Sunday, August 19, 2007
Who complains to the New York Times?
Regular readers know that I have been quite critical of Clark Hoyt, the new "public editor" of the New York Times. Today's column, though, hints at how difficult his job is. Apparently the Grey Lady's readers complained that a recent article by the distinguished Times correspondant Michael Gordon inflated the extent to which Iran was supplying insurgents in Iraq with weapons and "explosively formed penetrators" (EFPs), which can destoy up-armored Humvees:
Many readers recalled The Times’s failure to provide skeptical-enough coverage of the run-up to war in Iraq and said this article was more of the same, with only the name of the country changed.
“I’ve seen this movie before, and I didn’t like it,” said Frank J. Schmitz of Canton, Mass....
Readers said that, at a time of growing tensions between the United States and Iran, the article failed to offer persuasive evidence that Iran was the source of the bombs, known as explosively formed penetrators, E.F.P.’s, which can go through the armor of Humvees.
Never mind that even the Times had surfaced that evidence at length, including in a long article on March 27 (Times Select). Fair use excerpt:
American intelligence analysts say the first detonation of an E.F.P. in Iraq may have come in August 2003. But their view that Iran was playing a role in the attacks emerged slowly. American officials said their assessment of Iranian involvement was based on a cumulative picture that included forensic examination of exploded and captured devices, and parallels between the use of the weapons in Iraq and devices used in southern Lebanon by Hezbollah.
''There was no eureka moment,'' said one senior American official, who like several others would discuss intelligence and administration decision-making only on condition of anonymity.
The entire E.F.P. assembly seen repeatedly in Iraq, including the radio link used to activate it and the infrared sensor used to fire it, had been found only one other place in the world, American officials say: Lebanon, since 1998, where it is believed to have been supplied by Iran to Hezbollah.
According to one military expert, some of the radio transmitters used to activate some of the E.F.P.'s in Iraq operate on the same frequency and use the same codes as devices used against Israeli forces in Lebanon.
More evidence came from the interception of trucks in Iraq, within a few miles of the Iranian border, carrying copper discs machined to the precise curvature required to form the penetrating projectile. Wrappers for C4 explosive, among other items, were traceable to Iran, officials say.
An important part of the American claim comes from intelligence, including interrogation of captured militia members, about Shiite militants who use E.F.P.'s and maintain close ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah.
The militant groups led by Abu Mustafa al-Sheibani have operated one of the most important E.F.P. networks. According to American intelligence reports, his network has been receiving E.F.P. components and training from the Quds Force, and elite unit of the Revolutionary Guard, and Hezbollah operatives in Iran. He is on the Iraqi most-wanted list and the Iraqi criminal court issued a warrant for his arrest in 2005.
Ahmad Abu Sajad al-Gharawi, a former Mahdi Army commander, has been active in Maysan Province. American intelligence officials say his group was probably linked to the attack on British forces that was cited in the American diplomatic protest. He is also on the Iraqi government's most-wanted list, and an Iraqi warrant has been issued for his arrest.
In September 2005, British forces arrested Ahmad Jawwad al-Fartusi, the leader of a splinter group of the Mahdi Army that carried out E.F.P. attacks against British forces in southern Iraq. American intelligence concluded that his fighters might have received training and E.F.P. components from Hezbollah.
Mr. Fartusi lived in Lebanon for several years, and a photograph of him with Hezbollah members was discovered when British forces searched his home. In the view of American officials that may be circumstantial evidence of an Iranian connection, because American intelligence experts say Hezbollah generally conducts operations in Iraq with the consent of Iran.
Last week, American-led forces captured Qais Khazali and Laith Khazali, two Shiite militants who were linked to the kidnapping and killing of five American soldiers in Karbala in January, the United States military said. American officials say they have also trafficked in E.F.P.'s.
Indeed, newshounds know there is virtually no doubt that Iran has long been supplying Iraqi insurgents with weapons for the particular purpose of killing American and British soldiers. It is remarkable that the same people who would go to the trouble of writing the Public Editor of the New York Times lack the skills necessary to find the evidence that they seek from the thousands of other published accounts. So remarkable, in fact, that one is forced to wonder whether these complaints that Hoyt is responding to are part of an organized campaign to dispel criticism of Iran. Either that, or his complainants are carefully husbanding their ignorance against the chance that facts will collide with their political preferences.
