Dahr Jamail's Other Sources - It's Not Just IVAW

Just yesterday in Dahr Jamail's Sources, Here and There I asked what we could expect of Dahr Jamail’s sources in the Middle East given his blatant collusion with IVAW here in America to get "The Story" as it must be.

At Chickenhawk Express the blood is boiling regarding Jamail’s latest for Inter Press Service:

“IPS
Dahr Jamail
IRAQ: Killer of U.S. Soldiers Becomes a Hero
By Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail*

BAGHDAD, Jan 7 (IPS) - The recent killing of two U.S. soldiers by their Iraqi colleague has raised disturbing questions about U.S. military relations with the Iraqis they work with.

On Dec. 26, an Iraqi soldier opened fire on U.S. soldiers accompanying him during a joint military patrol in the northern Iraqi city Mosul. He killed the U.S. captain and another sergeant, and wounded three others, including an Iraqi interpreter.

Conflicting versions of the killing have arisen. Col. Hazim al-Juboory, uncle of the attacker Kaissar Saady al-Juboory, told IPS that his nephew at first watched the U.S. soldiers beat up an Iraqi woman. When he asked them to stop, they refused, so he opened fire.”

STOP: Who is this Col. Hazim al-Juboory, besides being the shooter’s uncle, and what is he a Colonel of? What we get from Jamail and al-Fadhily is this:

“Col. Juboory said Kaissar who had at first accepted collaboration with the U.S. forces ‘found the truth too bitter to put up with.’ The colonel said: ‘I worked with the Americans because being an army officer is my job and also because I was convinced they would help Iraqis. But 11 months was enough for me to realise that starving to death is more honourable than serving the occupiers. They were mean in every way’”

Eleven months? A Colonel? He’s a Saddam Hussein era Colonel. He’s not a Colonel is the post democracy Iraqi military. They kinda left that out.

Jamail and and al-Fadhily then cite and quote anonymous sources and witnesses aplenty. Then the Dynamic Duo get to:

“The Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni organisation, issued a statement saying the Iraqi soldier had shot the U.S. soldiers after he saw them beat up a pregnant woman.

‘His blood rose and he asked the occupying soldiers to stop beating the woman,’ they said in the statement. ‘Their answer through the translator was: 'We will do what we want. So he opened fire on them."

STOP THE PRESSES!

“The Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni organisation...”

Think timing. Dahr Jamail is all about timing. That's why he promoted the Jesse MacBeth video right after Murtha dropped the "in cold blood" bomb on the Haditha Marines. Here's a bit of a walk down memory lane with Dahr and Ali, say, September of 2006:

“U.S. Losing Control Fast
By Dahr Jamail and Ali Al-Fadhily
Inter Press Service
09/05/06 "IPS" -- -- RAMADI, The U.S. military has lost control over the volatile al-Anbar province, Iraqi police and residents say.”

For a sample from that article so as to get the feel of the thing:

"Al-Anbar borders Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia, and the resistance there will never stop as long as there are American soldiers on the ground."

“Salman said the U.S. military is working against itself. ‘Their actions ruin their goal because they use these huge, violent military operations which kill so many civilians, and make it impossible to calm down the people of al-Anbar.’"

“The resistance seems in control of the province now.”

“Long stretches of the 550km Baghdad-Amman highway which crosses al-Anbar are now controlled by resistance groups.”

"If we import any supplies for the U.S. Army or Iraqi government, the fighters will take it from us and sell it in the local market,"

“Eyewitnesses in Ramadi..say that the U.S. military recently asked citizens in al-Anbar to stop targeting them, and promised to withdraw to their bases in Haditha and Habaniyah (near Fallujah) soon...”

"But now the Americans are making us all angry because they are destroying our city."

"Hundreds of local policemen have quit the force after seeing that they are considered a legitimate target by fighters.."

“The U.S. forces seem to have no clear policy in the face of the sustained resistance.”

"The U.S. Army seems so confused in handling the security situation in Anbar"

Wow! That’s pretty darned dire!

Now for a slightly different perspective of that time period from Bill Roggio of the LongWarJournal, and remember that Dahr and Ali were writing in September of 2006:

“Anbar Rising
By Bill RoggioMay 11, 2007 2:38 PM
An overview of Anbar province from II MEF.
A status update on the province
The formation of the Sahawah Al Anbar, or Anbar Awakening, the grouping of Anbari tribes and former insurgents opposed to al Qaeda's Taliban like rule, traces back to last year, when al Qaeda in Iraq conducted its campaign of murder and intimidation throughout Anbar province. Sheik Abdul Sattar Al-Rishawi and his allies among the tribes and anti al Qaeda insurgent groups began forming alliances in the spring and summer of 2006. In September, the groups established the Jazeera Council in Ramadi, and began working more closely with Coalition forces to begin securing neighborhoods in Ramadi.”

Dahr and Ali wrote what they did, all that gloom and doom and hopelessness for "our side", including the Iraqis who were and became our allies, months after the Anbar Awakening had begun and was kicking into high gear! In the fall of 2006, the situation in al-Anbar was indeed bleak, but changing rapidly. Dahr and Ali, our intrepid and credible journalists somehow managed to not come across anyone who might have indicated to them that al-Anbar was about to erupt. That Anbar Awakening was a foreshadowing of an historical turning point in the war. The seething and beleaguered Iraqis, brutalized by AQI, were throwing in their lot with the persistent Americans who had not abandoned them or the province. Now, in January of 2008 we have Dahr and Ali quoting the Association of Muslim Scholars pushing a storyline that seeks to portray the killing of two American soldiers (Capt. Rowdy J. Inman and Sgt. Benjamin B. Portell) as the heroic and noble Iraqi defending women! Keep in mind perhaps that a bound Ken Bigley was beheaded by "noble" folks demanding the release of Muslim women held in detention. So what happened in Iraq a few weeks before this latest story by Dahr and Ali that involved the Association of Muslim Scholars:

“Sunni clerics turn on Association of Muslim Scholars
By Bill RoggioNovember 17, 2007 10:07 AM

Wednesday's closure of the headquarters of the Association of Muslim Scholars at the Umm al Quraa mosque marks a dramatic shift in the Sunni religious establishment. Prominent Sunni clerics, who once supported, justified, or remained silent about al Qaeda's terror tactics, have now turned on the leading Sunni religious establishment that supports al Qaeda in Iraq.”

And so we get a story that paints Americans as abusers of Iraqi women, and those Iraqis who are working with the Americans and coalition forces as traitors to their own, and the Association of Muslim Scholars simply got Dahr and Ali to get out their version for the sake of their own image rehabilitation with the Iraqi Sunnis.

Maybe some of those folks in IVAW just might ask themselves why it is that Dahr Jamail is so attentive to them! Couldn’t be that he thinks they are useful idiots, could it?