There's no universal policy. But reporters can a broad leeway in some cases.
If they're good they'll verify it with at least one independent source. Sometimes they can learn something from one person -- not for attribution -- and that will give them the information they need to verify things from other sources that they can attribute.
Thanks for the insight on that. Seems like alot of responsibility and judgement is laid on the reporter. I'm not saying this either out of any dislike etc. of the media, I want them to be accurate is all and the chances or opportunities to strech or imbellish the truth with annonymous sources seems a bit seedy to me and has the smell of rumor type tabloid reporting. Maybe it's just me but it seems to be happening more and more and it also seems that those stories who use annonymous sources have some credibility problems. If the only way to get a story is an annonymous source then perhaps the story itself isn't that solid.
I hope Saddink is getting nervous. More good news.
Saddam's Bodyguards Captured in Tikrit
WASHINGTON — U.S. troops detained 13 people -- including as many as 10 believed to be part of Saddam Hussein's (search) personal security team -- during a raid on a house south of Tikrit, the U.S. military said Friday.
Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division (search), made the disclosure in a video-teleconference from Iraq with reporters at the Pentagon.
Tikrit is the former Iraqi dictator's hometown and a source of continuing support for his deposed regime.
The raid was based on intelligence from local Iraqis.
Asked whether he believed U.S. forces were closing in on Saddam, Odierno said it was unclear whether the newly captured members of his security detail had been protecting him recently.
He said U.S. troops also have spoken with one of Saddam's wives. He did not identify her.
Odierno said officials are still sorting through the detainees. When asked if there were reports that Saddam himself was believed to be nearby, Odierno wouldn't talk about any specifics but said there are a number of operations following up on a number of leads.
Odierno said information from Iraqis has been "flowing in" in the past 24 hours.
The Bush administration and U.S. officials hope more Iraqis will come forward with information about the whereabouts of former regime members following the release of pictures and videos of the bodies of Uday and Qusay Hussein (search), who were killed in a firefight with U.S. forces Tuesday.
Odierno said his troops have detained 1,000 individuals in the past 30 days alone.
When I was in college I studied journalism for a while and thought about going into it until I developed a distaste for everything that goes on behind the scenes. But what I learned then (late 80's) was you, the reporter, know nothing. You only report what other people know. Everything you write you should be able to attribute to someone else so that you're not saying, "This is the truth," but instead you're reporting that, "Mister X says this is the truth." I was also taught that anonymous sources were dubious at best and to try and avoid them. It requires the reporter to use the reporter's judgement as to the validity of the information instead of leaving that decision up to the reader. I notice it also has the interesting side effect that when people don't know the source of the information, it tends to take on a *greater* credibility. When people do know the source, the source is often picked apart. When people don't know who it is, and there's no one to be picked apart, it's almost as if the source seems infallible
I notice it also has the interesting side effect that when people don't know the source of the information, it tends to take on a *greater* credibility. When people do know the source, the source is often picked apart. When people don't know who it is, and there's no one to be picked apart, it's almost as if the source seems infallible
I would agree that they should be avoided. However in my personal opinion, anonymous sources offer far less credibility. When I hear a story say " A high ranking member of ______ who requested anonymoity said _____. Leads me to question. Is the supposed high ranking official some disgruntled person ? Were they told to leak it by those above them ? Or do they really have acess to that info to begin with? Such as in the BBC case where the source wouldn't have access to that info anyway.
For instance when they say a high ranking pentagon official it could mean a million things. First what do they consider high ranking ? Second and most importantly, there's a thousand different departments within the Pentagon with their own different duties. That high ranking but anonymous soucre at the pentagon might be involved in a completely different program or assignment than the one the reporter is talking about. The reoprter in all fairness wouldn't know what info the source was or wasn't privvy to. But ought not simply take the word of someone who merly works at the Pentagon. They might be simply repeating the scuttlebutt they hear at the coffee machine.
I think the public in as many cases as possible should know whom the source is if people want to take umbrage at their words that's fine, but other than when a sources life is in danger and a few other circumstances I think the public has a right to know, similar to facing ones accuser. The reporter should do more to avoid using "anaonymous" sources. I know they are trying to get a scoop and dig out a story but many times I think they might be propagating a lie or half truth to worry about it later or if anyone notices.
Ellen Goodman who I think is loony said in one her recent editorials at how shoddy fact and source checking can be over the desire for the scoop and the always approaching deadline. I think it's lazy journalsim in some cases and I suppose nessecary in some. I've just noticed a spike in the number of annonymous source stories latetly and find it troubling.
I actually wasnt jokin, ninja... I was askin him, cause I wanna know if people sit there and talk shit about the job that he does, like he's sittin there doing about the prez...
Like ya actually know whats goin on inside the ninjas head or somethin, right? What makes someone an expert, on if they can call the prez a dumbass, for doing things that they dont think are right?
There was something wonderfully strained about how various news organizations dealt last week with the news of the deaths of Qusay and Uday Hussein. From the BBC to Reuters, there was palpable - if sternly repressed - dismay. One of the first headlines that the Baathist Broadcasting Corporation put out on the news was: "US celebrates 'good' Iraq news." The quotation marks around "good" did not refer to any quote or source in the text. They were pure editorializing on behalf of the BBC, whose campaign to undermine the liberation of Iraq is now in full swing. It was not clear to the BBC that the deaths of two of the most sadistic mass murderers on the plant was in any way a good thing, especially if they redounded to the credit of Tony Blair or George Bush. And immediately, of course, pundits started to criticize the U.S. action as "extra-judicial," as a violation of the law against assassination, and so on. Their immdiate impulse on hearing this terrific news was: how can we spin this against Blair and Bush?
Commentators on the popular American left-wing website, Democratic Underground, were more explicit about how they felt: "Doesn't a part of you wish that Queasy and Duh-day were alive? I'll admit they're scum and rightfully so, but anything that lands as even more humiliation on W's grotesque shrivelled face is that much the better. It's sad, really, that as despicable as they are, Saddam's family seems to be the lesser of two evils when you compare them to the wretched little bastard occupying the White House and destroying America in the process..." To be fair, this guy was upbraided by other posters. But he wasn't alone. Here are two others: "What I really hate about the way our government has been taken over is that I'm at the point where I almost DON"T want anything good to happpen in Iraq, I WANT them to screw up, I WANT them to fail." Another vented: "Bush and his ilk are far, far worse than Saddam and his two degenerate brats, and that's saying a LOT." Yes, it is saying a lot, but the anti-war hysteria that has crept over the British and American press in the last few weeks has tended to obscure the reality of what is actually going on in Iraq. The New York Times, for example, which has become far less tendentious since the exit of its deranged former executive editor, Howell Raines, nevertheless still refers to the contract killings and Baathist remnants' murders of small numbers of U.S. soldiers as "an uprising." It also refers to the American and British presence in Iraq as an "occupation." You get the idea. Colonial powers opposed by restless population. Far more congenial to anti-war types than: Liberators still opposed by remnants of totalitarian regime.
But all the evidence in Iraq points to something else: an extraordinarily successful war followed by slow but measurable progress in putting back together again a brutalized and fractured country. Think back for a moment to what we once feared might happen in the aftermath of a war to depose Saddam. Here are some of the predictions, cited last week by Paul Wolfowitz: civil war; destroyed oil wells; environmental catastrophe; famine; a refugee crisis; and the possibility of cleaning up after chemical and biological attacks. None of this happened - in large part because of the astonishingly innovative and swift war plan. The most staggering result is that Kurds, Shia and Sunnis are still on board for a united, democratic country. But instead of reporting on this achievement, the press, which in large part opposed the war in the first place, has done all it can to turn this success into a "quagmire."