In any case, Hoyt hints that the Times readers who do not believe that Iran would arm America's enemies are not very polite:
Most of the e-mail assailing this story attacked Gordon personally. I was astonished at the meanness of some of it and reminded anew of how debased so much of what passes for political discourse has become.
Personal attacks from readers of the New York Times? I'm flabbergasted.
On the small chance that Clark Hoyt is interested, here is a topic for a future column: Of the mail that he gets that might reasonably be categorized as "left" or "right," which is more prone to personal attacks, foul language, and accusations of dishonesty? That would make for an interesting column regardless of its results.
Special supplement:
American forces are tracking about 50 members of an elite Iranian force who have crossed the border into southern Iraq to train Shiite militia fighters, a top U.S. general said Sunday.
16 Comments:
By 
, at
Sun Aug 19, 11:12:00 AM:
The NYTs all the bull thats fit to print
By 
SR, at
Sun Aug 19, 12:04:00 PM:
Re: Special Supplement
Tracking them? Why haven't they killed them yet?
And for all the NYT skeptical readers, just where do you think these weapons are coming from? N.Korea?
By Christopher Chambers, at
Sun Aug 19, 01:09:00 PM:
Re: the special supplement--maybe we can get the X-men or the Justice League to track them? Leonidas and the 300? Optimus Prime?
You sow the wind, guess what happens? And then you call upon all the comic book rhetoric and gimmicks to justify it. My God--and you sy you're anti-Hollywood? :-)
Please, if someone could clarify something off-topic for me, from the unique and enlightened perspective of the right: you hate the Jews who run Hollywood etc but love the Jews who run Israel (and embrace the neo-con clowns thusly). Yet the Jews who run Israel would be truly be up the brown creek without the Jews who run Hollywood--so isn't that a bit schizophrenic?
Oh well, maybe its the same as the National Urban League convention or the NAACP conclave, when we get together and excorate the rappers and athletes and corporations and then take their cash and attend their parties and ride in their limos with their video hoes and nominate them for "image awards."
What a sad world you and we have wrought. At least I can admit it.
By tm, at
Sun Aug 19, 01:16:00 PM:
Our weapons have found their way to Iraqi insurgents; wouldn't you think it inaccurate if a newspaper said something like, "Iraqi police fended off attacks yesterday by the Mahdi army. The Mahdi army, said to be armed by America, attacked a police station" et&.
Tigerhawk, that the Times recognized the diciness of the evidence that Iran is arming insurgents actually makes it a little worse that they'd uncritically reiterate the Bush line in future stories.
By Chris, at
Sun Aug 19, 02:03:00 PM:
CC,
While the views of the right are not ubiquitous, I'd like to take on this statement you made from my perspective.
"Please, if someone could clarify something off-topic for me, from the unique and enlightened perspective of the right: you hate the Jews who run Hollywood etc but love the Jews who run Israel (and embrace the neo-con clowns thusly). Yet the Jews who run Israel would be truly be up the brown creek without the Jews who run Hollywood--so isn't that a bit schizophrenic?"
WTF? Well, that's my initial response. Obviously, your views are framed in terms of race and religious identity. The right's criticisms of Hollywood are cultural, not racial or religious. Your interpretation says more about the way you, and the left, view consevatives than it does about conservatives.
Do you really believe that one can't criticize some of the trash Hollywood churns out without being anti-Jewish? It's an absurd argument. And you're being ridiculous. And just how would Israel be in worse straits without "the Jews who run Hollywood"?
By , at
Sun Aug 19, 02:28:00 PM:
J.P.,
You can't choose your facts, and it is a fact that Iran is supplying Shia extremists in Iraq with weapons, EFPs, and training. Date stamps on rockets and captured EFPs don't lie.
You can, however, argue the extent to which they are doing so or the overall effect that it has on the insurgency/civil war/religiously motivated violence. From my foxhole (literally) in Baghdad, Shia extremists are the number one problem and I could talk about it in detail for hours.
