The ‘Islamic State of Iraq’ claimed credit for yesterday’s Iraqi parliament bombing.  The ‘Islamic State of Iraq’ is a group partially set up by Al Qaida in Iraq to try to shed some of the attacks carried out by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

They are not, however, an “alliance of insurgent groups linked to Al Qaida” as the BBC claims.  While one notable member of the group, the Army of Ansar al-Sunnah, is an Iraqi group, the group is dominated by non-Iraqis, therefore it’s a group of outsiders attacking a sovereign government.  That’s not what an insurgent is.

The claim of responsibility should be discussed only for the reason of once again pointing out how ridiculous the statements are.  From SITE:

The group justifies the attack on the parliamentarians due to their challenging Allah’s “unequivocal” right to legislate and crimes that were committed against the Sunni Muslims by forces within their authority. After studying the site, a suicide bomber was deployed to execute the operation, after which the Sunnis and Allah witnessed the “parliamentarian monkeys cry and scream at the terror of what they had seen after a brave knight entered upon them.”

Islamists believe Democracy is incongruent with Islam because it places humans in line with Allah because they select their own government, whereas Islamists believe Allah can only decide how everyone lives.  I understand that, however lost in the mix is when groups like Al Qaida decide for local populations of how they should live.  Is that not placing the duty of Allah upon the shoulders of a select few?

The statement also makes light of Iraqi politicians who are allegedly held in terror, yet the Iraqi parliament opened for business today.  In fact, there was a special session that was called to directly condemn the attack, but also to present a defiant government that will not cease to exist because of an attack.

The BBC offers a bit more on the claim of responsibility:

“A knight from the state of Islam… reached the heart of the Green Zone” and exposed the lies about the security surge in Baghdad, the statement said.

Clearly a political statement . . . from a group who places all faith in Allah to decide how man lives?  But once again, this misses the mark.  The so-called ’surge’ was never to protect the Green Zone.  It was to help root out Shia insurgents and Al Qaida in Iraq from Baghdad.  It has been successful thus far, and it appears yesterday’s attack was the result of a fairly large conspiracy to attack.

So Don Imus loses his MSNBC gig and the three viewers he had there, and now his radio show. I don’t really care as I never listened to him before, however, his comments are still being called either a ‘race slur’ or racist.

Let us revisit his words that have caused outrage. He called the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy haired headed hoes.” What, exactly, is racial about that?

Sure, the majority of the team is black, and the race baiters who make a living off this type of stuff (Jackson and Sharpton) conclude it was racist, but are we to conclude only black women have nappy hair? That’s news to me.

It was the ho comment though that was most upsetting. I completely understand women being upset at the use, and it was a rather dumb comment, but again, how is this racial? Are we to conclude only black women who play basketball are, ummm, rather loose? Again, that’s news to me.

The man is being hung out to dry and being called racist for not saying anything exactly racial. Sexist, sure, I can buy that and understand completely where that thought comes from. But racist, no.

Please, someone who thinks his comments were racist explain to me how it is so.

A suicide bomber decided perversion was in the highest order when he blew himself up in a cafe inside the Iraqi parliament building within the Green Zone.  I don’t wish to talk about the bomb, nor do I usually talk about bombs within Iraq otherwise I’d never write anything else, but rather I wish to discuss the reaction and what this means.

Because of where the bomb went off, we will be treated to analysts claim this shows Al Qaida in Iraq, who later claimed the attack, has penetrated what once was thought as a completely safe zone.  This cannot be further from the truth.  It is a fact the Green Zone had been attacked numerous times within the walls and fortifications of the compound, even by a notable suicide bomber driving a truck almost two years ago.

TIME reports the suicide bomber was a guard for one of the parliament members.  Does that sound familiar?  If not, it should, because Al Qaida in Iraq attacked a military mess hall in Mosul in December 2004.  The suicide bomber in the Mosul attack was either an Iraqi soldier or was wearing an Iraqi military uniform.

Al Qaida in Iraq has tried since there’s been a war to gain access to venues that are seemingly impenetrable.  Many attacks by the group have been against the Iraqi police and military, often stealing uniforms and documentation while discarding the bodies afterwards.  It is therefore rather remarkable only two such attacks have occurred.

