Today's Seattle Times has a terrific in-house piece that exposes numerous errors in Richard Clarke's book -- "Clarke book has errors about arrest of Ahmed Ressam". And the Times article examines only the portions of the book dedicated to the Ahmed Ressam case. It lists many errors, and is absolutely devastating to Clarke. Here is just one example:
Clarke reported Canadians had somehow "missed" the existence of Ressam's cell of radical Algerian Muslims in Montreal and that, after Ressam's arrest, the Canadian government cooperated.Hmm. And I thought it was Bush's unilateral war on Iraq that squandered our allies willingness to help us in the fight against terrorism.According to testimony at Ressam's trial and interviews with Canadian intelligence officials, Ressam and the cell in Montreal had been under surveillance for at least two years before Ressam's arrest. But the Canadian Security Intelligence Service never told anyone.
U.S. prosecutors have complained bitterly about Canada's foot-dragging as the Ressam case proceeded. Canadian prosecutors blocked U.S. access to at least one crucial witness — an Algerian who gave Ressam a gun and talked about blowing up Jews in Montreal.
Indeed, the U.S. came within hours of dropping charges against Ressam on the eve of his March 2001 trial because the Canadian government attempted to withdraw the witnesses.
The Worst of Times
Then there is this headline on page A-11 of today's Seattle Times -- "Sources label Hamas a key intefadeh player". The headline suggests the James Taranto-style question "What would we do without sources?" In fact, the editor who wrote the headline got his Islamic terror groups mixed up, as the lead paragraph makes clear:
The Islamic group Hezbollah has become a key sponsor of Palestinian violence, funding suicide bombings that have killed dozens of Israelis in recent months, Israeli intelligence sources, Palestinian Authority officials and militants said.Just above the Hamas/Hezbollah story on the print page (not online) is another article about Israel that concludes with this paragraph:
Israeli troops exchanged fire with Palestinians near the Israeli settlement of Netzarim in Gaza, today, the army said. Palestinian security officials reported three Palestinians were killed in the exchange; the Israeli army said it killed at least one of the Palestinians.No mention of the fact that the "exchange of gunfire" was the result of an attack that was inititiated by the Palestinians and that the Israelis were firing in self-defense. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 12, 2004 10:44 AM
Most newspapers reports treat the fighting betwen Israel and Palestinians as just erupting, like spontaneous fire or viral mutation, so as not to blame the Palestinians.
The lack of reporting the origin of the fighting is moral and intellectual irresponsibility.
Posted by: Jed on April 13, 2004 06:24 AMThanks. I never knew that Richard Clark's book was exposed as a fraud in the mainstream news. I thought this was only exposed in blogs and the conservative alternative news.
My favorite one is how Clark tells a different story regarding his involvement in letting the Bin Ladin family members leave the U.S. after 9/11... he tells that story differently depending on the audience and whether or not he is under oath.
Posted by: Shotgun Shells Enthusiast on November 13, 2005 07:51 PM