Padilla Evidence Flimsy? – “This is what we wind up with after spending $20 million in prosecuting Padilla — a goddam form handed to a CIA agent by a stranger appearing out of nowhere in Afghanistan?” (Lewis Z. Koch @ Firedoglake)
Racism goes on trial again in America’s Deep South – The prosecution of three black Louisiana youths reveals the rise of discrimination by stealth
“It is nothing personal,” one businessman told me, “I like you and believe you could be bringing us a better future, but I still sympathize with those who attack the coalition because it is not right for Iraq to be occupied by foreign military forces.” – The source for this quote is from a Microsoft Word document posted on a government website used to share documents relating to the Coalition Provisional Authority. Apparently the people who were putting these together at the time had been using classified documents to cut and paste from, so when you activate the ‘Track Changes’ option, a treasure trove of information is revealed. Discovered by a political scientist’s 8 year old son…you can read about it here.
“As Iraq’s government compiles a record of failure, the Bush administration is under growing pressure to intervene to rearrange Baghdad’s dysfunctional political order, or even install a new leadership…” (Source)
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Poor Research Often Results in Poor Conculsions
http://lamplighternews.blogspot.com/2007/05/poor-research-often-results-in-poor.html
Salon has a post entitled “The secret Iraq documents my 8-year-old found” about Pete Moore, a political science professor at Case Western Reserve University, claiming to have discovered secret information embedded in documents he downloaded from the Coalition Provisional Authority’s (CPA) web site. According to the Professor, the security information he “discovered” was from a “security memo” embedded in economic reports that were written in word format. The Professor was quiet excited: “For an academic like myself it was a small treasure trove.” The professor then erroneously jumps to the conclusion that:
The document that my son accidentally undeleted, Administrator’s Weekly Economic Report, was dated March 28, 2004. Its content is dry and unremarkable…The only truly interesting parts of it, in fact, are the deletions, which are on another topic altogether.
Presumably, staffers at the CPA’s Information Management Unit, which produced the weekly reports, were cutting and pasting large sections of text into the reports and then eliminating all but the few short passages they needed. Much of the material they were cribbing seems to have come from the kind of sensitive, security-related documents that were never meant to be available to the public. In fact, about half of the 20 improperly redacted documents I downloaded, including the March 28 report, contain deleted portions that all seem to come from one single, 1,000-word security memo. The editors kept pulling text from a document titled “Why Are the Attacks Down in Al-Anbar Province — Several Theories.”
Alas, if the good professor would have reined in his excitement, put aside his assumptions, and merely Googled “Why Are the Attacks Down in Al-Anbar Province” he would have found this link to GlobalSecurity.org that has the full memo containing the text he was so excited to have “discovered”, he would also have discovered that it did not come from a “security memo” but instead from a Weekly Economy “INFO MEMO” (the same type of report he was reviewing) for the period February 7-13, 2004. (Compare the Professor’s report to the February report)
The February memo was written by Keith Mines, Al Anbar Goverance Coordinator and Bill Wood IMU. The portions that the Professor attributes to a “security memo” and Salon describes as “The secret Iraq documents” were not secret and were not from a “security memo.” Instead they are part of the economic report and found in a section entitled “Welcome Home – Information Management Unit Why are the Attacks Down in Al Anbar Province – Several Theories.” Finally, the February memo is not secret or even confidential, but merely FOUO (For Official Use Only). At any rate the information the Professor claims to have “discovered” – and that he claims we were never supposed to know about – is part of a document that is in the public domain. In other words, no one tried to hide this information and no one tried to keep it a secret. The professor just jumped the gun and now as a result over 100 blogs are carrying this erroneous story.
Whether the Professor’s conclusions about the conduct of the war are correct is debatable. What is not debatable, is that the Professor is wrong in claiming to have “discovered” secret information from a security memo. Instead, it appears that someone updated the economic reports by merely deleting the “welcome home” section from the February report and updating the other relevant parts – which would explain why the economic documents dated after the February report contained this deletion.
At best this appears to be a case of a professor jumping to conclusions without fully researching the facts and starting a blog swarm based on false information. I mean, I am merely a retired naval aviator and now lawyer (yea I know what’s 100 lawyers on the bottom of the ocean – a start) but it took me all of 20 minutes to find the original memo. Perhaps the professor should have Googled a little instead of jumping to conclusions.
Hat Tip to Passion for pointing the Salon Article out.
posted by Mike at 4:36 PM
One of the right wings favorite talking points is that “racism is a thing of the past” the incident in Louisiana shows how wrong they are. In some ways the immigration debate starts to make much more sense once you realize how big a factor racism plays in the anti-immigrant stance.
im not sure where you get your right wing talking points, i have yet to hear one person say that rascism does not still exist. But that article makes me sick, it makes me ashamed that there are still places that can tarnish a region’s reputation.
I’d alter the talking point that karl posted and instead use, “when race ever enters into a political conversation, the right-winger will get ultra-defensive and basically shut down”.
That’s been my experience. Not with everyone though. And there are people in the south that ruin it for everyone. Like Daniel Carver in Georgia I’d imagine…this town doesn’t know what’s about to happen to them. They’ve got the cavalry down there now I think…if Sharpton is done talking shit wherever he is now, you’ll probably catch him at the event sooner or later.
The thing that I notice from Republicans more than Democrats, is how they’ll disregard the inequality in this country when it comes to education, health care, nutrition and safety…falling back always on the “land of opportunity” – “everybody’s born with a chance to succeed” – as if the 1/100 chance some kids are born facing is on par with the exact opposite odds a more fortunate kid is born benefiting from.
That disparity cannot be denied, and it’s NEVER spoken of in the national media.
bmili:
I am pretty sure that Tony Snow recentely said that racism is fast becoming an ugly memory or something to that effect.
Al
Good point about the inequality of opportunity, imagine if George Bush Jr had been born into a middle class family, he would be lucky to have a job at all. Recentely with my job I have been spending a lot of time in the sticks and the mentality when you get into rural Kansas or Nebraska is very self defeating. It is hard to explain but the people in the small towns seem willing to live near poverty so that they can be “safe” even as meth takes over the entire area.
I am not aware of Tony Snow’s comments, but sadly rascism will always be there in some places/people, both on the right and the left. Karl your anectdotal/psychoanalysis is hardly one worth debating because you have traveled to the “sticks”. al, there IS disparity, the difference between the two parties is how they choose to address those problems, unfortunately on the Republican side we lack an effective communicator on why a flatter tax structure benefits those in the lower income bracket and why government housing/payments do the opposite of what they were intended to (read milton friedman for an articulate answer). Democrats in general favor a wealth redistribution model that is similar in respects to Socialism. I think both sides acknowledge the need for education, the right favors school vouchers, choice, and privatization. The left favors more spending and increased federal govt involvement. Thats the bottom line, I dont see how that is “ultra defensive, and shutting down”. And Karl, no offense, after rereading your comments, please add intellectual substance if you want to debate, otherwise you add to the perception on the right of what we call the “Angry Left”