Thursday, January 04, 2007

Fighting reality every step of the way

I have been following this story for a while now, and I am consistently wowed by the idiocy of the far right. For the uninitiated, Michelle Malkin and some of her friends got all in a tizzy over this news story:
The attack on the small Mustafa Sunni mosque began as worshippers were finishing Friday midday prayers. About 50 unarmed men, many in black uniforms and some wearing ski masks, walked through the district chanting "We are the Mahdi Army, shield of the Shiites."

Fifteen minutes later, two white pickups, a black BMW and a black Opel drove up to the marchers. The suspected Shiite militiamen took automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers from the vehicles. They then blasted open the front of the mosque, dragged six worshippers outside, doused them with kerosene and set them on fire.

The problem was that after the story was reported, the US forces in Iraq stated that they had no record of one of the sources for the story. Since that time, Michelle has been working overtime to find this witness and has even pledged to go over to Iraq to find this guy (read about her nuttiness here). Why? Well in the warped mind of conservatives, if the witness doesn't exist than everything in Iraq is going well. Rather than admit to themselves that they were wrong, they will create elaborate conspiracies to justify their opinions. This is the chief problem with conservatives in this country, they would prefer extensive contrivances over evidence (e.g. global warming, evolution, the failings of the President).

And by the way, it turns out the guy does exist (read to the bottom to get the rightwing's response- their collective ability to delude themselves is amazing):
The Interior Ministry acknowledged Thursday that an Iraqi police officer whose existence had been denied by the Iraqis and the U.S. military is in fact an active member of the force, and said he now faces arrest for speaking to the media.

Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied there was any such police employee as Capt. Jamil Hussein, said in an interview that Hussein is an officer assigned to the Khadra police station, as had been reported by The Associated Press.
Now, this would be funny if there weren't some real consequences. By attempting to find this one man, not only is he in legal trouble, his life and the life of his family is at risk. Police officers in Iraq are frequent targets, especially ones that collaborate with the press. Unfortunately, this does not enter into their mental calculus, they just want to fight the facts.

No comments: