As far as I’m concerned Kennedy, Byrd, CBS, and all the rest of the folks who have been spouting all of the negative rhetoric about America and its military are directly responsible for the beheading of Nick Berg. All of those folks have encouraged and emboldened our enemies and this is the end result. But, to the liberals, the end (Bush out) justifies the means (increased American and Iraqi casualties). Shame on them all.

The contact URL you gave is only for the Boston.com website. To contact the Globe, use:

http://www.boston.com/help/globe_info/

I’ve been meaning to let my Sunday Globe subscription lapse for a while now (I only get it for the sports and coupons anyway - the “news” and op-eds would be funny if not so destructive). After this, I’m going to terminate it immediately and make sure they know exactly WHY. They’ll never get another penny of my money.

“They’ll consider Nick Berg a martyr to their cause.”

No they won’t. They’ll consider him a mercenary who shouldn’t have been there in the first place. They’ll call him (when they’re in private; a few might slip and do it in public) a war profiteer and say he got what’s coming to him.

Hell, I’ve already seen that sentiment starting to pop up from some supposedly European commenters over at jihadwatch.

Do you have no shame? You are just creating incendiary lies to turn Americans against each other. That’s a very patriotic thing to do during wartime. Here’s what the Globe article actually says:

“The images, depicting men in camouflage uniforms having sex with unidentified women, bear no characteristics that would prove the men are US soldiers or that the women are Iraqis. And there is nothing apparent in the images showing they were taken in Iraq.”

At least in my edition of the Globe they didn’t actually run the pictures. They also contacted a military official who, in the spirit of bureaucracy, refused to declare them false. Your beef should be with the idiotic city councilman. Instead you attempt to smear the Globe!

Republicans, conservatives : how long will you continue to let your good name get dragged through the mud by know-nothing bloggers and stooges?

It’s really too bad we haven’t got the cohones for sedition and treason charges anymore in this country.

John,

The photos were verified as fakes A WEEK AGO. Why is the Globe still treating them as though there is some chance they might be real?

I wrote a newswire story on Suicide Girls and forgot to give you a hat tip. I thank you for your coverage and apologize for my omission.

The Nation of Islam is not a terrorist organization, nor has it been accused of having any terrorist connections as far as I know. They are African-Americans, and have virtually nothing to do with Muslim world outside the US.

His contact info can be found here.

I just called and found that he’s not a Democrat; he’s a member of the Green party.

OK, maybe I’m living in wishful-thinking land, but I see this “silver-bullet” as yet another Bush Chinese finger puzzle, where the harder you pull to escape, the tighter you get locked in. As in, the more Democrats use this “bullet”, the bigger their own flesh wounds will be.

Is the average American REALLY gonna blame GWB or Rumsfeld for this? We already have the answer; two-thirds of Americans think Rumsfeld should stay. Meanwhile, the more Dems mention this, the more mud is gonna splatter against the troops in the field, and the more people will see that sanctimonious statements like “Oh, of COURSE we support the troops…. BUT….. (always there’s a “but”)” are just so much hogwash. John Kerry version .71, , hurling his medals in contempt, is the default boot up position of the Democratic Party, not Kerry .69 or JFKennedy .42 , soldiers who knew an enemy when they saw one.

So if Dems want to forthrightly undermine ANOTHER US war effort with this “silver bullet”, well, I guess they will set about doing just that. But I’m not convinced that vast number of Americans will be oblivious to the fact that that is exactly what they are doing…… again.

I heard Chuck Turner a month ago on the Mike Barnicle show. Barnicle had previously said some stupid comments about an interracial marriage being a “Towanga” thing. .…referring to a movie that had an interacial couple as the stars.

In his attempt at public pennance for the liberal establishment in Massachusetts, Barnicle had the race merchant Chuck Turner come on the show.

Most of Turners comments were statements about Boston that had little bearing on reality. He went on to claim that in the past 30years the situation for blacks had not gotten any better.…oppurtunities were non existant.

Turner went on to tell Mr. Barnicle that he, like most white Bostonians needed a sensitivity class.

Perhaps this latest stunt was Mr. Turners first installment of his public re-education “class”.

Good Work Chuck.….I’ll be writing you soon.

By the way, I live in Dorchester in his district.

More “enlightenment” from City Councilor Chuck Turner.…

BYLINE: By Margery Eagan

BODY:

Call me naive white woman.

