Patterico's Pontifications

12/21/2006

Still More on Jamil Hussein/Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim/Ghulaim

Filed under: General,Media Bias,War — Patterico @ 11:24 pm



Michelle Malkin is following up on the Jamil Hussein/Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim/Ghulaim thing.

The AP is being every bit as responsive as you’d think.

14 Responses to “Still More on Jamil Hussein/Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim/Ghulaim”

  1. Let’s say the guy is/was a real cop with a family and wants to protect his life. Precisely where on his to-do list would placating Michelle Malkin and Marc Danziger be? Death squads and corrupt factions of the Iraqi Army – whom he accused of dereliction in the Hurriyah rampage – may pose a more dynamic incentive. If you’re Steven Hurst of the AP or Ned Parker of the Times of London, would you arrange to have your source face cameras and hold up his badge and then expect to EVER have a contact inside the police again? I suspect Jamil Hussein is no longer in his office suite high above the shimmering landscape of the Mesopotamian night. He’s gone – as in fired, quit, dead or hiding. You’ll never find him. It doesn’t mean he didn’t exist or that he wasn’t the guy reporters called for initial info before canvassing eyewitnesses. If I had to guess, I’d say he was identified and cashiered.

    steve (74b760)

  2. There are ways to do this without making him face cameras.

    Patterico (de0616)

  3. Also: let’s say the guy is/was a real cop with a family and wants to protect his life. Precisely where on his to-do list would talking to the AP as a named source be?

    Patterico (de0616)

  4. Unless, that is, saying pro-insurgent things might placate the insurgents . . .

    Patterico (de0616)

  5. C’mon, Patterico. It’s no doubt why Lucy Ramirez is nowhere to be found. She’s squirreled away the super-typewriter that wrote the TXANG memoes, b/c nowhere on her to-do list is facing down the deathsquads of the BFEE.

    The problem is, you won’t believe the words of fearless muckrakers like, uhm, whoever reported the AP stuff, but you’ll believe Michelle Malkin.

    Lurking Observer (ea88e8)

  6. Nice troll-bait Patterico, you practice catch and release or do these stay 🙂

    If the guy is afraid of being in front of a camera, he really shouldn’t have been a source 61 or more times to the A(w/t)P (named no less) and the AP should care more about him than to name him anyway (if security is the concern).

    The main concern is the fact that the story isn’t true. Only the AP and Jamil Hussein say it is true, without facts, evidence or eyewitness accounts (3 unamed sources do not eyewitnesses make). The main problem isn’t Hussein, it’s the A(w/t)P and the ‘fake-but-accurate’ meme.

    LordNazh (d282eb)

  7. Pat, when are you going to start paying attention to the war?
    How may people have been blown to bits since you started obsessing about this one story. it began with one short [3 paragraph?] AP dispatch. You get caught up in details even you can’t confirm. And you need more examples to show a pattern. And showing a pattern is what you’re interested in right?

    C’mon, give us your educated opinions: on the Sunni meeting in Istanbul; on recent Sunni Shia discussions and the push for reconciliation; on GW Butch vs. his own Joint Chiefs of Staff. C’mon kid, your followers need you to lead them out of a ditch, not into one.

    AF (8f7ccc)

  8. “WHITFIELD: Let’s begin with Secretary Gates. He says that he won’t be shaped by politics. Is that possible when already the president is saying one thing, the generals are saying another.

    GERGEN: That’s — isn’t that the question of the hour. Thank you for asking that. The president has contended all along in this war that politics would not drive decisions, that his decisions on how many troops and how to deploy them in Iraq would depend upon the commanders on the ground, upon the top military officials and the government. Now he has staked out a position, at least his aides are staking out a position in favor of a strong surge of American troops into Baghdad. A decision with which the joint chiefs and the commanders on the ground disagree. So here we have not just the commander in chief but the politician in chief and the president who has to ask himself the question, does he want to override the wishes of his own generals? That’s a big, tough call.”

    Tough call. And what do you say, Pat?

    AF (8f7ccc)

  9. “BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — Five more American troops have died from combat wounds in western Iraq and Baghdad, the military said Friday, pushing the U.S. death toll since the war began closer to 3,000.

    In December, 76 American troops have been killed; at the current rate, the number of U.S. combat deaths this month could meet or exceed the previous monthly record for 2006.

    At least 2,964 American troops have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

    Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told The Associated Press on Thursday that Iraq was ”worth the investment” in American lives and dollars and said the U.S. can still win a conflict that has been more difficult than she expected.”

    That’s it for now I guess. I can’t spend my whole day doing this.
    It gets boring.

    AF (8f7ccc)

  10. You must realize, AF, that since the AP said “Five more American troops have died from combat wounds in western Iraq and Baghdad,” it can’t be true. They’re in league with the Baathists you know.

    David Ehrenstein (f45bb3)

  11. The AP says that it does not use pseudonyms or composites. The information given already is enough to identify the guy. If they are going to use an anonymous source, they should say that they did so (it affects credibility in the story).

    TCO (4a58b3)

  12. One wonders what standard of proof Michelle Malkin will insist on in her pending Baghdad showdown. Retinal scan? Sequential pay stubs? Jamil’s hard-drive? She’s too invested in this to come home and proclaim, “Hussein is a 30-something father of four with a quick smile, bright eyes and a CD collection of 60’s R&B. He denies he helped the AP and Times of London pass along terrorist propaganda disguised as news over the last several years. After the MOI crackdown, he started a kebab stand using his police pension.” Michelle Malkin won’t find him. He’s not going to be found. Now if YouTube shows video of her demanding Baghdad workmen’s comp claims and leafing through old school yearbooks, I’ll die happy.

    steve (74b760)

  13. Malkingate grinds to an easily foreseen conclusion.

    Looks like the crazy bitch is going to have spend her Christmas holidyas contriving another hysterical “scoop” on the sins of AP or whoever doesn’t toe the Neo-Fascist line.

    [Ehrenstein: That’s not an appropriate comment. I’m leaving up the comment so people understand why I’m warning you. I like giving people freedom to speak their mind, but calling someone a “crazy bitch” is not the tone I want to see here. — P]

    David Ehrenstein (f45bb3)

  14. […] This is not a surprise to those of us who have been keeping up with the Jamil Hussein controversy coming out of the AP (check out Patterico, Flopping Aces, Hot Air and Michelle Malkin if you want to get caught up on the latest in this on-going saga), but its still so discouraging to see that things are NOT changing with regards to accurate reporting. Hopefully this trend will start to wane, and we can get some (even somewhat) objective reporters on the ground in Iraq. They can start in Haditha. […]

    Infidels Are Cool » Blog Archive » On Success In Iraq, And Sending The Enemy’s Message (9f9139)


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