Yes, there are obvious problems. The electricity grid has proven hard to get back and running again; the capitulation of the Baathist thugs in the war means that many dead-enders are still at large and doing all they can to inflict damage in American troops in order to weaken resolve in the U.S.; we over-estimated the need for troops and under-estimated the need for trained policemen in the aftermath of conflict; we were too slow to recruit Iraqis for internal security forces; and so on. These are all forgivable mistakes. But they are all remediable; and steps are being taken to ensure that obvious problems are tackled and resolved.
But no one - no one - can or should deny that the lives of average Iraqis are now immensely better than they were under a vicious totalitarian state. I don't know about you, but with every new mass grave being discovered, with every gruesome torture chamber unearthed, with every children's prison exposed, the more obvious it is to me that this war was not just morally defensible; it was morally essential. By and large, it seems, understandably skittish Iraqis agree. The most reliable poll done in Baghdad - more troubled than regions to the Shiite South or Kurdish North - found a steady majority of Iraqis want the allies to stay and view the future as more promising than the past. As to security, for all its problems, the current situation certainly compares favorably to, say, the chaos in liberated Germany after the Second World War where military casualties mounted as die-hard Nazis made their last stand. But somehow I don't remember the Western media describing those isolated Nazi remnants as an "uprising." But then, in those days, the Western media wasn't quietly hoping for the allies to fail.
Why, I keep asking myself? It's perfectly legitimate to question - aggressively - the fallible intelligence that was used in part to justify the war. But to use such an inquiry to undermine the current attempt to rebuild Iraq is to compound forgivable government failure before the war with the desperate need for allied success after it. To replay the war debate now is a fatal distraction from the vital work at hand. Even if you disagreed with the war, it is utterly unfair to the Iraqi people now to use their future and their lives as pawns in a domestic political squabble. Yet some would try to do exactly that. Their agenda needs to be resisted just as firmly as the cowardly attacks by Baathists in Iraq. For they serve the same purpose: the demise of democratic promise in Iraq and the collapse of the West's long and difficult war against terror. We can afford neither. And it's past time petty politics ceased in the face of that reality.
Pretty soon they'll have the Terrorism Casino. Where you can gamble money on terrorism. See how your stocks are doing, maybe make some bets on who is going to die next. You can play blackjack or poker with the house's special cards containing Iraq's most wanted. Maybe you'll be able to play roulette, and try to guess where the weapon of mass destruction will land. Bing-Osama for the older crowd. Then of course there will be slots. If you get three jokers, err Saddams, then you get a nice payoff. The American portion of the casino is for the high-rollers who want to invest a lot and risk a lot. The British portion of the casino is for those mid-level gamblers. The Australian portion involves the nickel slots, for those who don't want to risk much. The French portion of the casino is for those who do not wish to gamble, but would rather watch the action while wining and dining on the casino's fine dining.
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon will abandon a plan to establish a futures market to help predict terrorist strikes, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Tuesday.
Sen. John Warner (search), R-Va., said he spoke by phone with the program's director, "and we mutually agreed that this thing should be stopped."
Warner announced the decision not long after Senate Democratic Leader Thomas Daschle (search) took to the floor to denounce the program as "an incentive actually to commit acts of terrorism."
Warner made the announcement during a confirmation hearing for retired Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker (search), nominated to be Army chief of staff.
"This is just wrong," declared Daschle, D-S.D.
Warner said he consulted with Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, and Appropriations Committee chairman Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and they agreed "that this should be immediately disestablished."
Where did the money come from in the first place? To what was it originally appropriated? If he can throw that kind of money around before accounting for it, the Pentagon needs a shorter leash.
Yes a President must know everything every federal employee is doing. That includes the lowliest private stationed in South Korea to the lowliest clerk in the Department of Agriculture office in Brainerd.
Bush put Poindexter back into government. Bush should have people in place to either nix a program like this from the beginning or to keep him informed that such questionable things are in the pipeline. or perhaps it just never occured to Bush or anyone he appointed that it was questionable. Just because a leader isn't micromanaging doesn't mean they aren't responsible for what's going on. The strategy of "blame the subordinate, then forgive them and go on with business as usual" is one Bush has been using a bit too much in my opinion.