But I’ve loved watching, for the first time in history, a female national security adviser. An African-American woman - a two-fer. A smart, tough, non-token, speaks-five-languages veritable hot shot.

Plus, how sweetly embarrassing for self-righteous talk-the-talk but not necessarily walk-the-walk Democrats: the evil Republicans, supposed Party of the Bigots, beat them to the punch with Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell.

Well, now I know. I’m wrong.

Left-of-center local activist Sadiki Kambon alternately calls Rice “Condoleezza White Rice” and “The Negro Security Adviser.”

`She thinks she is part of the inner circle of power brokers (and that) she’s been accepted by the white world.” No, she’s just a yes-girl to a president whose policies have hurt the black community from which she came, although, says Kambom, you’d never know it.

City Councilor Chuck Turner says she’s not concerned “about the plight of the majority” of African-Americans. She’s a “tool to white leaders. . . . It’s similar in my mind to a Jewish person working for Hitler in the 1930s.”

So does that mean Rice is no little kids’ role model, a feature, perhaps, with ancient Harriet Tubman, during Black History month?

Not at Roslindale’s Frederick Douglass Charter School.. Head of school Wanda Speede concedes her GOP politics may be part of the reason. Not at Albert Holland Health Careers Academy. Parents, friends, relatives and entertainers fill role model slots, and Oprah tops the girls’ list.

Stephanie Sibley of Boston Plan for Excellence echoed Madison Park High School Headmaster Chuck McAfee when she said lots of students, burdened with woes closer to home, aren’t that involved in current events.

In fact, the first seven girls queried at largely African-American Madison Park never heard of Rice. The next three - Ayodele Akinwumi and Orsylla Mack, 16, and Osuagwu Nwanneka, 18 - had heard of her, but not enough to offer an opinion. The next six girls never heard of her either.

But Natasha Myers, 19, clearly a pol in the making, sees Rice enough to be infuriated. “That black lady up with Bush? Oh I don’t like her. She’s weak. She don’t tell us what she knows.”

The most nuanced views on Rice came from Callie Crossley and Kathy Taylor, both successful professionals and veterans of black women’s organizations. Taylor was the more favorable, but then, she’s married to a Republican.

“I admire (Rice) tremendously,” said Taylor. “I’m proud of her. I wish she were a Democrat. She is really in those rooms witnessing history. . . . When she speaks you know she’ll say the right thing.”

Taylor and Crossley repeated the familiar distinctions between Rice and Powell: She’s a true believer; Powell’s the good, loyal soldier. Said Crossley, “And there’s never been a time when I’ve not heard that man say loudly and proudly, `I know the path was made for me.’ With Rice? It’s like, `Nobody marched for me.’ But when she’s got her game on, she makes (former Bush adviser) Karen Hughes look like she’s mumbling.”

To these women at least, Rice got where she got based on brains, talent, drive and merit. Not her husband, her daddy, her race or political ties. To Turner? “I think young black women who are politically attuned are embarrassed by her behavior.”

What to make of all this? Here’s a few things: that a black woman superstar still bears a burden white women don’t - to take care of the folks back home. That admiring Rice has less to do with Rice than with your politics. That no matter her awesome achievement, she’s not deemed worthy enough of much mention to kids around this heavily Democratic state and town. We just don’t like her ideas.

“The Nation of Islam is not a terrorist organization, nor has it been accused of having any terrorist connections as far as I know.”

Excepting all the trips Farrakhan has made to the Middle East, including (I’m 90% sure) funding received from Ghaddafi.

Oh, and excluding that little matter of the “Zebra Murders” in the early ‘70s.

Of course what’s the line between publicizing photos that appear to be fake almost from the get-go and publishing photos you have no way of confirming are real as the Washington Post did?

John,

You need to drink more coffee in the morning when you read your paper…

Here’s an scan of the Globe article showing the porn site photos

A major reason Rhodes is even on Air America was the major support she received from lefty bloggers who declared her the best thing since sliced bread. And now we hear what these lefties really think… the death of Bush at his family’s hands “works for them…” that is, unless, they’re willing to condemn this abhorrent rhetoric.

America will fall, and it will fall for the same reason all great empires have fallen: its people will come to hate and fear each other more than they hate and fear the people who are killing them.

There is no safety in virtue, only in numbers. It is more important to do the same thing than to do the right thing.

