Wednesday, October 31, 2007

A Challenge to TIME Magazine to Get Their Facts Straight

VERY BIG UPDATE BELOW------
(From the Iraqi Media)

In their editorial on the security situation in Iraq this morning TIME Magazine leads off with this "horrible discovery":

The horrible discovery in Diyala province Monday was disturbing even by the standards of Iraq's running sectarian violence. Iraqi police said they found 20 decapitated bodies dumped near a police station west of Baquba, the capital of Diyala province. That same day a suicide bomber on a bicycle careened into a Baquba police station, killing 29.
The violent deaths in Iraq are on the decline, the US fatalities are declining, the political situation is shaping up so TIME has really no other choice to discredit the war efforts than to lead with this grisly find of "20 headless corpses" outside a police station near Baqubah.

Apparently, the terrorists are so effective in this region that they can pull up a truck outside a police station and dump 20 headless corpses and then escape without being seen or heard.
Too bad this never happened!

After the original reports came out in the Western Press on Monday, the BBC was the first to retract their story about the "20 headless corpses" found near Baquba on Monday night:

Meanwhile, Iraqi police denied earlier reports that 20 headless bodies had been found dumped near Baquba.
Following up on the story on Tuesday I personally spoke with Maj. Winfield Danielson the official spokesman for MNF-Iraq. Major Danielson told me that they had no record that this incident took place yesterday near Baquba (Bakubah).
There was no evidence to back up the story.

After reading TIME Magazine's depressing report this morning I followed up with MNF-Iraq and again spoke with Maj. Winfield Danielson. Major Danielson told me that they had not received any word from Iraqi authorities that this event took place. (This is two days after the bodies were supposedly discovered.) Major Danielson also explained that if there was a record of this event that MNF-I would have seen the report. They have not seen any follow up report on this incident.
There is no evidence of this event.
There is no official report on this event.
There are no photos of this event.

TIME magazine says "20 decapitated bodies" were found near Baquba.
Prove it.

Blackfive adds: "Why it sucks to write for a dead tree mag"

Previously:
DeCapiGate: Take 2... Another Bogus "20 Headless Bodies" Report

BIG UPDATE------
Thanks to Alphabet City

Iraqi security officials deny the report of the 20 headless bodies:

This is from Aswat Aliraq (Voices of Iraq) media outlet:

Security official denies 20 headless bodies found in Diala
Diala - Voices of Iraq
Wednesday , 31 /10 /2007 Time 9:56:04

Diala, Oct 30, (VOI) – Diala security operations chief Abdul-Kareem al-Rubaie dismissed news reports that 20 headless bodies were found in the city of Baaquba on Monday.

"News reports about the finding of 20 decapitated bodies in the village of al-Qassirein, al-Khalis district, (15 km north of Baaquba) were groundless," said Maj. General Rubaie in statements to the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) on Monday.

Forces from the Iraqi army and police went to the village and conducted a thorough search but found no single corpse there, explained Rubaie.
Some local and Arab mass media on Monday evening reported that 20 headless bodies were found in al-Qassirein.

Baaquba, the capital of Diala, is 57 km northeast of Baghdad.
Please contact TIME Magazine and demand that they retract this bogus report.
Here is the contact information:

Letters to the editor: letters@time.com

27 comments:

  1. What they meant to say was the "20 headless [chicken] bodies were found [in the poultry shop] just outside of the police station". Fake, but accurate.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous10:32 AM

    20 people without heads? Not in Iraq.

    Maybe they should check their news staff, cause if anyone there has a head, they sure as hell ain't using it!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I guess they learned nothing from Vietnam when one of the Vietnamese working for Rutgers has acknowledged he was working for the North Vietnamese. Yea, those inside sources can really give the media a scoop.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous10:56 AM

    At least when the New York Post reported a headless body in a topless bar, there actually was a headless body.

    ReplyDelete
  5. d'oh!

    AMERICANS ALWAYS LIE!

    ALL TRVTH IS TO BE FOUND IN ISLAMISTS' PRESS RELEASES!

    --J Thomas 7:50pm 29 Oct

    ReplyDelete
  6. Come on guys, you place too much importance on these so-called "facts." Haven't you learned? It's the narrative that's important.

    ReplyDelete
  7. ++

    desperate TIMES call for desperate measures.. *sigh*

    ==

    ReplyDelete
  8. amr said:
    "...one of the Vietnamese working for Rutgers has acknowledged he was working for the North Vietnamese." [emphasis added]

    You mean Reuters, don't you? Rutgers is the State University of New Jersey. I doubt it was disseminating "news" about Vietnamese activities during the war.

    ReplyDelete
  9. "Has the MSM Reached Its Limits?

    The horrible discovery at Time Magazine was disturbing even by the shoddy standards of the mainstream media. Blogger Gateway Pundit said that he found 20 acephalic drones working at a New York City newsroom. The same day that suicide journalist Franklin Foer drove The New Republic into a head-on collision with reality, killings its reputation forever...."