However, none of that will stop certain press outlets and analysts from painting this attack as a sign of things to come or as a complete failure by the Coalition and the Iraqi government.  The Al Qaida in Iraq claim of responsibility explains the rationale for the attack:

Within an hour of the explosion, a message from the al-Qaeda-controlled Islamic State in Iraq was posted on a prominent militant website, muslm.net, calling the blast a “message” to anyone who cooperates with “the occupier and its agents.” It said ominously, “We will reach you wherever you are” [sic]

The New York Times presents the attack right into AQ in Iraq’s hands.

The attack comes as the Iraqi government is trying to prove to both Iraqis and to insurgents that it has control of the security situation in Baghdad, but the explosion serves to help undermine that claim . . .

Mr. Bush has announced the addition of 30,000 troops to Iraq, many of them to be placed in neighborhoods in the capital. Many have already arrived, and the rest are expected to be here by June. Killings from death squads have dropped in the capital, but overall civilian and American casualties across Iraq have not improved, largely because of devastating bombings like the one today.

Two people were killed, though it’s unclear if that counts the suicide bomber or not.  For the sake of argument, let us assume the count of two does not include the actual murderer.  Two dead people are symbols of how”overall civilian and American casualties across Iraq have not improved?”  If two people died in these types of attacks per day in Iraq, there never would be any discussion on the security situation.

The attack was successful, and I have every reason to believe it will be hailed as a successful bombing as the days unfold.  Flashback to 1972 when Black September took Israeli athletes hostage.  Why did they do such a thing?  It wasn’t just a bloodlust to kill Jews inside a nation that killed millions, but because they knew high profile attacks would generate media attention, and the act certainly did.  Black September members who were allowed to leave Germany said as much while being hailed as heroes for shooting civilians in their backs in the Arab world.

While the goal of today’s attack was the same as Black September’s attack in Munich, you cannot hide this type of story.  What you can and should do however is question why there have been so few high-profile attacks in Iraq knowing this is precisely what Al Qaida in Iraq wants to do.

Imagine if the roles were reversed, and the Coalition simply wanted press as opposed to actually win on the battlefield.  The sparse number of celebrated attacks would be a signal of a huge loss.  Instead, with the roles the way they are today, the failures are seen as evidence the Coalition is losing.

Shameful.  Just shameful.

The producer of a tax-financed documentary on Islamic extremism claims his film has been dropped for political reasons from a television series that airs next week on more than 300 PBS stations nationwide.

Key portions of the documentary focus on Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser of Phoenix and his American Islamic Forum for Democracy, a non-profit organization of Muslim Americans who advocate patriotism, constitutional democracy and a separation of church and state.

Martyn Burke says that the Public Broadcasting Service and project managers at station WETA in Washington, D.C., excluded his documentary, Islam vs. Islamists, from the series America at a Crossroads after he refused to fire two co-producers affiliated with a conservative think tank.

“I was ordered to fire my two partners (who brought me into this project) on political grounds,” Burke said in a complaint letter to PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supplied funds for the films.

Burke wrote that his documentary depicts the plight of moderate Muslims who are silenced by Islamic extremists, adding, “Now it appears to be PBS and CPB who are silencing them.“

Instead, I suppose, all Americans are glad our tax dollars are going to the fine PBS programs telling the worth of ancient junk purchased at garage sales.

Dr. Jasser, if you recall, stood up for the ‘John Does’ sued by the six Imams and CAIR and is a powerful voice against Islamism within the Islamic community.  But nope, we won’t hear about him or his group because there are two co-producers with some affiliation with a conservative think tank.  A Conservative could never be right, so it makes sense in a Cookie Monster sort of way.  What a waste of perfectly good public air waves.

For a long time now there’s been this idea that media organizations will not discuss news of the war in Iraq that does not fit their predetermined positions.  I have often scoffed at that idea because it is simply the golden rule that violence sells, therefore it is more profitable to report on bombs than dreams.  It’s also far easier and can actually be done from a hotel balcony.

But it appears I am wrong, that at least the BBC screens news on how bad it might be because it cannot present positive news for it’s audience.

Private Johnson Beharry’s courage in rescuing an ambushed foot patrol then, in a second act, saving his vehicle’s crew despite his own terrible injuries earned him a Victoria Cross.

For the BBC, however, his story is “too positive” about the conflict.

The corporation has cancelled the commission for a 90-minute drama about Britain’s youngest surviving Victoria Cross hero because it feared it would alienate members of the audience opposed to the war in Iraq.