No offense to anyone but their are numerous programs/employees etc. floating around at the Pentagon. Every program or idea doesn't go on his desk. Yes the ultimate responsibility rests with him. He didn't need to get involved and it was rightly cancelled. Had it needed to go that far I'd bet he'd have ended it.
Funny though to hear the left now big govt. spending hawks. I guess it depends on who's running the show.
We both know the President can't possibly keep track of every single person or issue. It took more than some peon in accounting to get a "Terror Attack Stock Market" started. Ultimately, Dubya is responsible for the people under him, and that includes the goofs at the Pentagon that brewed this up.
Bush put Poindexter back into government. Bush should have people in place to either nix a program like this from the beginning or to keep him informed that such questionable things are in the pipeline.
It should have gotten nixed as soon as Poindexter said, "hey, I have an idea." But no, someone else thought it was a good idea too and approved spending money on it and setting up a website for it and clearly this was something they seriously intended to do until today when it came out to the general public. I wouldn't give Bush one iota of credit for nixing it.
I wouldn't either. I don't think he had to, someone much lower on the totem pole thought it was a bad idea and canned it.
You think so eh?
"...When the plan was disclosed Monday by DemocraticSens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, the Pentagon defended it as a way to gain intelligence about potential terrorists' plans.
"...At the Foreign Relations hearing, Wolfowitz defendedDARPA, saying "it is brilliantly imaginative in places where we want them to be imaginative. It sounds like maybe they got too imaginative," he said, smiling."
Facing outraged Democratic senators, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz (search) said he learned of the program in the newspaper while heading to a Senate Foreign Relations hearing on Iraq..
"I share your shock at this kind of program," he said. "We'll find out about it, but it is being terminated."
Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., said in an interview that he received assurance from the head of the Pentagon agency overseeing the program that it would "stop all engines on this matter today."
Warner spoke by telephone with Tony Tether, head of the Pentagon's Defense Research Projects Agency (search), after consulting with Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. The three agreed "that this should be immediately disestablished," Warner said.
Hundreds of "Jihadis" are among some causing trouble still in Iraq. Read the quotes from the Jihadi's and realize this is the mentality we are dealing with here. The interesting part is that most of the Iraqi's wanted nothing to do with these morons. Their quotes are telling though.
On a personal note I attended a party Sunday for my cousin and saw him off as he heads to the Gulf. Some of his friends stopped by and I was amazed at how young they looked. I guess I was too but it doesn't seem like it now. In my mind he's still my little 12 year old cousin I used to take out fishing only to have him outfish me everytime. He leaves his wife of 2 years and his 4 month old daughter. At least he got to be here for her birth I guess but it was hard to see him go. Keep him in your thoughts if you would.
There's no universal policy. But reporters can a broad leeway in some cases.
If they're good they'll verify it with at least one independent source. Sometimes they can learn something from one person -- not for attribution -- and that will give them the information they need to verify things from other sources that they can attribute.
Rick 7/25/03 8:06am
Thanks for the insight on that. Seems like alot of responsibility and judgement is laid on the reporter. I'm not saying this either out of any dislike etc. of the media, I want them to be accurate is all and the chances or opportunities to strech or imbellish the truth with annonymous sources seems a bit seedy to me and has the smell of rumor type tabloid reporting. Maybe it's just me but it seems to be happening more and more and it also seems that those stories who use annonymous sources have some credibility problems. If the only way to get a story is an annonymous source then perhaps the story itself isn't that solid.
Saddam's Bodyguards Captured in Tikrit
WASHINGTON — U.S. troops detained 13 people -- including as many as 10 believed to be part of Saddam Hussein's (search) personal security team -- during a raid on a house south of Tikrit, the U.S. military said Friday.
Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division (search), made the disclosure in a video-teleconference from Iraq with reporters at the Pentagon.
Tikrit is the former Iraqi dictator's hometown and a source of continuing support for his deposed regime.
The raid was based on intelligence from local Iraqis.
