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 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! February 8, 2010 Child Abuse: Because of Bush!By Greyhawkor "how America's news is made". Chapter one: the locals Our story begins with the sort of tragic child abuse story that appears in local papers all too often. This one was from the Nisqually Valley (Washington) News - a report of an arrest made on January 31.
The Seattle-Tacoma News Tribune added additional details, including that the suspect was "a Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier."
The "dunking" was an important point because - as the Nisqually Valley News had reported - "Tabor was arrested for third-degree assault of a child, but police are requesting charges be increased to second-degree assault of a child because of the alleged water incidents." And "they are also asking the prosecutor to charge Tabor's girlfriend, who he said helped hold the girl down in the water." And according to the News Tribune: The Thurston County Prosecuting Attorney's Office filed a charge of second-degree assault of a child against Joshua Ryan Tabor, 27, on Tuesday. As to why he chose dunking her in the sink "until the water came around her forehead and jawline" - "Tabor allegedly admitted to police that he did it because he knew she was terrified of water." And there you have it. Tabor's arraignment is scheduled for Feb. 16. Until then he is confined to post. It's a tragic story, and it happens all too often. As a parent, it's horrifying and unforgivable and a reminder that ability to have children and ability to raise children are two different things - and that some thankfully small percentage of people just barely qualify as "people". There are some in your neighborhood and mine. That's one of the reasons when it happens in your neighborhood, it isn't news in mine. Chapter two: Tabloid data (in which our story sets out for Britain to seek it's fortune) Somehow the British tabloid Daily Mail heard the child abuse story, and one week after the arrest they found a way to make news from Nisqually Valley an international sensation: add "waterboarding" and CIA" to the mix.
"The practice of waterboarding was used by the CIA to break Al Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo Bay," the Daily Mail helpfully adds. "Detainees had water poured over their face until they feared they would drown. President Barack Obama has since outlawed the practice." But in addition to that description of actual waterboarding, they also include a description of what Tabor allegedly did to his daughter. The story even includes a photo captioned "Human rights activists demonstrate waterboarding in front of the Justice Department. A soldier father stands accused of waterboarding his daughter because she couldn't recite the alphabet" - even though the photo itself is further proof that what Tabor is accused of isn't waterboarding. But that's what tabloids do. Here's the front page of the Daily Mail's web site, here's a list of libel suits that have been filed against them in the recent past - that has no bearing on this particular story, just an indication of how they do business. This is no secret - "Brangelina's Secret UFO Sex Diet" sells - especially with added Beckham quotes. "Man beats kid near Seattle" doesn't draw the average housewife's attention away from the Snickers bars in the checkout lanes - unless he used secret CIA waterboarding techniques. Fortunately, no one's really that gullible. (/kidding) Chapter 3: Back in the USA (In which our week-old story makes it's way back across the Atlantic to it's home country, reborn.) "Money see, monkey do. And the chimp in chief made it a household word," explains the American web site Political Carnival in their endorsement of the Daily Mail story. Fortunately no one reads... wait - "Joshua Tabor admitted to police that he used a CIA torture technique on his 4-year-old daughter because he was angry she couldn't recite the alphabet. (h/t The Political Carnival)" reports Alan Colmes (fomerly of Fox News). So now we have a man admitting he used a CIA technique? Astoundingly, Colmes uses the Daily Mail photo, too - but doesn't quote the portion of the story that reveals this isn't what the father is accused of doing. The Daily Beast web site links the Daily Mail story too, and adds another twist: "He chose waterboarding--the CIA torture technique that simulates drowning and has been banned by the Obama administration--because he knew the girl was terrified of water." AOL News Filter ("With so many news aggregators out there, who can keep up? AOL News filters the filters to steer you to the headlines that really matter" reads their banner) announces "The Daily Beast picks up a story from Britain's Daily Mail, reporting on a U.S. soldier who allegedly waterboarded his 4-year-old daughter." The AOL roundup includes several stories - but the overall headline is "The Filter: Soldier Accused of Waterboarding Daughter". One of the people who writes at The Atlantic using the name Andrew Sullivan writes "A US Soldier Waterboards His Own Child." He (I believe all the "Andrew Sullivans" are he) calls the Daily Mail a "populist paper" (the original Andrew Sullivan is British - so he should know) but is mostly concerned that Marc Thiessen might claim "she wasn't really "waterboarded" as the professionals do it." I have no idea who Mark Theissen is, but if he does make that claim it's because it's true, and apparently at least one of the "Andrew Sullivans" knows this. (Does his willingness to acknowledge up front that he's wrong somehow increase the truthiness of what he writes?) But more hilariously, "Andrew Sullivan" further notes that "No US paper has yet to report the story. Why am I not surprised?" Except that US papers broke the story a week ago - a British paper twisted it into a form suitable for international news of the tabloid variety, and not only are lefty bloggers and web sites falling for it, but the New York Daily News, Fox News, and ABC all have the "waterboarding" headlines now, too. (ABC News adds that the suspect served in Iraq!!!!) With at least three "Andrew Sullivans" you'd think at least one of them could have checked that. But there you have it - that's how "news" is made in America today. And if you ever doubted that leftists are convinced that American soldiers are "monkeys" who would torture their own children because of Bush, now you know a little more about that, too. Oh, and free advice to any potential lawyer in this case: ignore the people quoted above, don't try to blame Bush. Story tip: Miss Ladybug. (Instant update: Fox has re-written their story to eliminate the false "waterboarding" claim. You can see their original headline here) Elsewhere: And update: this is Mark Thiessen. Now I know. Next: Chimpy see, chimpy do Posted by Greyhawk / February 8, 2010 2:30 PM | Permalink 1 TrackBack(Or: how truth becomes news.) The good folks at the Nisqually Valley News have watched their local child abuse story grow into an international media sensation - after few fraudulent details were added to the original:Media leaps on 'waterboarding' sto... Read More 6 CommentsLeave a comment |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
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The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
With at least three "Andrew Sullivans" you'd think at least one of them could have checked that.
OK, I lost half a cup of coffee up my nose on that one. You will pay. Oh yes... you will pay dearly :p
"I have no idea who Mark Theissen is, but if he does make that claim it's because it's true, ..."
Marc Theissen is the author of the new book Courting Disaster. He writes an excellent summary of the whole controversy. A must read.
Yeah - gotta thank Sullivan for bringing that to my attention.
I guess we can ask, did the military let this “mental deficient” into their ranks or did they make this normal guy in this “mental deficient”. Even Ronald Reagan said that water boarding was torture, but I guess Cheney and his gay daughter are the brain trust on this lie that has been perpetuated onto the American people and signed off by the GOP.
What's "gay" got to do with it?
With all that has been written and said on this subject, what do we actually know on this situation? From the comments, we know Cassandra will get even, oh, will she get even!
About the actual situation, we know nothing. Unless Mark Theissen was there, all he offers us are opinions and that is all. It is the duty of the Court System to determine the facts. These facts are based on evidence, not opinions. If this does turn out to be factual, his status in the Military means he should be more disciplined, not less. How do we deal with him? Shave his head, required that he not be permitted to grow hair or wear caps. Then tattoo his offense on his forehead and put into the prison's general population for life, without parole. Now, he knows fear.