Go on over and read Jeff G.'s discussion on the ACLU's biased account of FOIA documents dealing with detainees' deaths: On propagada -- a follow-up to the follow up to the follow up.
He quotes extensively from the Weekly Standard's article, "Truth or Consequences."
The deaths-in-custody of 44 such detainees were detailed in those documents, according to the ACLU's press release and accompanying explanatory chart. According to the original documents themselves--which are posted on the ACLU's website--the actual number of deaths involved appears to be only 43. But never mind about that. More to the point--the intended point being, in the words of the press release, that "U.S. operatives tortured detainees to death during interrogation"--was the contention that the Pentagon itself had labeled 21 of these 43 deaths "homicide."
That number wasn't even close to accurate. The documents show that military medical examiners attributed 19 of the 43 deaths to natural causes, 2 others to factors as yet "undetermined," called one further death an "accident," and left the "manner of death" box in 8 case files entirely blank. There were 13 official "homicides," not 21. And documents associated with at most 5 of those homicides contain even the vaguest hint of possible wrongdoing by American personnel. The other 8 appear to have been "homicides" only in the technical sense that mortuary physicians use the term--to indicate any nonaccidental death resulting from human agency, whether sinister or innocent.
And what would an entirely innocent homicide look like, you ask? Innocence is in the eye of the beholder, of course, but try this on for size: Two of the very same "homicides" the ACLU has for two months now been content to cite as evidence of "widespread" human rights abuses involve wounded Iraqi insurgents captured after armed engagements with American troops. Both men were evacuated to U.S. hospitals where surgeons attempted to save their lives. But neither man survived his injuries.
Oh, really? Hmmmm, now, why am I not surprised about this? Oh, that's right! We're talking about the ACLU!!! That lovely, soi-disant "civil rights" organization which tells you what your civil rights are, so long as you're not military, Christian, pro-life, or pro-gun, in which case you have no rights because you're a monster fights your freedom.
Jeff offers his own comments, and concludes brilliantly:
For its part, the ACLU was certainly guilty of engaging in an intentional anti-war propaganda incident by having knowingly releasing faulty and inflamatory data. But how do we respond to the media who ran with the ACLU’s press release as if it were verified hard news?
The way I see it, there are only two conclusions we can draw from their decisions: 1) either the press was too lazy to do its own legwork and, because it was predisposed to believe the worst about the military under a Republican administration—and because it is often ideological aligned with the ACLU, whom it trusts—it ran with the story, not knowing it to be faulty; or 2) those media outlets who relied on the ACLU and did recognize flaws in the data knowingly conspired to pass anti-war propaganda to their readerships using the imprimatur of their news organizations. And either way? They had the laziness excuse to fall back on.
They were simply duped—much like the Democratic party was duped into voting to give the President authority to go to war.
The irony is, there are, I’m sure, a number of anti-war progressives who expressed HORRIFIC OUTRAGE over the story of paid placement of factual US news in Iraqi newspapers who will argue that the ACLU and the papers who ran their press release were acting in good faith because they really really really and truly believe the war to be wrong, and the ends justify the means.
And what’s frightening is not so much that they’d do it. It’s that they’d believe they were acting honorably. (emph. mine)
"...knowingly releasing faulty and inflamatory data"?
Gee. Why can't people talk plainly? What the ACLU did with its deliberate distortions was LIE. And lies intended to harm others (in this case, military personnel, administration officials and common citizens) is slander. In print, it's libel. The media mouthpieces who uncritically spewed the ACLU's lies as facts were at the very least useful idiots and more likely witting accomplices.
All of 'em need an introduction to Dr. Tarr and Mr. Fether and tickets out of town by "rail transport".
Posted by: David | December 14, 2005 at 06:28 PM