It’s quite interesting to me to see the reaction to the news that the US military was involved in the bombing of an Islamic school, a madrassa, in Pakistan. Pay attention to the language used as people describe the situation:
“80 militants have been killed in an air strike… used as a militant training camp.” say The Muslim Question and Political War Zone, copying and pasting the same text from an uncited source.
Counterterrorism blog calls the madrassa “a recruiting and training camp for Al Qaeda and the Taliban.”
Further Adventures of Indigo Red calls the 80 people who were killed “innocent terrorists”.
I’m not going to make a judgment about whether the 80 people killed in this attack were in fact terrorists, militants, members of Al Quaeda, recruits, or just a bunch of young people getting an education. I wasn’t on the ground. I don’t know.
I wonder, however, how Americans would react if Iraqis were to bomb Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University here in the United States, and then describe it the attack as against a religious school that serves as a training camp for Christian militants and source of recruits for the occupying American military.
How do these two scenarios compare? Is there a different standard?
You said:
“80 militants have been killed in an air strike… used as a militant training camp.†say The Muslim Question and Political War Zone, copying and pasting the same text from an uncited source.”
If you look again, you’ll see the link to the article I cited which you obviously missed on your visit. We always either cite or link back to articles we post at THE MUSLIM QUESTION.
Just scroll down until you see this:
}} more…
Also, I cited that it was from BBC News at the top of the post.
Had your eyes checked lately?
Lance, my fault for not seeing your BBC citation. Indeed, I do need to have my eyes checked.
Still you’re not contesting the cut-and-paste claim, are you? Looking at your blog, dear me, you do fill it up with a lot of content written by other people. Kind of cut and paste central, isn’t it? People can find all this information on their own, at the original source of publication, without your dittohead, can’t they?
And do you have any thoughts about the question that I’ve posed here, or are you too busy finding and ripping off things other people have written?
Cut and paste… must hurry… so much to cut and paste…
There is a different standard. It is imposed by power, which most people confuse with authority or legitimacy.
If Al Qaeda wins this war, the debate will shift into new parameters, guided by new standards imposed by new powers, and accepted by most people (baaa baaa) as legitimate and authoritative.
The “liberal wimps” will be the ones saying, “Hey, don’t bomb Liberty University. Stop torturing Jerry Falwell. Stop sending armed soldiers on house to house raids on devout Christian neighborhoods in the middle of the night. It’s going to backfire.”
Why not let me run my blog and you run yours?
Like John Kerry, you had a chance to take the high road and admit your mistake and correct it. Instead, you chose, as did Kerry, to cast blame away from you and blow it off.
We have great writers and hundreds of original articles. We also post outside articles to save our readers some time by concentrating pertinent articles in one place. Many of the top sites, like Counterterrorism blog do the same thing. It’s a matter of style and a free choice. Our readers love it.
All you’ve done is take an opportunity to make a new friend and instead create friction with your remarks. Face it, you screwed up.
You failed to take the time to properly get your facts about what we posted. Then you failed to make it right, and went on to further embarrass yourself. I think those failures completely overshadow any “cut and pasting” at our blog.
Have a nice day. You won’t see me here again.
Oh dear, Truman, I guess you won’t be elected president. Just like John Kerry!
Why not allow me to talk about whatever I want to talk about? The First Amendment is still, officially, on the books.
I did admit my error, Lance. Top of the comment. Do you need to have your eyes checked?
I don’t have any probelm with cutting and pasting. If someone makes a bunch of assertions, I would like to see their sources. Jim is the only writer here who routinely cites sources and does not put words into people’s mouths, and okay, jclifford has gotten good about that lately too.
There is a difference between the U.S. government and al-Qaeda. The workings of the U.S. government are spelled out in the consitution, the process is openly debated, and the officials are elected and held to some standard of accounatability. The stated goal of the government is liberty and justice for all.
Al-queada is a secret organiztion. No one votes for it, no one can choose whether to have them operating in their area, no one knows who their leaders are, and no one knows who the wealthy individual, individuals, or Arab halliburton-type entities are who finance it. Their apparent goal is to force everyone in the world to convert to Islam or be killed.
Lance’s website recongnizes this, but if you go over and look at that website, the stuff starts to look like it borders on hate speech, conspiracy theories, or playing soldiers.
You guys are so busy fussing about footnotes you forgot to have a substantive policy discussion.
Further Adventures of Indigo Red calls the 80 people who were killed “innocent terroristsâ€. Truman at 8:56 am.
This is two months after the fact, but correcting untruths has no statute of limitations.
I have re-read my post – twice – to make sure my words were quoted correctly. They were not. No where in my post did I write “innocent terrorists.” Truman’s attribution of “innocent terrorists” is a complete fabrication. For the most part, my post was quoting an ABC News report with the predominant portion provided by a man named Mohammad who was there at the attack site and spoke with the villagers who said the people killed were members of the terrorist gangs.
I will say that my general thrust was to say sarcastically that the dead were innocent terrorists, but I did not actually write those words as claimed by Truman with the use of quotation marks.
A good rule to follow is – don’t use quotation marks unless the targeted individual actually used the words quoted; if the person did not use the quoted words, don’t put the words in quotes.
Truman, the misquote could, in fact, be grounds for a libel suit. In the very least, bring your blog and veracity into disrepute. Thanks for the extra traffic, though.
Sue away, if you like.
For the record, the headline of the article is: Madrassa Bombing Kills “Innocent” Terrorists.
Putting extra quotations within the quotations does not substantially change the meaning of my criticism. A libel suit for not including the -pause- suggested by quotation marks?
Please, go ahead. Call a lawyer.
Not only does the title of Indigo Red’s piece contain the phrase “innocent terrorists”, here is his last paragraph (boldface mine):
(boldface mine)
Indigo seems to be using the word “innocent” facetiously and implies the bombing was okay since the people bombed were not “innocent”.