Patterico's Pontifications

5/22/2008

More Confirmation That the Material the L.A. Times Said Was Unconfirmed Was in Fact Confirmed

Filed under: Dog Trainer,General — Patterico @ 12:08 am



On Tuesday I puzzled over an L.A. Times story claiming that there has been “[n]o independent confirmation” of the content of laptop computers recovered from FARC terrorists, which show Venezuelan assistance to the terrorists. I noted that Interpol had confirmed that the laptops had not been tampered with, and that the AP had been shown files with messages detailing years of cooperation between the terrorists and the Venezuelan government. How does the paper justify saying there has been no independent confirmation of the laptops’ content? I wondered.

A couple of commenters suggested an answer: perhaps it’s been confirmed that a) the files were really on the laptops; and b) the files say what is claimed by the Colombian government; but we don’t know c) that the information in the files is genuine.

Dr. Weevil begs to differ. He links a Gateway Pundit post, based on a Miami Herald article that is now offline, which noted that information found on the laptops has been successfully used in a raid on a FARC safe house:

Colombian authorities tipped off Costa Rican officials about a huge stash of FARC cash in an old safe house earlier this month. Costa Rica confiscated $480,000 of FARC cash in the raid. The Colombians discovered this information from the computers seized during the raid on FARC leader Raul Reyes in Ecuador.

Good catch by Dr. Weevil, and one that leaves me thoroughly confused as to how the content on the laptops has not been independently confirmed.

Bueller? Bueller?

17 Responses to “More Confirmation That the Material the L.A. Times Said Was Unconfirmed Was in Fact Confirmed”

  1. Patterico,

    What is self-evident is that the LATimes got caught making alibis for Huge Ego Chavez, The Columbians, and FARC. This erases all doubt that the staff of the LATimes is hopelessly Anti-American biased, and is nothing more than a repository of Left wing nuts.

    PCD (5c49b0)

  2. Just another day on the job for the LA/Pyongyang Times.

    M. Scott Eiland (b66190)

  3. I was in the “d) The LATimes is counting the computer as a single source.” camp. It’s asinine, but the information hasn’t been “independently confirmed” if there isn’t a source that’s independent of the first source.

    Al (b624ac)

  4. I honestly think that the Los Angeles Times believes that Americans cannot read with any
    comprehension. Nothing else can explain their
    false stories!”

    Sue (f9a0a4)

  5. The reporting at the LATimes reminds me in some ways of the early days of televised wrestling.

    The Crusher and The Bruiser would take on the bad guys…and the bad guy wrestling team would always have some piece of tape or a bottle of liquid hidden…then pull it out and use it when the referee was looking the other way.

    The broad farce was pulled off repeatedly in straight face, full character. It always amazed me that anyone could be so thick as to believe the charade…but,hey… they knew their audience.

    The LATimes (as well as the rest of the deadwood media) knows their audience as well. The outcome of each article (wrestling match) is scripted. It’s a rigged game and played in a broad farce style…with the reporters playing in straight face while the flatliners yell and scream approval or disapproval on cue…from the cheap seats.

    The biggest farce of all, of course…was the referee always looking away at the moment when the opponent gouged an eye or sprayed caustic liquid. This ombudsman was a part of the act.

    Nothing is different today. The ombudsman pretends to ask the relevant questions, seek the “honest” answers…and the Mr. X and Dr.No reporters wave their empty hands in the air protesting their innocence, while the ref says there’s nothing there to be found.

    The joke is on us. Our information stream gets put down in a chokehold.

    cfbleachers (e6f785)

  6. Gollyyyyyyy! If I did not know better I’d think the Big O and his pack of Bolshevik propagandists (Otis called them “enlightened newsmen”) were still running the LAT. Big O’s been gone years!

    Rod Stanton (f51498)

  7. Hey, CF, I loved the Crusher and the Bruiser, God rest their souls.

    Too bad we couldn’t get them back to clean out the LATimes newsroom! I’d pay to see LATimes’ editors get a taste of those “100 Megaton Biceps”.

    PCD (5c49b0)

  8. The information was not confirmed by the LA Times IT department. His Atari 600 was in the shop.

    Ken Hahn (7742d5)

  9. Ken, I thought he had a Commodore 64.

    PCD (5c49b0)

  10. Off-topic (sorry) but interesting, at least to me:

    A top Canadian official blamed for triggering the leak of a memo that cast doubt on the sincerity of Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama will quit his job soon, Canadian media reported on Thursday.

    The oficial in the story is the guy who’d said that Obama’s talk of cancelling NAFTA was just a show for the primaristas, and that Obama would happily recant after the election.

    What’s interesting is that the guy who said it is being forced to resign at this time. Looks like the Cdn govt is now hedging its bets in favor of Obama over Hillary; i.e. hey, Obama looks like he’ll be a nominee after all, better ditch the guy who ticked him off.

    ras (fc54bb)

  11. The lefties all have it in for Columbia based on a theory that Uribe is anti-union. Of course, they are anti-NAFTA, too. Kevin Drum had a piece on this when the Congress never took up the NAFTA bill for Columbia because Pelosi sat on it. They are not interested in whether the leftist FARC rebels are being defeated. I leave it to your imagination as to why they don’t care.

    Mike K (f89cb3)

  12. With respect to free trade with Columbia, it is being opposed by Democrats solely because they are in thrall to unions who oppose it for purely leftist ideological purposes – both sympathy with left-wing narco-terrorists and antipathy to governments that actually like … fight terrorists. There are zero, zip, nada practical reasons for the activist unions to oppose as none of their members would be harmed by the free trade agreement ( and many would benefit at least indirectly ).

    SPQR (26be8b)

  13. #8 & 9…
    Are you sure it’s not a TRS-80?

    Another Drew (8018ee)

  14. Bueller? Bueller?

    No, it’s

    Jame McGovern? James McGovern?

    retire05 (d98ca3)

  15. 13, No, AD, it was the original Turing machine.

    PCD (5c49b0)

  16. A number is being done on FARC and has been since Plan Colombia kicked off. Raul Reyes isn’t even at the start of a chain of major disasters for FARC, which started last year with DEA backed individuals in Spain getting to Monzer al-Kassar (wanted since the Iran/Contra affair, and for questioning by Argentina for the Israeli Embassy and AMIA bombings). You do not get that close to someone like that without a source of trust that can offer legitimacy to your agents.

    After that came one of the Russian arms suppliers getting picked up this year, Semion Mogilevich, who is one of the smartest of the Red Mafia, and has been cited for trafficking in nuclear material to al Qaeda in the 1990’s. His Chinese drug connections plus working with al-Kassar from Marbella, Spain, point to a slip-up somewhere in that network.

    Then after that and Raul Reyes getting taken down, we see the other arms merchant that has worked with FARC, Victor Bout, getting caught getting picked up in Thailand. Bout has been a supplier to Savimbi, trafficked in blood diamonds, shipped arms to the Hekmatyar and then the Taliban, plus is a natural supplier for the type of arms FARC needs, especially SAMs. Each of these three individuals is wealthy, well protected, well connected on a global basis, and not someone to mess with if you don’t have good info on them. Syria is actively threatening Spain and the US (via insurgents in Iraq) to let al-Kassar go as he is connected to the family drug business in the Bekaa valley for heroin processing… plus Hezbollah used to train there with many other individuals from a cross-section of transnational terrorism.

    FARC, by being around so long and having taken over the narcotics trade from the Cartels once they went down, have a contact list that goes back to some of the original Fidel Castro outreaches in the late 60’s with OSPAAL through the late era of communist/leftist insurgencies backed by the USSR and Cuba through the age of interconnected narcotics trade all the way to today.

    This did not start with the Raul Reyes take down, but all the way back to 2001 when three IRA members responsible for mortar and explosives training were picked up in Colombia outside of FARC held territory.

    Not that anyone pays attention to these things…

    ajacksonian (87eccd)

  17. And, let’s not forget Cong. James McGovern, D-MA, who had the bad luck of InterPol finding his name in that Reyes laptop, too.
    Seems the good Congressman offered his services to FARC. Would be interesting to see those transcripts?

    Another Drew (8018ee)


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