So presenting news that is “too positive” not might but woluld alienate consumers of the BBC who oppose the war, I suppose without the full facts because the BBC won’t present them, but why doesn’t the BBC worry about their consumers who support the war?  Has the BBC ever looked at a story and concluded it’s “too negative?”  Or, must we presume consumers of the BBC are singular in opinion, again, obviously without wanting to know the actual full picture?

The Associated Press tried an experiment this past week to find out if a subject the news outlet apparently normally feverishly covers is actually newsworthy or not.  The result: The Associated Press is spinning their wheels on a story none of their clients care about, and despite the results of the test, they continue to begin to cover the trials and tribulations of Paris Hilton once again.

The AP proposed a weekend ban against any Paris Hilton related news, a bold initiative for the gossip columnists at the AP I suppose, to see “what would happen if we didn’t cover this media phenomenon.”  Nothing happened; it was an experiment that was deeply flawed from the start.

There was, however, hand-wringing within the AP newsroom.

The reaction was to the idea of the ban, not the effects of it. There was some internal hand-wringing. Some felt we were tinkering dangerously with the news. Whom, they asked, would we ban next? Others loved the idea. “I vote we do the same for North Korea,” one AP writer said facetiously.

But on the week they chose to ban Paris Hilton, “nothing too out-of-the-ordinary happened in the Hilton universe,” as if another sex tape, drunk driving arrest or any other sort of action carried out by Hilton was more than she’s ever done before.

Not content with just reporting the news, the AP sought to make it up as they went along.  The AP decided to be newsworthy, rather than cover newsworthy events.

Also by then, an internal AP memo about the ban had found its way to the outside world. The New York Observer quoted it on Wednesday, and the Gawker.com gossip site linked to it. Howard Stern was heard mentioning the ban on his radio show, and calls came in from various news outlets asking us about it. On Editor and Publisher magazine’s Web site, a reader wrote: “This is INCREDIBLE, finally a news organization that can see through this evil woman.” And another: “You guys are my heroes!”

The Paris experiment had been tried before by New York Daily News former columnist Lloyd Grove who admitted, “the blackout was a really heartfelt attempt on my part to get publicity for myself.”  You don’t say?   And so too was the attempt by the AP to deprive the world of Paris Hilton stories for one week.

What other avenues have the AP decided to report or not report upon?   How I’d love to be in a media theories class right now discussing the role of the media and how the AP’s selectivity runs counter to the entire concept of making news versus reporting news.

In a surprise trip to Pakistan, United States Vice President Dick Cheney told Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf he needs to act on the Al Qaida and Taliban training camps opening up in Waziristan.  This comes on the heels of a report indicating President George Bush believes Pakistan is not living up to an agreement forged with Musharraf this past September.

“He’s made a number of assurances over the past few months, but the bottom line is that what they are doing now is not working,” one senior administration official who deals often with Southeast Asia issues said late last week. “The message we’re sending to him now is that the only thing that matters is results.”

Bush is reportedly threatening to cut off U.S. aid to Pakistan unless Musharraf reigns in the Waziristan region, but the more likely outcome will be bombs dropped into these camps by Coalition forces.

In what could only be seen as the duplicity of intellectual thinking at the New York Times, an editorial last week written by the Times lambasted Bush for ‘allowing’ these training camps to be built.

Al Qaeda’s comeback didn’t have to happen. And it must not be allowed to continue. The new Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan do not operate with the blessing of the Pakistani government. But Pakistan’s military dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has not tried very hard to drive them out. In recent months he has virtually conceded the tribal areas to local leaders sympathetic to Al Qaeda. President Bush needs to warn him that continued American backing depends on his doing more to rid his country of people being trained to kill Americans.

The New York Times, then, believes the United States should fight Al Qaida within Waziristan, thus declaring war on Pakistan because it is Pakistan sovereign soil, but that the United States should retreat from fighting Al Qaida in Iraq.

The Washington Post wrote a similar editorial last week, deciding not to mention the region in question is official Pakistani territory and what U.S. strikes in this region might do to the regime of Musharraf.  Is it better or worse to have these Al Qaida camps in operation or risk Musharraf losing his seat, thus losing control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal?

A U.S. raid on a Shia weapons cache uncovered “what American officials call the best evidence yet that the deadliest roadside bombs in Iraq are manufactured in Iran” reports the New York Times.  Who are those American officials?  I haven’t a clue with the copy produced and released by 10:30 p.m. CST this evening.

