Posted on 02/16/2006 4:58:25 PM PST by edcoil
Remember the storya couple weeks ago about the high school student that just flew to Iraq to see what was going on? Well it was a lie.
His father is a criminal expelled from Florida, US living in Iraq that sent letter to school before leaving to allow the time off.
From Kuwaitt he helped his son get into Iraq and meet with Hamas and other terrorist leaders.
Seems our mainstream presented us a complete lie - I wonder what he brought back since PS would not allow checking his luggage on return.
Rodges show will have links up soon. www.rogerhedgecock.com and you can see the news on the homelandsecurityus.com websites.
Keep Us Informed.....
real links?
Remember the story a couple weeks ago about the high school student that just flew to Iraq to see what was going on? Well it was a lie.
His father is a criminal expelled from Florida, US living in Iraq that sent letter to school before leaving to allow the time off.
From Kuwaitt he helped his son get into Iraq and meet with Hamas and other terrorist leaders. Seems our mainstream presented us a complete lie -
I wonder what he brought back since PC would not allow checking his luggage on return.
Rodgers show will have links up soon....
Sorry, corrected.
What? The MSM lied? OMG, that never happened before. I'm shocked! I wonder if we'll have a Senate investigation?
Link does not go to Roger Hedgecock show. Goes to Homeland security.com? Could you get the direct link to the story edcoil?
What worked for me was.
www.homelandsecurityus.com
and
www.rogerhedgecock.com
Why has it taken so long for this to come to our attention?
neither has the story, and www.homelandsecurityus.com is a blogger site
Those links work.
Hopefully the NSA has been doing a little wire tapping of this kid's/his immediate family member's phones.
Ping me when you know more. And somebody call FOX for gosh-sakes, LOL!
I'd trust Roger. I like it when he subs for Rush. :)
P.S. I hope the story is correct.
"From passions grow opinions; intellectual laziness lets these harden into convictions."
--Friedrich Nietzsche
If a story sounds too good to be true well, it should at least command some basic fact checking the New York Times notwithstanding.
When a 16-year-old kid from an affluent family flies to Kuwait to fulfill a requirement for a journalism class, 'maybe' someone might at least check to see IF there was such a class, and what his parents did or didn't know, before canonizing him as an intrepid neophyte reporter on a vision quest for some journalistic grail.
Farris Hassan reportedly/allegedly went to Iraq in search of a 'story'. Apparently his writing (and the follow up reportage of his sojourn) was based on a Jayson Blair model.
NewsBuster.org bloggers have done a good job of exposing Hassan's duplicity, but the mainstream media seems immune to the disinfectant qualities of sunlight.
1.Farris allegedly flew off to Iraq on his own without telling Mommy and Daddy.
a.Not True. Daddy helped arrange the trip, visa, and security.
b.Dr. Reha Hassan (the father) even wrote a note to the school.
2.His trip was 'supposed' to be research for a journalism course.
a.Not True. His school offers no journalism courses.
b.Lourdes Cowgill, President of the Pine Crest School says no 'immersion journalism' assignment was given.
3.By the way, the FBI had arrested Dr. Hassan in 1985 over a plan to forge Iraqi passports (some 2,000 of them).
4.From Amsterdam, Farris headed to Kuwait City when he couldn't get across the border to Iraq he asked his father for help.
5.Daddy told him to go to Beirut, Lebanon.
a.During his ten days in Beirut, the young wannabe journalist met with Hezbollah media relation's types.
The whole Farris Hasan 'goat rope' begs the question, who is the bigger fool U.S. Homeland Security's inept Intel staff, or the mainstream media?
There is ample blame to go around (again) but at least Homeland Security has the stones to acknowledge the initial failures http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/site/modules/news/article.php?storyid=38
Why aren't this kid and his dad sitting in a small FBI interrogation room instead of MSNBC's Green Room?
The Mainstream types remain so fixated on 'getting it first' they still fail to recognize the imperative to 'get it RIGHT'.
Cinamon Stillwell and Tom Blumer at NewsBusters.org are doing stuff that MSNBC and AP 'should' have done before providing the teenager a national/international forum and 15-minutes of fame.
Frankly, I'm surprised some real journalism intern didn't suggest, "Hey, let's do a sidebar story on the course he's taking. We should interview his teacher?" At least then they would have found the first in the series of lies.
EVERYone, and excuse me, but yeah, even journalists, should be on the lookout for potential threats to our national security.
Those Hezbollah guys Farris met with are members of a Shiite Muslim organization symbiotically joined with Iran. They are big in Iraq and focused on driving out the American 'occupiers'.
The serial lying plus a dubious family history 'should' have put this kid under the microscope, not in the limelight.
An Associated Press story by Jason Straziuso is confusing. It suggests Farris went to Beirut when he couldn't cross the border, but then implies in was IN Baghdad and contacted AP there?
"Inside the safety of Baghdad's Green Zone, an Embassy official from the Hostage Working Group talked to Hassan about how risky travel is in Iraq."
But in the same story Straziuso quotes the young Hassan as saying, "If they'd let me in from Kuwait, I probably would have died," he acknowledged. "That would have been a bad idea."
In the wake of all the water (and blood) that has spilled since 9/11 we 'should' be getting better at this intelligence and security stuff. The routine mantra remains 'eventually, inevitably, somewhere, sometime, somehow, the bad guys WILL hit us again
'.
Regardless of whether you support the president or don't believe we are going good in Iraq, or don't the empirical reality is we remain at risk.
I don't like the willingness of our government to codify the excesses of the Patriot Act. However, I also don't want our government and media to make the terrorist's job easy. Yeah, it's a 'catch-22' and I don't presume to have answers.
I expect the fourth estate to ask hard questions of EVERYone. The same unrelenting scrutiny the mainstream has a 'Jones' for when it comes to Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and Dick Cheney, should also be directed at Michael Moore, Air America, and lying 16-year olds on school holiday with Hezbollah in Beirut.
It really shouldn't be a question of WHO is right or wrong, but WHAT is right or wrong that should matter.
Geoff Metcalf is a veteran media performer, including radio, television, magazine, newspapers, and is a published novelist. A former Green Beret and retired Army officer he has hosted a radio talk show on the ABC/Disney station KSFO and in worldwide syndication. geoffmetcalf.com. Email comments to: geoff@geoffmetcalf.com.
Geoff Metcalf covered this on Newsmax.com:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/2/12/142410.shtml
I KNEW there was something else to this story....but many called him a "stupid kid" who just made a "mistake".
Too bad some FReepers fell for the Orwellian Media's lies....
I always thought something was fishy about this story.
Thanks. Much appreciated. I got ripped for thinking the story stunk at first, but there was no other info out.
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