Asked whether he believed U.S. forces were closing in on Saddam, Odierno said it was unclear whether the newly captured members of his security detail had been protecting him recently.
He said U.S. troops also have spoken with one of Saddam's wives. He did not identify her.
Odierno said officials are still sorting through the detainees. When asked if there were reports that Saddam himself was believed to be nearby, Odierno wouldn't talk about any specifics but said there are a number of operations following up on a number of leads.
Odierno said information from Iraqis has been "flowing in" in the past 24 hours.
The Bush administration and U.S. officials hope more Iraqis will come forward with information about the whereabouts of former regime members following the release of pictures and videos of the bodies of Uday and Qusay Hussein (search), who were killed in a firefight with U.S. forces Tuesday.
Odierno said his troops have detained 1,000 individuals in the past 30 days alone.
"We continue to tighten the noose," he said.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,92933,00.html
When I was in college I studied journalism for a while and thought about going into it until I developed a distaste for everything that goes on behind the scenes. But what I learned then (late 80's) was you, the reporter, know nothing. You only report what other people know. Everything you write you should be able to attribute to someone else so that you're not saying, "This is the truth," but instead you're reporting that, "Mister X says this is the truth." I was also taught that anonymous sources were dubious at best and to try and avoid them. It requires the reporter to use the reporter's judgement as to the validity of the information instead of leaving that decision up to the reader. I notice it also has the interesting side effect that when people don't know the source of the information, it tends to take on a *greater* credibility. When people do know the source, the source is often picked apart. When people don't know who it is, and there's no one to be picked apart, it's almost as if the source seems infallible
Allison Wonderland 7/25/03 9:56am
I would agree that they should be avoided. However in my personal opinion, anonymous sources offer far less credibility. When I hear a story say " A high ranking member of ______ who requested anonymoity said _____. Leads me to question. Is the supposed high ranking official some disgruntled person ? Were they told to leak it by those above them ? Or do they really have acess to that info to begin with? Such as in the BBC case where the source wouldn't have access to that info anyway.
For instance when they say a high ranking pentagon official it could mean a million things. First what do they consider high ranking ? Second and most importantly, there's a thousand different departments within the Pentagon with their own different duties. That high ranking but anonymous soucre at the pentagon might be involved in a completely different program or assignment than the one the reporter is talking about. The reoprter in all fairness wouldn't know what info the source was or wasn't privvy to. But ought not simply take the word of someone who merly works at the Pentagon. They might be simply repeating the scuttlebutt they hear at the coffee machine.
I think the public in as many cases as possible should know whom the source is if people want to take umbrage at their words that's fine, but other than when a sources life is in danger and a few other circumstances I think the public has a right to know, similar to facing ones accuser. The reporter should do more to avoid using "anaonymous" sources. I know they are trying to get a scoop and dig out a story but many times I think they might be propagating a lie or half truth to worry about it later or if anyone notices.
Ellen Goodman who I think is loony said in one her recent editorials at how shoddy fact and source checking can be over the desire for the scoop and the always approaching deadline. I think it's lazy journalsim in some cases and I suppose nessecary in some. I've just noticed a spike in the number of annonymous source stories latetly and find it troubling.
Hey Fold... what kind of work do yo do in your job?
What kind of work does fold do?...Job??
Good one Violent!
If GW would have sent troops in right away, fold would have been upset with that too.
I actually wasnt jokin, ninja... I was askin him, cause I wanna know if people sit there and talk shit about the job that he does, like he's sittin there doing about the prez...
Like ya actually know whats goin on inside the ninjas head or somethin, right? What makes someone an expert, on if they can call the prez a dumbass, for doing things that they dont think are right?
Violent...If you hang around here long enough, you'll find out that fold is the self proclaimed expert on just about every topic known to mankind.
Sorry fold. I didn't know you were siphoning precious dollars off of veteran's organizations. But I suppose that is a type of employment.
Nah actually they dont.. I was askin you, cause you seem to be the one that has the most slangin to do on a buncha subjects.