The new evidence includes infrared sensors, electronic triggering devices and information about plastic explosives used in bombs that the Americans say lead directly back to Iran. The explosive material, triggering devices, other components, and the method of assembly all produce weapons with an Iranian signature that has never been found outside Iraq or southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah is believed to have used weapons supplied by Iran, the Americans say.

The Times notes there are critics, and they actually name one critic and one skeptic.  The critic is Joseph Cirincione, senior vice president for National Security at the Center for American Progress.  The Center for American Progress is, from their own ‘about us’ page,  a “progressive think-tank.”  Cirincione though doesn’t completely bash the idea Iranian weapons are inside Iraq killing Coalition soldiers.

“Iran may well be involved in the supply of these weapons, but so far they haven’t proved it. . .  Before we act on the assumption that these are Iranian we’ve got to rule out all these other possibilities,” he said. “The military hasn’t done that.”

That’s quite true, and the skeptic is John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org.  Pike notes the new details are “rather more convincing” but questions if they are true.

Here’s the problem, if you haven’t already picked up on it.  There is no attribution to who brought these new claims to the press within the article, but because the Times trots out Cirincione to rebut the evidence we must assume it is someone the Times believes is in cahoots with the Bush Administration.  This pushes the belief the Bush Administration is either fluffing or making up evidence about Iranian made IEDs.

Surely there are more critics to the information on either side of the political isle, but we are only presented with two yet in the lede paragraph we’re told “critics contend the forensic case remains circumstantial and inferential.”  Therefore there must be some staunch critics to merit such a highly-placed mention, yet the Times could only produce two and neither are exactly saying the information is wrong.

Always be very weary of Islamist videos that try to paint a story. The latest one released by the Taliban supposedly shows a Taliban attack on a U.S. military base in Afghanistan which ‘proves’ they are winning in Afghanistan.

Not so fast.

U.S. and NATO military officials have studied the tape but say they have no record of any such attack in the last month, and an analysis of the tape by ABC News raises many questions of whether the base was even occupied when it was supposedly attacked.

There are green leaves on the trees, no snow on the mountains and the fighters appear to be dressed rather lightly for the harsh Afghan winter where nighttime temperatures have been around 15 degrees this month.

Scenes of the bases, supposedly shot before the attack, show only one person walking up a hill at long range.

The news of this one video demonstrates something far different. There are news reports all over, yet when there are similar videos released by Al Qaida in Iraq, a report on said video is very seldom. Why?

I think it has everything to do with delivery of the video to the media outlets. The Taliban is known to have contacts within media organizations (they are supposedly on a Reuters speed dial) and the Taliban regularly communicates with members of the media to get their story out. That’s fine, I suppose, but it strikes me as being nothing short of a useless idiot to regurgitate propoganda videos without a little investigation. If the Taliban had never sent this video to a media organization and instead released it on the web, would we be reading 20 different articles on it?

Howie of My Pet Jawa has the video.

Former NBC News military analyst Ken Allard quits after ten years because of Bill Arkin and the refusal of NBC to condemn Arkin’s comments.  From Allard’s commentary in the San Antonio Express (via Hot Air):

When you don’t have skin in the game, war becomes a matter of sheer personal preference. Channel clickers are wielded, the soldier overlooked or, as we saw last week, even maligned as a mercenary without provoking a career-ending scandal.

It is, therefore, possible to argue that NBC is merely undergoing a delicate arabesque in anticipation of changing audience preferences and the long- hoped-for Democratic restoration (although journalists generally seem reluctant to raise the tough questions that should punctuate the 2008 campaign).

But has anyone else noticed the network’s precipitous retreat from journalistic and ethical standards? Not only were no apologies given and no pink slips issued for Arkin’s outburst, but on his MSNBC show last week, Keith Olberman went out of his way to defend this “valid criticism” of our military.

In January, Conan O’Brien was allowed to escape without apology after airing a particularly tasteless gay skit deriding Christianity: “Oh, Jesus, I love you, but only as a friend.” (Just try doing that sometime using Mohammad’s name!)

[snip]

And so with great reluctance and best wishes to my former colleagues, with this column I am severing my 10-year relationship with NBC News.

But Mohammad cannot be mentioned in the United States unless he’s praised.