTUS: Yeah, its, a lot of it is screwy stuff. Nick Berg's father was a, umm, an opponent of Bush's war and Nick Berg, the late Nick Berg, was, umm, a supporter of it. He thought the that, well, to be fair, he was a kid that went to a lot of areas where people were beleaguered, umm, he was a microwave tower specialist, who would climb up microwaves [sic] and repair them, a very rare specialty, you know, it seems he'd made seventy thousand bucks in the last month, he was doing well. The FBI said, you know: "come on kid, get out of town" and he said: "alright, I will". So, he was getting ready to go and he got grabbed.
JOHN BATCHELOR: When we come back we are going to deal with some of the details that are emerging about Nick Berg, Nick Berg's last month...
JOHN LOFTUS: Oh, yeah.
JOHN BATCHELOR: This is John Batchelor, ahh, with John Loftus, "The Secret War Against the Jews". I'm in Stanford University, the Hoover Institution. This is ABC radio.
[station break]
JOHN BATCHELOR: I'm John Batchelor, ABC radio, continuing with John Loftus of "The Secret War Against the Jews", I want to speak of Berg again, John. We have Zarqawi identified as the killer. Berg, uhh, he's in Iraq and then he leaves and then he comes back to Iraq. Uhh, the details emerging today, his sister, his deceased sister was married to an Iraqi and he may or may not have traveled to Mosul to meet with his sister's, umm, husband.
JOHN LOFTUS: Yeah, he did. He met with his uncle, it took a three week search, they finally hooked up. He spent a couple of days when the uncle was very nervous about his presence because he was a white American, uhh, in a dangerous neighborhood. Umm, this is a kid that just loved adventure. Now something odd has happened in this case. Umm, they've found that the used computer that Moussoui bought, he was one of the, uhh, you know, al-Qa'ida terrorists captured in America. The computer that he bought came from Richard [sic] Berg. Now what do we make of that? Well, umm, perhaps, uhh, nothing more than one guy bought a used computer from another one. Uhh, perhaps it mean that, uhh, you know, maybe there is, uhh, a leftist group supporting al-Qa'ida within the United States, helping them out with things. Uhh, his dad's name, uhh, popped up on an enemies list from an ultra-right wing site listing all of the groups and organizations, that according to their sad little likes, are anti-American... [emphasis added]
JOHN BATCHELOR: John, let's go back to the computer for just a moment.
JOHN LOFTUS: Yes.
JOHN BATCHELOR: Uhh, I understand intelligence gathering is just putting a lot of dots down and not making any connection until you're, you're, until you can...
JOHN LOFTUS: Yeah.
JOHN BATCHELOR: ...But a computer, we know that, that, computers have been critical for a lot of, ahh, ahh, a lot of intelligence gathering here, I, I remember that CD that Zarqawi wrote in February about the, the battle plan for what is now Fallujah and, and the, and Najaf and other attacks on America. So, the, the computer owned by Nick Berg is bought by Moussoui, Moussoui who has now been under, in custody in America since August of 2001. Is that the same Moussoui, or have I got this wrong?
JOHN LOFTUS: Same guy. It's, uhh, the FBI investigated this previously and said there's nothing to the story, it's just one of those weird little coincidences of life.
JOHN BATCHELOR: John, is this a weird coincidence that we need to come back to? [pause] That's what's bothering me about it.
JOHN LOFTUS: Yeah, I know it, it may be nothing more than that, John, something, sometimes these weird things happen. Umm...
JOHN BATCHELOR: I know, but of all the, of all the gin joints in all the world, you had to walk into mine, [unintelligible]...
JOHN LOFTUS: How did Moussoui end up with his computer, I know! [laughter]
JOHN BATCHELOR: I know, well just put it down it down as coincidence, but Berg, we can presume, John, that out there are some major league journalists, who are pursuing the last days of Nick Berg, to see what happened to him after April 9th, when he [talk-over, unintelligible]...
JOHN LOFTUS: And his friends are coming forward, they're saying: "yeah, he spent time with us. We stayed at this flop house used by poor journalists and aid workers." and, uhh, he said: "Oh yeah, I was imprisoned, it was really cool" and uhh, you know, he had an enjoyable [unintelligible] time. Didn't seem to be particularly political, he, uhh, supported what we were trying to do over there, and was, quite frankly, trying to make himself a little bit of money. That seems to be the gist of what his friends and acquaintances are saying about his last days. But then up pops this Moussoui computer, up pops his dad being listed on this, uhh, ultra-radical right wing site on the internet... [emphasis added]
JOHN BATCHELOR: And what does the FBI think John? Because, we do know, we have known for several days, that they talked to him. Did they, did they, in the inter..., I mean they take a form out, what is it called, a four thirty five, or whatever the FBI has to fill out? Why is the FBI in Mosul talking to Berg? I mean, are they, are they just, is this, are they, are they tasked for, for Iraq, is the FBI over [talk-over, unintelligible]?