    ReplyDelete
  10. That was supposed to be "killing is reputation forever. PIMF.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Rutgers? Perfidy in Piscataway!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous12:10 PM

    Even if it did happen (which it probably did not), notice, now that the stats are against them they shift to more anecdotal evidence (if you can call it that) and/or examples of events… goal post shifting… all the more absurd because its also probably enemy disinformation / propaganda…

    ReplyDelete
  13. The 20 headless bodies are like the Mussolini's planes or tank.
    He would parade them in any and all cities he visited, to show how many tanks, or planes, he had. But they were always the same few tanks and planes touring around with him.

    It is an Italian catchphrase to refer to them.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Here's something you might want to note. Time magazines online version of the article referenced in this post has published a correction. Surprise!

    But wait! You didn't think they would correct something that makes Iraq look better did you? Here's their correction:

    "The original version of this article incorrectly stated that Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno has even gone so far as to say that Baghdad could be entirely under the control of Iraqi security forces in a year. In fact, what he said was that Baghdad could be between 40 and 50 percent under the control of Iraqi security forces by the end of the year."

    Wouldn't want to let incorrect good news go uncorrected, now would we? Unbelievable.

    ReplyDelete
  15. pst314,

    The MSM reached it's limit during the Lewinski thing and have been fading rapidly ever since. That is when they lost their title as the "gatekeeper of information". Hillary had Newsweak spike the Lewinski story and the rest of the MSM was trying to bury it like a cat trying to bury it's turds.

    Unfortunately for them there was these guys named Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh who ran the story. After that there was no way they could bury it. Hillary and her shadow government have been trying to silence both talk radio and bloggers (yes I know Matt says he isn't one) ever since

    This is also why Hillary will not be president. There are too many who know about her shady fundraising and all the other BS she has pulled. She isn't as good of a liar as Bill is, nor is she good at hiding her emotions. She is transparent as glass. And seeing as the MSM are no longer the gatekeepers of information nor do they control the agenda anymore. There is no way the MSM can cover for Hillary.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Do these magazines and newspapers understand that there is a thing called the internet and things called blogs, which doublecheck what they write? (Or do for as long as they will be allowed to operate; Clinton and Pelosi have both made noises that the internet should be regulated).

    And how come Drudge never picks up stories like this? Why doesn't he support the blogs?

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous4:44 PM

    Hey, Gateway! Time Mag added a correction to the article!

    Correction Appended: Oct. 31, 2007:
    The original version of this article incorrectly stated that Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno has even gone so far as to say that Baghdad could be entirely under the control of Iraqi security forces in a year. In fact, what he said was that Baghdad could be between 40 and 50 percent under the control of Iraqi security forces by a year from now.

    Looks like Time isn't budging.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Actually the Vietnamese double-agent "reporter" worked for Time. He died last month.

    ReplyDelete
  19. He worked first for Reuters news service and later for 10 years as Time magazine's chief Vietnamese reporter according to Google. Not Rutgers as I wrote. Obviously I need to proof read better since I don't have editors like TIME.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anonymous8:43 PM

    "The original version of this article incorrectly stated that Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno has even gone so far as to say that Baghdad could be entirely under the control of Iraqi security forces in a year. In fact, what he said was that Baghdad could be between 40 and 50 percent under the control of Iraqi security forces by a year from now."

    I'm not sure which implication is more sad, that the Times reporters only know about what's going on in Baghdad and don't know that it's an island of problems in a sea of improvement, or that they know that Baghdad is not representative of Iraq and are only using it to slant their report.

    Fake but accurate...now it applies to the whole report!

    ReplyDelete
  21. the political situation is shaping up

    No it isn't and is unlikely to. From the recent GAO report:

    "Iraq has not yet advanced key legislation on equitably sharing oil revenues and holding provincial elections. In addition, sectarian influences within the Iraqi ministries continue while militia influences divide the loyalties of Iraqi security forces."

    ReplyDelete
  22. ++

    well, the MSM is about 3 to 5 months behind
    on the news, but i have to say, they're doing
    better than Steve J. @ 9:39 PM.. :D

    ==

    ReplyDelete
  23. Maybe a small thing, but look at the verb from the article's last sentence. "That same day a suicide bomber on a bicycle careened into Baquba police station..." Why careened? It sounds accidental. "...careened".Why not "rode intentionally"? "Rode straight at", or "directly into"? Or "pedalled furiously over the rubble, glass, burning tire dumps, cut-in-half dogs and two feet deep sewage"?

    ReplyDelete
  24. Thank you for pointing out this blatantly fake, propaganda-spreading and obviously never fact checked story by TIME. I wrote to them this morning as you recommended but there mailbox is full. I guess they are full of it.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Anonymous6:25 AM

    Without more depressing news to report the MSM/terrorsymps hafta manufacture it

    ReplyDelete
  26. I sent an email to the Time asshats.Told them I haven't bought their rag in 20 years...probably more like 30 ;).Traitorous SOB's, they are.

    ReplyDelete