See man... now you gotta bust on me, just cause I was askin questions?
No Apologies
The Iraq War Was Well Worth It
There was something wonderfully strained about how various news organizations dealt last week with the news of the deaths of Qusay and Uday Hussein. From the BBC to Reuters, there was palpable - if sternly repressed - dismay. One of the first headlines that the Baathist Broadcasting Corporation put out on the news was: "US celebrates 'good' Iraq news." The quotation marks around "good" did not refer to any quote or source in the text. They were pure editorializing on behalf of the BBC, whose campaign to undermine the liberation of Iraq is now in full swing. It was not clear to the BBC that the deaths of two of the most sadistic mass murderers on the plant was in any way a good thing, especially if they redounded to the credit of Tony Blair or George Bush. And immediately, of course, pundits started to criticize the U.S. action as "extra-judicial," as a violation of the law against assassination, and so on. Their immdiate impulse on hearing this terrific news was: how can we spin this against Blair and Bush?
Commentators on the popular American left-wing website, Democratic Underground, were more explicit about how they felt:
"Doesn't a part of you wish that Queasy and Duh-day were alive? I'll admit they're scum and rightfully so, but anything that lands as even more humiliation on W's grotesque shrivelled face is that much the better. It's sad, really, that as despicable as they are, Saddam's family seems to be the lesser of two evils when you compare them to the wretched little bastard occupying the White House and destroying America in the process..."
To be fair, this guy was upbraided by other posters. But he wasn't alone. Here are two others:
"What I really hate about the way our government has been taken over is that I'm at the point where I almost DON"T want anything good to happpen in Iraq, I WANT them to screw up, I WANT them to fail." Another vented: "Bush and his ilk are far, far worse than Saddam and his two degenerate brats, and that's saying a LOT."
Yes, it is saying a lot, but the anti-war hysteria that has crept over the British and American press in the last few weeks has tended to obscure the reality of what is actually going on in Iraq. The New York Times, for example, which has become far less tendentious since the exit of its deranged former executive editor, Howell Raines, nevertheless still refers to the contract killings and Baathist remnants' murders of small numbers of U.S. soldiers as "an uprising." It also refers to the American and British presence in Iraq as an "occupation." You get the idea. Colonial powers opposed by restless population. Far more congenial to anti-war types than: Liberators still opposed by remnants of totalitarian regime.
But all the evidence in Iraq points to something else: an extraordinarily successful war followed by slow but measurable progress in putting back together again a brutalized and fractured country. Think back for a moment to what we once feared might happen in the aftermath of a war to depose Saddam. Here are some of the predictions, cited last week by Paul Wolfowitz: civil war; destroyed oil wells; environmental catastrophe; famine; a refugee crisis; and the possibility of cleaning up after chemical and biological attacks. None of this happened - in large part because of the astonishingly innovative and swift war plan. The most staggering result is that Kurds, Shia and Sunnis are still on board for a united, democratic country. But instead of reporting on this achievement, the press, which in large part opposed the war in the first place, has done all it can to turn this success into a "quagmire."
Yes, there are obvious problems. The electricity grid has proven hard to get back and running again; the capitulation of the Baathist thugs in the war means that many dead-enders are still at large and doing all they can to inflict damage in American troops in order to weaken resolve in the U.S.; we over-estimated the need for troops and under-estimated the need for trained policemen in the aftermath of conflict; we were too slow to recruit Iraqis for internal security forces; and so on. These are all forgivable mistakes. But they are all remediable; and steps are being taken to ensure that obvious problems are tackled and resolved.
But no one - no one - can or should deny that the lives of average Iraqis are now immensely better than they were under a vicious totalitarian state. I don't know about you, but with every new mass grave being discovered, with every gruesome torture chamber unearthed, with every children's prison exposed, the more obvious it is to me that this war was not just morally defensible; it was morally essential. By and large, it seems, understandably skittish Iraqis agree. The most reliable poll done in Baghdad - more troubled than regions to the Shiite South or Kurdish North - found a steady majority of Iraqis want the allies to stay and view the future as more promising than the past. As to security, for all its problems, the current situation certainly compares favorably to, say, the chaos in liberated Germany after the Second World War where military casualties mounted as die-hard Nazis made their last stand. But somehow I don't remember the Western media describing those isolated Nazi remnants as an "uprising." But then, in those days, the Western media wasn't quietly hoping for the allies to fail.