JOHN LOFTUS: Yeah, that's a normal assignment, umm, Legats, Legal Attaches, they will be there because, you know, there might be things happening in Iraq that affect American FBI operations, and so it's not unusual to have them there. I...
JOHN BATCHELOR: Is it, is it unusual that you get to the level of being called upon by the FBI if you're in custody...
JOHN LOFTUS: Well, he was an American citizen. What happened, I guess, was that the kid was out celebrating, was kind of, he admitted to one of his friends he was walking drunk on the streets, he got picked up, he had a Jewish sounding name, he had an Israeli stamp in his passport and the Iraqi said: "Oh, you're an Israeli spy". He threw him in prison and the FBI visited him a couple of times and said: "No he's not, he's just a kid and twenty-eight years old and looking for some adventure". And the, but the FBI said: "get out of town". That seems to be the story that is consistently coming down from U.S. intel tonight.
JOHN BATCHELOR: So far. Alright, just a moment here, John. Ahh, because we only, and we'll come back to the prison story that Rummy's been dealing with and we're running out of time. I'm sorry I went so, 'cause the computer just threw me off, John.
JOHN LOFTUS: It's a weird one, isn't it?
JOHN BATCHELOR: Yeah, ahh, more than weird, John. I mean, ahh, you understand I come from the world of novels. If I'm writing a plot, I don't put that in the plot, unless I can control it.
JOHN LOFTUS: You know, but, the real world is so bizarre, that coincidences like this are normal. It's, it's, this stuff happens.
JOHN BATCHELOR: Alright, let's, let's just for a moment go to the fact that yesterday, a video, another video was released, of England, the accused woman in the ring in the, in the prison responsible for those, uhh, for those photographs. It looks like she's got a lawyer and he's going to be aggressive about putting her on the talk show circuit.
JOHN LOFTUS: Oh, yeah.
JOHN BATCHELOR: So, where's this investigation going? We just have a minute. This investigation, are they all talking, all the accused non-coms, are they all pointing fingers at each other?
JOHN LOFTUS: Well, they're trying to say our bosses told us to do it, but the problem with that is they've done a triple check today, the standing orders that came down were very strict. General Abizaid never signed off on any permission for any sort of abusive interrogation...
JOHN BATCHELOR: And the off..., and the non-coms don't have any paper to prove off their acc..., to prove their accusations, do they?
JOHN LOFTUS: Exactly.
JOHN BATCHELOR: Alright, alright, we'll come back to the prison abuse story, because Rumsfeld went over for that. And we'll come back to the computer again tomorrow, John, as I do a little more thinking about this one. I'm going to, everybody out there, you participate in this: Moussoui, arrested in Minnesota in August of 2001. He's got a computer, in that computer, which we've talked about for two years, was some evidence that could have stopped nine-eleven, but now it turns out that computer came from Nick Berg. Thank you John. This is John Batchelor, ABC radio. I'm going to India next, because there's a surprise and stunning reversal of fortune. Major democracy on the earth, India. This is ABC radio.
It has been, that's where I got it from. That weird tidbit and about half a dozen more, just as weird.
--Boot Hill
but how does he jive this "they think people who don't support the war are unpatriotic" comment with his own views? He wants everybody taken out over there, he dislikes the UN and Blix et al, I just don't get it.
Tip of the cap to you, Sir...
That's been reported since March of 2003. I believe the NYT ran the story first. But what trips Loftus up, is when he tries to connect that to the recent story about the supposed WMD attack that Jordan broke up (in April). Loftus claimed the Jordanians captured VX and sarin. Funny thing about that, have you noticed that no one has run and disclosed the chemical tests that could verify that single most critical fact of the entire story? Guess why that might be?
--Boot Hill
The people you are describing are not MOABITES nor the lunatics I was speaking off and I am sure you know that.
Those of whom I speak are NOT informative, NOT quick on the uptake and NOT a positive reflection on FR.
For examples go back and look at the threads on Fallujah and tell me that those screeching to "Destroy everything, bomb, kill, bomb, kill" are good representatives of FR or anything serious.
Nothing you said disputes what I said though it was a nice rhetorical flourish capable of ingratiating you with some.