And your analogy is nonsensical. Weapons are provided directly to the legitimate security forces of the country, not to insurgents. That some of them have found their way into Jaysh al Mahdi's arsenal is the fault of Jaysh al Mahdi, not the US.
And I would stop characterizing it as the "Bush" line, unless you think Karl Rove has somehow managed to convince the Iranians to arm Iraqi insurgents as part of some XK-RED-27 double-bluff. The Iranians have enough incentive to want to do this on their own, I doubt they needed any prodding.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Sun Aug 19, 02:52:00 PM:
CC: "...you hate the Jews who run Hollywood..."
Actually, Jewish "control" of Hollywood ended a long time ago. Apparently you haven't gotten a movie deal on one of your books. Otherwise, you would know.
Good grief, man. Stop living in the past.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Sun Aug 19, 03:07:00 PM:
P.S.
CC: "Yet the Jews who run Israel would be truly be up the brown creek without the Jews who run Hollywood..."
Actually that's probably not true. Over the years the lion's share of American Jewish support for Israel has come from the the Northeast. Many of my Jewish friends in L.A. are anti-Zionist -- and always have been.
By Gary Rosen, at
Sun Aug 19, 07:17:00 PM:
Chrissy is a classic antisemite - everything is the fault of the Jews. He takes a completely unrelated topic and starts a screeching, incoherent, semiliterate rant about the Jews. That's because Chrissy itself is a nitwit and loser who can't take responsibility for its own failures so it blames it all on the Joooooos. Antisemitism isn't about Jews, it's about antisemites.
By , at
Sun Aug 19, 11:49:00 PM:
Come on guys, you are wasting your time on CC. He is just trying to stir up controversy, get a discussion going. He spends as much time on writing these posts as he does to drink a cup of water. Throw down some cliches and get the right-wingnuts all stirred up. He rarely if ever replies. What does that suggest? To me, it means CC doesn't take all that seriously what he has posted. Else CC would feel the need to defend it.
Look at another way. CC's posts are often very poorly reasoned and argued. Yet the guy is an attorney. He knows how to present a good argument. He just doesn't want to bother to do so in posting on this blog. This is entertainment for him.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Mon Aug 20, 12:27:00 AM:
Yeah, Gringo, but it's still fun. None of the regular commenters seem to take his remarks seriously. I certainly don't.
I have often wondered whether CC uses the comment section here to generate dialogue ideas for his next novel.(As every writer knows, the story begins when the conflict begins, and the story ends when the conflict ends.) If that's the case, I am more than glad to help.
By , at
Mon Aug 20, 01:04:00 AM:
THE NEW YORK SLIMES not worth reading not worth lining a birdcage with not worth anything and like the horns of a steer a point here a pont there and a lot of bull in between
By TigerHawk, at
Mon Aug 20, 09:30:00 AM:
Gringo and DEC have Chris Chambers figured out, I think. I've known him for more than 25 years, just five years longer than I've known Ann Coulter, who is much the same in her own way. Indeed, Chris and Ann barely missed each other at Michigan Law School -- I have long regretted that they did not overlap. I, for one, would have been intensely amused.
By TigerHawk, at
Mon Aug 20, 09:32:00 AM:
Before you guys go bananas, on reflection that last comment was a bit misleading. I was friends with Ann Coulter back in law school and even now occasionally swap emails with her (maybe annually), but I can't say that I know her any longer. I don't think I've spoken to her since roughly 1988.
By Gary Rosen, at
Tue Aug 21, 01:41:00 AM:
Even if DEC, Gringo and TH are right about CC - and they probably are - the fact that Chrissy instinctively went off-topic for a little Jew-bashing shows what a compulsive, obsessed antisemite he is. I know that he's a pathetic loser, less danger to Jews than even a nitwit like Pat Buchanan. But I still hate his lousy motherfucking Nazi guts.
By Dawnfire82, at
Fri Aug 24, 07:22:00 PM:
Does that make you an anti-anti-Semite? Is that fodder for hate crimes? Hmmm...
Back to topic, Iran is feeding militant groups in Iraq as a matter of policy. Period.