Why, I keep asking myself? It's perfectly legitimate to question - aggressively - the fallible intelligence that was used in part to justify the war. But to use such an inquiry to undermine the current attempt to rebuild Iraq is to compound forgivable government failure before the war with the desperate need for allied success after it. To replay the war debate now is a fatal distraction from the vital work at hand. Even if you disagreed with the war, it is utterly unfair to the Iraqi people now to use their future and their lives as pawns in a domestic political squabble. Yet some would try to do exactly that. Their agenda needs to be resisted just as firmly as the cowardly attacks by Baathists in Iraq. For they serve the same purpose: the demise of democratic promise in Iraq and the collapse of the West's long and difficult war against terror. We can afford neither. And it's past time petty politics ceased in the face of that reality.
July 27, 2003, Sunday Times.
copyright © 2003, 2003 Andrew Sullivan
Well doesn't it seem kinda cool to sit around and get bombed all day? Sounds like a plan to me :)
G I joe :)
Is there any more proof that Bush needs to go?
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=6&u=/ap/20030729/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/terror_market_10
I read about that in the Wall Street Journal.
That is through-the-looking-glass crazy.
I gotta agree. It's simply nuts.
The Pentagon couldn't hold bake sales to raise money. That wouldn't look right.
So they set up what is, in essence, a Dead Pool.
And is it surprising that there's a certain Admiral Poindexter at the heart of it? Who let that guy back into government? Oh yea, it was Bush.
It is crazy and it will be ended in my prediction.
Pretty soon they'll have the Terrorism Casino. Where you can gamble money on terrorism. See how your stocks are doing, maybe make some bets on who is going to die next. You can play blackjack or poker with the house's special cards containing Iraq's most wanted. Maybe you'll be able to play roulette, and try to guess where the weapon of mass destruction will land. Bing-Osama for the older crowd. Then of course there will be slots. If you get three jokers, err Saddams, then you get a nice payoff. The American portion of the casino is for the high-rollers who want to invest a lot and risk a lot. The British portion of the casino is for those mid-level gamblers. The Australian portion involves the nickel slots, for those who don't want to risk much. The French portion of the casino is for those who do not wish to gamble, but would rather watch the action while wining and dining on the casino's fine dining.
It's already cancelled thankfully.
Anyone for billing Poindexter the $750K spent on it already?
Where did the money come from in the first place? To what was it originally appropriated? If he can throw that kind of money around before accounting for it, the Pentagon needs a shorter leash.
You with The Pentagon, or are you with the Terrorists, Muskwa?
Not sure what prompted the question.
Frustration with the Bush Doctrine, and the increasingly apparent notion that they feel they can do whatever they want to advance it.
Couldn't someone see the wisdom of putting the kabash to this before ended up on the news wires?
Frustration with the Bush Doctrine, and the increasingly apparent notion that they feel they can do whatever they want to advance it.
I'm sure Rick would be fine with it if it were the Kerry Doctine or the Clinton Doctrine or the Dean Doctrine.
I don't see Bush's fingerprints on the plan.
I don't see Bush's fingerprints on the plan.
If not, he should know what's going on at the Pentagon.
Yes a President must know everything every federal employee is doing. That includes the lowliest private stationed in South Korea to the lowliest clerk in the Department of Agriculture office in Brainerd.
Bush put Poindexter back into government. Bush should have people in place to either nix a program like this from the beginning or to keep him informed that such questionable things are in the pipeline. or perhaps it just never occured to Bush or anyone he appointed that it was questionable. Just because a leader isn't micromanaging doesn't mean they aren't responsible for what's going on. The strategy of "blame the subordinate, then forgive them and go on with business as usual" is one Bush has been using a bit too much in my opinion.
