Subtitle: The Hunt for Jamail Hussein
As some of you may know, the right wing portion of the greater blogosphere has been up in arms for the last few weeks about an allegedly phony Associated Press story regarding 6 Sunnis who were burned alive by Shi’ites in Baghdad.
Specifically, the contention by those who deny the veracity of the AP’s report of this incident is that the story was fabricated, either as part of an insurgent propaganda campaign or a clever hoax. The man in the middle of this controversy is one of the AP’s sources for the story, Jamail Hussein, whom AP claims is an Iraqi police captain. AP continues to insist that Jamail Hussein is who he claims he is. Spokespersons for the Iraqi Interior Ministry and the a US Military, along with any number of right wing bloggers, have begged to differ over that point. They claim Jamail Hussein is a fraud.
Not surprisingly, Michelle Malkin has been at the forefront of this brouhaha, with any number of posts disputing the AP’s position that 1) the story of 6 Sunnis being burned to death really happened, and 2) that Jamail Hussein, Iraqi Police Captain really exists.
The reason for all this hoo ha over a single story documenting the sectarian violence in Iraq is simple. Malkin and company would have us believe that the press corps in Iraq routinely make shit up in order to sabotage American public opinion regarding the war. In short, they see the “Burning Sunnis” story as emblematic of a wider effort in the media to distort the true picture of American successes in Iraq:
You will not read one of the most significant stories of the week out of Iraq on the front page of The New York Times. CNN will not make it headline news. The Associated Press has yet to touch it.
That’s because the story exposes the media’s own widespread malfeasance in reporting on the war on terror — and its refusal to be held accountable when challenged by “amateur” bloggers investigating fishy sources and claims recycled recklessly by “professional” journalists.
Now I happen to agree with Michelle Malkin that the media is arrogant and often refuses to be held accountable. We’ve seen evidence of that recently in the ridiculous behavior by John Carroll at Greater Boston who took a clearly satirical comment at MyDD out of context to assert without any other evidence that Jerome Armstrong, Matt Stoller and Scott Shields were all the same person who posted online under those identities. After this reckless mistake was pointed out by numerous bloggers, the folks at Greater Boston refused to accept any blame for what they did, but rather blamed the poster at MyDD for his poor sense of humor. So I can certainly appreciate Ms Malkin’s point that the mainstream media, TV or print, often act like pricks when their shoddy journalistic practices are exposed by those of us online.
However, where I do take issue with Our Lady of the Concentration Camps is on the overriding question of the situation in Iraq. There is simply too much evidence that the war has gone hopelessly, irrevocably off the tracks for me to accept her underlying premise that the media’s reports on the violence in Iraq are the result of malfeasance, liberal bias and an agenda to bring down the Bush Presidency and/or see America lose the war.
Well, brand new blogger (at Iraqslogger) and former head of CNN News, Eason Jordan, seems to take a similar view, because he has extended an invitation to Ms. Malkin (and to Curt at the conservative war blog, Flopping Aces) to accompany him to Iraq on his dime in order to commence a personal search to locate Jamail Hussein, and either prove or disprove the AP story about the “Burning Six.”
Ms. Malkin has accepted his invitation, although we do not yet know when she, Curt and Mr. Jordan will leave for Iraq. Hopefully, the trip will come off (although at least one of the prospective participants appears to be having second thoughts).
Personally, I have no axe to grind, one way or the other, with respect to the controversy over the AP’s Burning Six story. If she and Mr. Eason are able to determine that Jamail Hussein is a fraud, that the incident never happened, or didn’t happen the way the AP reported it, more power to her. If the AP did a shoddy job and relied on suspect sources in reporting this incident, they should be exposed. On the other hand, if after her investigation the AP story proves to be correct on all the essential details, she should report that as well.
In addition, I do not wish her any ill will if she makes this trip. I would not risk my life in such an endeavor, but I sincerely hope that she incurs no harm while she is in Iraq. I pray she will return safe and sound in both body and spirit, and with all her limbs attached. I don’t particularly like or respect her political views, but I don’t want her to die or suffer injury because of them.
And it may be too much to expect, but if she does go, I hope she is willing to report on her experience there honestly, even if that experience contradicts many of her preconceived notions about Iraq and a war which is killing thousands each month, and causing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Iraqis to flee for their lives to Jordan and Syria. The truth is always difficult to discover in the fog of war, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t face it directly when we do find it. Even if it’s the truth we never expected.