Superbly stated.

Let’s agree to slightly disagree on one point, because Spinner’s use of “those foreign resistance fighters” qualifies as an unfortunate choice of terms to me. Jihadists/terrorists/the criminally insane/or imported suckers and dead-enders would be more accurate and less politically loaded for some of us Americans AND Iraqis.

You seem not to have any problem with the tone of Spinner’s dire-and-desperate human interest stories in Iraq. Are you not troubled by the paucity of liberated-and-happy stories by her and her fellow press? Do you think they’re not often reported because they don’t exist in any number, or that bad news trumps the good in wartime and all’s fair…? Is this little tempest really a matter of a decent journo getting trashed, or an understandable reaction to stories that hyper-criticize even the trivial things the administration or our troops may (or may not) do in Iraq?

Troops: Conduct a war, face death, liberate a country from the Butcher of Baghdad, face death, rebuild the infrastructure, face death, keep trying to achieve a high level of security against homocidal fascist criminals, face death, AND remember not to place a Koran you find amidst any girlie mags you retrieve from a hiding spot, else all is lost and “Americans are devils” for your thoughtless act.

I always considered it a textbook on journalistic ethics and accuracyÖ. lately summarized for us as ìfake but accurate reportingî.

I have no doubt that Jackie Spinner got her facts right: undoubtedly there are unemployed liberal arts majors with little porno collections in Baghdad, some of them slap their mothers at the least provocation, some of them turned more religious in the recent months, some of them refuse to take Joo-pills for their medical conditions and some of them feel humiliated by the presence of Americans in their country. It is also quite true that American troops are currently in Baghdad and conduct house searches when occasion arises. Some of the soldiers may consider the fact that a Muslim would keep girlie-mags next to the Koran funny.

The only problem is how and if at all the above facts connect with one another. But why bother about such trifling details. Fact-checking cannot and will not stand between us and the publishing deadline. Especially if the story fits into the all important narrative: American imperialist pigs keep oppressing the natives.

Thanks for the research. None of the examples you give uses “the resistance” in the weaselly way so favoured by journalists that implies a parallel to the Maquis. I think we can agree on that.

It doesn’t really bother me in the end whether a particular blog copies this story or not. I’ll stop reading the ones that continue trashing decent journalists, just like I stopped reading MSM that were trashing decent pols. Survival of the most honest.

Sorry if I wasn’t clear that those examples aren’t too egregious to me, either. I couldn’t find the instance that stood out to me yesterday, and tried to note above that Spinner nearly always uses the term “insurgents”. Still, she and WaPo on occasion have used “resistance” in characterizing people fighting us in Iraq, and I cited one for someone who said he was unaware of any (”the foreign resistance fighters”). I also included a few others that describe the fighting against us as “resistance”. I carefully avoided any references to “pockets of resistance” and such, of which there were many.

I also said that “punch out of the resistance” was debatable. She probably is referring to the state and activity of resistance, as opposed to the doers. Technically, semantically, the bad guys ARE resisting us in our efforts to stop their unlawful and terrorist activity and subdue them. The military uses the term for its purposes, irrespective of other implications. At some point, though, if journos keep calling their fighting and shooting at us “resistance” and terming what they do as “resisting” and forming “pockets of resistance”, as opposed to committing terrorist acts, setting up gang strongholds, and trying to kill and intimidate the police, troops and civilian population and elude capture, then it’s not a huge leap for readers to perceive them as “resistance” fighters in a war against invading aggressors. Enough people do see it this way. Anyway, much ado about a perfectly acceptable word, Chuck, and you are more than welcome to resist this nonsense!

(What about “pockets of perfidious persistence”, instead?)

One problem with Spinner’s Imaad shame-story is that the Arab press might be keen to pick up on it and amplify its significance to a vastly different audience than Americans. An incident and story that seem silly to us could resonate more deeply with the Muslim faithful. Not exactly what our troops and a struggling free Iraq need just now.

The examples you quote don’t particularly bother me, and resistance can be used be used with its traditional meaning: “…punch out of the resistance,” strikes me as falling in that category.

I am in fact not particularly bothered by the story of Imaad; you can see how much sympathy it has aroused everywhere. But there is missing information and context to the story, that’s what bothers me. That’s what hard for a correspondent to track down and what separates the professional from the “I was there.”

And let’s face it, it’s not as if the Washington Post hasn’t had A few small problems with bogus human interest stories in the past…

You’re an editor, so what do you think of this question that this story never answers: What were the US troops doing at Imaad’s door? Did they have a tip? Did they see something on the property? Did they see the glow from the TV and want to catch the Patriots game? Are they simply roaming the city, bursting into homes at random?

And I notice you didn’t answer my question ó would you, as a professional editor, have run this story?

Windowlicker (??), You bring up a fair point about Spinner’s terminology, because she nearly always uses “insurgents” to tag those whom we’re still fighting. But, in a Hardball interview with Chris Matthews she did say, “I think that they believe very fervently that those foreign resistance fighters are in there and are controlling the city.” She also called them “thieves and foreign fighters”, as well as insurgents.

Here is an instance of her using the resistance” in the article, Fallujah ‘has been seized’ (note the sneer quotes): “Heavy artillery fire and air power seemed to knock the punch out of the resistance, which steadily pulled back from the main U.S. advance…”. That’s a debatable usage, though, and she does use “insurgents” throughout the rest of the story.

In another article, Spinner wrote, “Qais Khazali, did not say whether al-Sadr also intends to disband his militia, the Mahdi Army, and abandon his military resistance to the U.S. occupation.” She contributed to Scott Wilson’s WaPo article Sadr Tells Iraqis to Sustain Resistance that refers to “a hotbed of Sunni resistance“.

Here’s a headline to a story she co-wrote with Khalid Saffar (found on almuajaha.com): “Resistance” Criminals Massacre Three Iraqi Families…with Massive Bomb.

Ossian, I don’t understand why you’d look for “false notes” in Warrior Monk. I thought it a good piece when I called it “nice”. You can see that many other of her up close and personal journo observations are fairly negative, though, if you checked out the other linked stories. Here’s another one: In Fallujah, Marines Feel Shock of War. Maybe we don’t need a lot of “puppies saved from burning building” reports, but do we really need to read the obvious “Wow- our bombs blow up things and we get shot at- bummer” stories about our brave and sacrificing soldiers and Marines who are there to do their military thing?

I first thought of Dog the Bounty Hunter, but Dog’s MO is a lot tougher than the GIs’ (and Cops’). First, Dog kicks the door in. Dog cuffs you before he asks questions. If there’s nothing amiss, he might let you go. Then Mrs. Dog would come back and kick Imaad’s butt from here to tarnation if she found out he’d been beating up his mom.