No offense to anyone but their are numerous programs/employees etc. floating around at the Pentagon. Every program or idea doesn't go on his desk. Yes the ultimate responsibility rests with him. He didn't need to get involved and it was rightly cancelled. Had it needed to go that far I'd bet he'd have ended it.
Funny though to hear the left now big govt. spending hawks. I guess it depends on who's running the show.
That's just silly Jethro.
We both know the President can't possibly keep track of every single person or issue. It took more than some peon in accounting to get a "Terror Attack Stock Market" started. Ultimately, Dubya is responsible for the people under him, and that includes the goofs at the Pentagon that brewed this up.
Check out their web site: http://www.policyanalysismarket.org/
http://www.darpa.mil/iao/FutureMap.htm
Guess what, you're right. It got nixed.
If we had a dime back for dollar spent and every stupid idea the bureaucrats came up with we'd have no deficit and half the tax burden we do.
It should have gotten nixed as soon as Poindexter said, "hey, I have an idea." But no, someone else thought it was a good idea too and approved spending money on it and setting up a website for it and clearly this was something they seriously intended to do until today when it came out to the general public. I wouldn't give Bush one iota of credit for nixing it.
Allison Wonderland 7/29/03 12:17pm
I wouldn't either. I don't think he had to, someone much lower on the totem pole thought it was a bad idea and canned it.
I wouldn't give Bush one iota of credit for nixing it.
You don't give one iota of credit to Bush for anything. what else is new?
I wouldn't either. I don't think he had to, someone much lower on the totem pole thought it was a bad idea and canned it.
You think so eh?
"...When the plan was disclosed Monday by DemocraticSens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, the Pentagon defended it as a way to gain intelligence about potential terrorists' plans.
"...At the Foreign Relations hearing, Wolfowitz defendedDARPA, saying "it is brilliantly imaginative in places where we want them to be imaginative. It sounds like maybe they got too imaginative," he said, smiling."
"It sounds like maybe they got too imaginative."
This is a defense?
Earlier in the article it said Wolfowitz didn't even know about it until he read about it in the paper today.
Yep,
Facing outraged Democratic senators, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz (search) said he learned of the program in the newspaper while heading to a Senate Foreign Relations hearing on Iraq..
"I share your shock at this kind of program," he said. "We'll find out about it, but it is being terminated."
Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., said in an interview that he received assurance from the head of the Pentagon agency overseeing the program that it would "stop all engines on this matter today."
Warner spoke by telephone with Tony Tether, head of the Pentagon's Defense Research Projects Agency (search), after consulting with Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. The three agreed "that this should be immediately disestablished," Warner said.
"It sounds like maybe they got too imaginative."
From a statistical data gathering standpoint, it is a pretty good idea.
Jason Lewis is hailing the macabre Pentagon terrorism futures plan as "the beauty of the market."
"This is the power of the dollar," he said. "That's why I'm a big believer in the sign of the dollar."
Us silly people don't understand the power of the marketplace and the buying and selling of knowledge.
Place your bets, people. It would have been a cockfight for market capitalists.
Hundreds of "Jihadis" are among some causing trouble still in Iraq. Read the quotes from the Jihadi's and realize this is the mentality we are dealing with here. The interesting part is that most of the Iraqi's wanted nothing to do with these morons. Their quotes are telling though.
http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sr&ID=SR1903
Scary.
On a personal note I attended a party Sunday for my cousin and saw him off as he heads to the Gulf. Some of his friends stopped by and I was amazed at how young they looked. I guess I was too but it doesn't seem like it now. In my mind he's still my little 12 year old cousin I used to take out fishing only to have him outfish me everytime. He leaves his wife of 2 years and his 4 month old daughter. At least he got to be here for her birth I guess but it was hard to see him go. Keep him in your thoughts if you would.
Luv2Fly 7/29/03 6:30pm
He will be in my thoughts.