Very Amanpoor Reporting on Jihad

The left screams that the media has a rightist slant. Well, I've got at least one instance where that is not true. Christiane Amanpour did essentially everything she could to misrepresent the truth in a recent CNN program entitled God's Warriors

Prior to its airing on CNN, it was said of God's Warriors by the Associated Press that

Understanding is what Amanpour is trying to promote in "God's Warriors," which takes up six prime-time hours on CNN this week.

Please...don't insult our intelligence. When someone tries to promote understanding, they try to get their facts straight. Not only did she create a great deal of misunderstanding, she caused a great deal of unneeded animosity.

One can dispute why radical Islam is so violent, but it is beyond dispute that

It is "deeply false," to equate "Jewish (and Christian) religious fervency with that of Muslims heard endorsing 'martyrdom,' or suicide-killing. There is, of course, no counterpart among Jews and Christians to the violent jihadist Muslim campaigns underway across the globe...

I wrote about this several months ago in The First Jewish Suicide Bomber. My point: there is yet to be one.

Jews and Christians, as compared to radical Muslims, almost never resort to violence to get their points across.

Much of the segment God's Christian Warriors deals with a man named Ron Luce, depicting him as representative of Christians. Ron who? I've been a Christian (Mormon) for 44 years, and I've never heard of him. I didn't check, but perhaps one of Ms. Amanpour's "fact checkers" was Rosie O'Donnell.

But much of the rest of "God's Christian Warriors" depicts the ministry of Ron Luce. His priority is battling what he views as an amoral popular culture. There's footage of one of Luce's "Battle Cry" youth rallies, which took place in San Francisco in March; in an understated and effective way, the documentary depicts how the two-day event used all the trappings of an extravagant rock concert to condemn most aspects of modern culture (of which rock concerts are part).

Amanpour made more than a few factually incorrect statements on the program, which can't do well to soften the angered feelings between Christians and Muslims and well as Jews and Muslims. For example, HonestReporting notes the following inaccuracy:

Amanpour does not hesitate to inject her own views, demonstrating occasional lack of knowledge. For example when an Israeli settler said God says Jews must live in Hebron, Amanpour interjected that the West Bank was designated by the UN to be the largest part of an Arab state. Not only is this statement factually incorrect, it is out of context. Amanpour is evidently unaware that all Arab states rejected UN partition resolution 181, to which she evidently referred and that the West Bank was included in the area designated for encouragement of Jewish settlement by the Balfour Declaration and even endorsed in article 6 of the British mandate.

The program also tended to be historically very out of context.

One of the most misleading aspects of the program, was the use of the very few isolated incidents of Jewish terror attempts over the past 15 years, to create the false impression that a Jewish terror movement exists on a par with the violent worldwide jihadist phenomenon of indiscriminate death and destruction.

I'm not sure whether Christiane Amanpour had a motive for the plethora of inaccuracies in her series, God's Warriors, nor if she did, what that motive would be. She's married to a former Clinton Administration official, but I'm not sure how that would play into the factual bias, except that Bill Clinton made a somewhat applicable statement at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing, claiming that right-wing Christian fundamentalism and talk-show hosts had created the environment in which such a bombing could have occurred.

But at least, if Christiane Amanpour does not have a motive for her inaccuracies, her professionalism calls on her to recognize those untruths and apologize for them.

Especially in issues so volatile, factuality is critical. False statements purported as fact can have the same effect as swords, rockets, and bombs.

Truth or Propaganda?

When the Iraq war is being reported, it's critical that we get our news from trustworthy sources, and not from the sources that support our political opinion about the war. It's not uncommon for US news sources to parrot untruths that originate with sources friendly to al Qaeda.

While I was serving in Iraq, it was common to wonder why the news was being reported the way it was, because it didn't seem to be a good picture of what was really happening. Sometimes it was just lazy reporting, or an attempt on the part of the reporter to report that which was most sensational. Sometimes it was fear on the part of the reporter to get outside of the Green Zone to find out what was really going on. In many cases, US news relies on news 'stringers' or local reporters that do the reporting for them. It makes me wonder if they rely on stringers more than they do the military for such reporting.

John Hughes, former editor of the Christian Science Monitor tells of one such story.

A Marine officer whose credibility I trust cites an operation of success in the Fallujah region earlier this month that was reported as a disaster by US and British media companies. His unit had established a new precinct headquarters for Iraqi police, Army troops, and US Marines to patrol and protect a dedicated area. It was well received by the local populace and almost 200 Iraqis volunteered for police recruitment. Insurgents sought to disrupt it but were routed.

Meanwhile, in a separate firefight at a makeshift suicide vehicle factory, three separate suicide bombers were killed, two suicide trucks were discovered and blown up, and foreign and other fighters were killed or captured. On the defending side, one civilian and one policeman were wounded, with no US or other casualties. "The enemy was killed in his tracks; his best weapon was discovered before it could cause any harm," says the officer, "but Western media reported no enemy killed in these operations, 28 civilians killed, and 50 civilians wounded. We are getting demolished," the Marine officer says, "by nefarious enemy media outlets … 'reporters' or 'sources' for Arab and other news agencies either on insurgent payrolls or who have known sympathies with insurgent operations, and by collective Western media that are often being manipulated by enemy elements. What incredible economy of effort the enemy is afforded when US media is their megaphone. Why spend precious resources on developing your own propaganda machine when you can make your opponent's own news outlets scream your message louder than you could ever have hoped to do independently?"

Do we think it's important to know the truth, or to propagate those ideas that most closely match our opinion of whether we should be in Iraq? I think that, regardless of what our opinion is, what's true is true. That's what should be reported.

Al Qaeda and al Jazeera are not reliable sources of news. And reliable news sources shouldn't rely on them. Even if it is more exciting than the truth.

All the News That's Fit to Ignore

In the midst of all the negative talk about President Bush and how things are going in Iraq, a huge story was missed. Or was it just not reported?

Everything bad. All the time. President Bush lied, soldiers died. Body count way, way, way up and climbing.

The new motto of America haters is:

Hear no good, see no good, speak no good.

It's interesting how difficult it is to find good news about what's happening in Iraq. It's not because there isn't good news. This has always been the case. It's because 'if we think something is bad, we must only show those issues that support our side of the story, rather than be fair in our debate.'

The bad news should not be minimized. But neither should the good.

A recently very good development was spiked by the media. NewsBusters recently reported the following:

BAGHDAD, Iraq – In one week's time, Coalition Forces captured 11 suspected senior-level terrorists of Ansar al Sunna during a series of raids in north-central Iraq during mid-November.

During the raids, Coalition Forces captured the terrorist emirs of Iraq, Ramadi, Baqubah, Tikrit, al Qa’im, Bayji and Baghdad. They also captured two terrorist facilitators, a courier, an explosives expert and a financier.

The detention of these terrorists delivers a serious blow to the AAS network that is responsible for improvised explosive device attacks and suicide attacks and on Iraqi government, Coalition Forces and Iraqi civilians. The AAS network is also responsible for multiple kidnappings, small arms attacks and other crimes in the central and northern part of Iraq.

AAS is considered by some to be a leading terror organization in Iraq as al-Qaida’s leadership continues to crumble and it loses its ability to function due to Iraqi and Coalition Forces systematic dismantling efforts.

NewsBusters also noted that it had a hard time finding very many news sites at all that reported on the story.

Is it an important story? Or do you care?