To show the pictures while claiming “we dont know if they are real” is an old retorical trick. It’s part of classical retoric, and is mentioned in the old Roman litterature on retoric. (Yes, it really is that old) It’s called “saying without saying”. The basic concept is to say or hint something you know is a lie, and then immediately retract it. That way, your opponent cant counter it effectively, because you havent actually said it… But it is out there, and everyone will still remember it.

I believe it was once Cicero that referred to a victims brother as “husband”, to imply they were lovers, and then immediately retracting it with “oops, I always get that wrong”, so there was no way to counter it it, since he never really claimed it…

It’s an extremely effective retorical trick, and I for one is pretty sure the paper did this deliberately. If they really had legitimate doubts about the pictures, they would simply describe them, and say they wont publish until they have proof. Instead they choose to “saying without saying”, showing them and saying “we dont know if they are true”, to cover their back. People will remember the pics, true or not, and they havent really claimed they were true, so they can just print a small follow up later saying the pics turned out to be false… Cicero would be proud…

There has also been an international scandal for weeks in Britain over fake abuse photos. There is no way on earth that Boston Globe editors were not aware of the danger.

Besides the fact that Councilman Turner and activist Sadiki Kambon have egg on their face from their pettying of unverified photographs the Boston Globe certainly must have a policy on how to handle “hardcore” pornographic images in their newspaper runs.

Kambon, who is director of the Black Community Information Center, said at the news conference that he received the photographs by e-mail from Akbar Muhammad, a representative for the Nation of Islam.

Hmm, sounds like someone ought to start a “truth commission” to investigate the information originating from the Black Community Information Center. Or, perhaps they should develop some cynicism regarding their information as they admit they really have no clue about what they’re putting on display.

“We[Turner and Kambon] cannot document their authenticity,” he told reporters. “But you have the ability to do that.”

As for he NoI’s terror connections the current REVIVED NoI was brought to you by the finances of the Iranian Mullahcracy and the Libyan Qhaddafists. The larger Islamic groups in the United States view the NoI as a dogmatic interpretation of Islam due to the prophetic status bestowed upon Elijah Mohammed.

Ridiculous. I haven’t seen many threads more inane than this one.

I read Donovan Slack’s article this morning (buried on page B2 of the City & Region section)and was able to determine that the theme of the story wasn’t the pictures, it was Chuck Turner’s grandstanding and lack of due diligence.

Donovan basically ridiculed Turner by quoting him as saying that:

“We cannot document their authenticity,” he told reporters. “But you have the ability to do that.”

Essentially, what the Globe was saying is that there was a lot of skepticism regarding the pics. I won’t act suprised that you excitedly embrace willful ignorance by failing to read the text of news stories you get all frothed up about…but if you’re going to put on the airs of moral superiority and clear thinking you might want to do your homework ;-)

CC,

You’re defending hardcore porn in a major newspaper. I know that hasn’t dawned on you yet, so I thought I’d let you know.

And the tone of the piece is not in question. In fact, the way it was written made running the photo even more outrageous. They knew it was probably a hoax and still published real porn as fake news.

Stop reading blogs and get back to studying for your J-School finals.

Inane, CC? The Boston Globe’s job is to responsibly report facts, not promulgate wild, unsubstantiated accusations based on photos of unknown provenance from questionable sources. The reporting standards for a national newspaper are a bit higher than for a Boobies Photoshop contest on Fark.

Any newspaper editor with Google and a brain larger than a walnut would’ve taken the time to check the photos before publishing them. A British tabloid just did the same stupid thing (though their selection of published photos wasn’t quite as graphic) and now they look like the idiots they are. And even if they somehow managed to miss the fact that they’re known fakes, they really should’ve thought twice about running them unblurred on their front page.

“This photo should not have appeared in the Globe,” editor Martin Baron said in a statement. “First, images portrayed in the photo were overly graphic. Second, as the story clearly pointed out, those images were never authenticated as photos of prisoner abuse. There was a lapse in judgment and procedures, and we apologize for it.” Source: Boston Herald

Why don’t the real owners of the porn shots used sue the Globe for copywrite infringement. Now that would be rather amusing and apt.

I am a life-long democrat, supported and continue to support the war and I was an edwards supporter in the primaries. This prison scandal and the way my party and the media have handled it, is abominable to me. We have enough people in the world wanting to see us fail that it is doubly painful to see so many of our own citizens apparently wishing the same.The more they keep it up the more they will insure my vote for Bush in the fall. I hope other democrats who are able to clearly see the stakes will make their voices heard and threaten a backlash vote for Bush in November.