You have to understand that portion of the show is the most popular,you have to take it with a grain of salt.like debka file..right 50-70% of the time (may take awhile)some blarney but entertaining amd at least he goes out on a tree with the info.would you rather get the times,cnn,bbc,npr cbs etc etc etc...
but what about the claim that Jordan made about how many people the attack was supposed to kill? what kind of chemicals could do that? Or was that casualty figure just made up by the Jordanians?
I had someone else me ask about those ironies about a week ago. Here is (mol) how I answered him...
Check out these two bio pages (here and here) from Loftus' own website, where you will find several facets of his background that might explain that irony.
He is a former U.S. Army officer and claims to have helped train Israelis on certain aspects of covert operations that were useful during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. While Loftus is an Irish Catholic he is also President of the Florida Holocaust Museum. Nobody who has worked with and developed an affection for Israel and its people, could ever subscribe, in any great measure, to the left's view of the Middle East that is based simply on "Western imperialism". The Arab hatred and violence towards Israel is just too visceral and demonstrable. It is obvious to all but the intentionally blind that the Arab Middle East seeks nothing less than the complete destruction of Israel.
Loftus is also a former Justice Department prosecutor, a position which gave him access to some pretty top level classified information. While at the Justice Department, he worked many of the Nazi war criminal cases and has written about this in several of his subsequent books. Today, he sees the Nazi's as a dark sub-plot to everything that is happening in the world and looks for Nazi's under every bed (sort of a modern day James Jesus Angleton of the anti-Nazi set).
Loftus is a published author and is putting the final touches on his fifth book about the Middle East. He considers his books to be works of history, rather than fancy, but the man is so taken with "the intrigue of intrigue", that his books quickly wander off into Clancy-esque conspiratorial plots and unsupportable speculation. (And that's where he gets into trouble on the issue of WMD and its connection to the so-called Jordanian chemical bomb plot.)
He is a complex individual and not one you can easily categorize in the usual boxes. But a common theme runs throughout his commentaries and that is, that Loftus views the world through such heavily tinted, left-wing political glasses, that he is not a trustworthy source of intelligence about what is happening in the Middle East. His derogatory comments about FR (above), should tell you that much.
--Boot Hill
--Boot Hill
It may still be too early to tell for sure, but I suspect that the answer to your above question is: None, they didn't capture any significant amount of WMD chemicals.
--Boot Hill
Nick's father has a deceased sister who was married to an Iraqi.
you have to take it with a grain of saltI listen to the Loftus report virtually every night, more for its entertainment value than enlightenment (I don't think Loftus can ever live down his months-long "Saddam is still dead" mantra : )
When I heard Loftus mention the "ultra-right-wing site" on last night's show, I did pick up a certain reticence in his tone but didn't think any more about it till I saw this thread. By trying to dismiss FR with hackneyed rhetoric, Loftus only discredits himself, and Boot Hill is right to call him on it.
Eagles Up!
Since I have a very different perspective on fighting a war with people who wish to murder us all, I suggest you respect that and not refer to me or any other freeper as a lunatic.
For some more insight to Loftus and his real game go to this thread and then to some of the links:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1078633/posts
John Loftus Is Another Bush-Bashing Crackpot
John Loftus Website ^ | February 15, 2004 | John Loftus
Posted on 02/15/2004 9:41:37 AM PST by Hon
I never said FR was "a group of lunatics" so don't try and say that I did. What I did was decry those whose brains are kept in reserve while they shout "kill, bomb, kill" and second guess our leaders who have done a magnificent job in fighting our enemies. I have no use for these people and if you want to include yourself that is your prerogative. Embarassing FR and making it look ridiculous is something I try to avoid, others do not and say incredibly brainless or ignorant things. Nuking this and nuking that or leveling this or leveling that are not comments which will gain the respect of serious minded people. The rest I do not care about.
I respect only the respectable and don't pretend those who aren't are. In particular I do not respect the RATmedia nor those who join it in unwarranted, dangerous and insidious attempts to undermine President Bush WHO IS TAKING THE WAR TO THOSE WHO WANT TO KILL US. Anyone who truly wishes for such a result should refrain from attacks on the President and his advisors all of whom are dedicated to just that result.
Ah, that 'splains the uncle reference. I'll bet he was a little nervous. Probably didn't want to advertise to the neighbors either that he had been married to a Jewish woman, assuming he's a muslim.
--Boot Hill
Thanks for putting this up. Once again Loftus show he does not check the rumors he hears. (In addition to what he outright makes up himself)
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