As I said, I didn't look back for the details so I confess I did not know it was not a first-hand report. I thought it was probably part of a photo essay he had done recently of a village that had been wiped out. I quit looking when it got to body parts of little children (shot or hacked up in a manner, coincidentally, quite similar to what you said was more likely).
Like you, I don't put much credence in second or third hand stories, and am surprised Yon chose to repeat it. (That is why it amazes me, even though I never saw any of it and don't watch CNN, that Anderson Cooper got promoted and not fired by CNN after Katrina. As I recall, he broke the story about 10,000 dead (not true), gang rapes (not true), refrigerator in the Superdomes stuffed with corpses (not true).)
Well, there is no accounting for taste, but the mainstream media's influence has been in dramatic decline for some time now, and I don't watch tv news. For my money, they all quit reporting hard news (as in "Just the facts, ma'am") over a decade ago and have specialized in speculation ever since. If people want to get their knickers in a twist, or have a stroke, over what does or does not get reported by people they don't trust in the first place, it is OK with me. It's a reasonably free country and I say, "Go for it!"
The vegetable thing was really about tomatoes and cucumbers. Can't find it now, only references to it. Was in the middle of an AP dispatch in April that has expired. NBC News Mosul Correspondent Richard Engel mentions a similar story in passing: onthescene.msnbc.com
I see the L.A. Times carries a similar mention in passing while describing Baqubah:
Just a year ago, this region appeared to be nearly pacified. Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab Zarqawi was killed just outside Baqubah, and U.S. commanders decided the province was ripe for the transfer of primary responsibility for security to Iraqi forces.
Instead, Al Qaeda quickly regained a sanctuary in the province and imposed its extremist interpretation of Islam. U.S. and Iraqi security forces scarcely venture into west Baqubah, where smoking is prohibited, as is the sale of women's clothing by men. Even placing a cucumber next to a tomato in the markets is forbidden because they have been gendered male and female.
Violators have been arrested and confined to outdoor mats in makeshift prison camps. U.S. soldiers found and freed 41 people last month in such a camp, including a 13-year-old boy who said he had been caught smoking.
You could, of course, claim copyrights for your written works. One well-known FOX commentator, Debbie Schlussel, regularly threatens lawsuits and $150,000 in damages against anyone who posts her picture on their websites, even though it widely available and no mention is amde of the restriction on her website (or was - not sure about now and one visit to Hell on Earth was enough, thank you). If you have the time, see a series of hilarious posts written about "Debbuh" and Michelle Malkin by the heretofore rock-ribbed Ohio Republican, Dennis the Peasant:
dennisthepeasant.typepad.com
(It loads terribly slowly, so I suggest visiting the main page, dennisthepeasant.typepad.com
and hitting page end after it loads, and work your way up from there. This could be considered NSFW or children. Could be considered somewhat misogynistic but Kenton (his real name) is an equal-opportunity scather and is basically giving back what he's received in spades.
This was the one post I enjoyed because the original pictures disappeared under threat of lawsuit before my eyes:
dennisthepeasant.typepad.com |
