This builds on Lorie’s story from the NRO and the New York Times. It seems that ABC News wants to up the ante on divulging private information.
In what can only be considered tit for tat, ABC’s The Blotter blog posted the name and picture of the informant that helped lead to the eventual killing of al Qaeda’s number one man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. From The Blotter:
An Iraqi customs agent secretly working with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s terror cell spilled the beans on the group after he was arrested, Jordanian officials tell ABC News.
Read the rest if you want to see who’s just moved onto the Top 10 al Qaeda Hit List.
I now will question everything regarding the journalistic integrity of ABC News. Not that I didn’t before, but for a blog entry posted at 11 AM, they’ve had more than sufficient time to recant the sensitive information, and post an explanation. But they haven’t, and probably won’t.
Not that it would do any good, since the news of the name and likeness of this man are all over the world right now. That this information was ever released leads me to question the policies at The Blotter, ABC News, and Alexis Debat.
And you can be damn sure, the first thing out of the anti-war pants-wetters is, “But-but, was he tortured?”
Link from Ace of Spades HQ.
UPDATE: After checking several news sources, I am unable to find any other source confirming what The Blotter suggests. All other sources with this story credit The Blotter. I’m not saying another news source doesn’t have this same information, I just can’t find it.
The unnamed Jordanian official speaking on condition of anonymity can talk on condition of anonymity all day long, there’s no requirement for ABC News to run with the information. That, my friends, is the problem.
UPDATE: Continuing on the theme of “can we get this story straight, please?” Dan Riehl seems to be an enemy of Jordan. The links Karbouly (also spelled ‘Kerbouly’) to al Qaeda are tenuous, so why would the Jordanian officials finger him? Could there be an ax to grind?
I’ve yet to find someone other than The Blotter post corroborating this story. Still, they are all crediting this one blog post, not even part of the main news service, or totally leaving out this one piece of information. Several reports name Karbouly, but say nothing about him being the informer.
There are more questions now than when we started, which is normal when you’re fighting a terror war.
Was he tortured? Who knows.
Will he be? If he ever gets caught by al-Queso, I think you know the answer to that.
Damn, why does ABC keep reporting the truth? Don’t they realize that America doesn’t want the truth — we just want to know what the Repulican adminstration wants us to know….. Damn!
yeah, I want the truth too on alot of things the administration is doing but there is no good reason why I need to know the person’s name who spilled the beans. the target is dead. good job military peoples.
Lee,
You are one disgusting SOB.
Do you not realize that this man will be killed if he ever gets into the hands of aQ?
Or that the odds of getting anybody *else* to rat on Al Qaeda have now dropped well into the single digits?
sign lee up for wanting to know the name and address and get a picture of every rape victim. every whistleblower. every mob informant. that’s right, that’s what people like this scum (that’s you lee) want. c’mon bush, set up a website with the names, pictures, and addresses of everyone in the witness protection program, otherwise you’re suppressing the truuuuuth!!!
Yeah, Lee, just like Woodward and Bernstein thought release the name and identity of Deep Throat because it was the peoples right to know.
Oh, wait, no they didn’t. And Felt wouldn’t have been killed, either.
This guy, if true, is going to be dead. And if not, I’m sure his family will suffer. And they just made it more difficult to get information from people.
Personally, I hope the US military is evacuating this guy and family ASAP somewhere safe.
Lee,
You are an absolute, total and complete moron. In fact, I doubt that it would ever be possible to be dumber. I can only assume that your BDS is so bad that you must automatically take the opposite position of whatever a conservative says, no matter how iditic your position is.
As stated, this disclosure only does two things. First, it assures the death of this man and likely his family as well. Second, it assures that it will be virtually impossible to get al Qaeda members to flip in the future and give up sensitive information. That means that our soldiers will be at a greater risk because they won’t be able to get intelligence that might prevent some of them from being killed.
I suppose that, if you world view that anything that hurts the ability of our soldiers to do their job is a good thing, then this is great news. However, to rational, sentinent human beings this is a bad thing.
Sheik –
Do you realize that the truth is the truth, no matter what the political consequences?
Do you realize that this clown is a Zarqawi aide? Who cars about his worthless life!
Do you realize that the decision to release this information was made by the Jordanian Governtment? All ABC did was report the news. That’s what a legitimate news organization does, but then you Fox News viewers wouldn’t understand that… your agenda is to smear the MSM, even if you are advocating the protection of Al Qaeda operatives in the process. You disgust me.
From the Blotter:
The notion that this clown would ever be set free is pretty bizarre, and if Al Qaeda kills him my guess is only the Bouty-man will cry. I won’t.
You can email President Bush, VP Cheney, Congressional Leaders & Rush Limbaugh from my eclectic homepage. You can also read Chapter One from Ann Coulter’s Best Selling book GODLESS!
Check it out here…..
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/8889
Why doesn’t any of this surprise me?
“Dr. Alexis Debat, former advisor to the French minister of Defense on Transatlantic Affairs, is a visiting professor at Middlebury College, Director of the Scientific Committee for the Institut Montaigne (Paris) and a Senior Consultant to ABC News in New York.”
Friggin’ douchebag.
Wonder if old Lee Lee would say any of his shit to you face to face. My guess is no because you can tell a COWARD by his gusto when he is preaching behind a desk where no one can see him. What say you asshole?
Steve L – Take it up with the Jordainian officials who decided to release the information.
Sadly, it’s apparently too late. You guys have been sitting in the right-wing blogger’s circle for too long – you’ve gone blind.
“The notion that this clown would ever be set free is pretty bizarre, and if Al Qaeda kills him my guess is only the Bouty-man will cry. I won’t.”
Posted by: Lee at June 9, 2006 04:13 PM
What about his relatives and his friends?
What of the willingness of others to supply intel?
What of the fact that the media will death-grip protect the identity of a woman who fakes a rape; but publishes the names and faces of the accused?
If you fail to understand the ripple effect damage to the war effort along with the glaring hypocricy … might I suggest you remove your hands from your face.
c:/idiots/ignore/jhow66
Lee,
…and you are pretty dumb too.
Do we also have all of his family and acquaintances in custody? They’ll be dead as well. But that’s OK, as long as the truuuuttthhhh is told, right, Lee.
They have also just revealed yet another source of intelligence. Wouldn’t want to keep the islamofacists guessing, would we, Lee? Not as long as the trruuuuuuttttthh is told.
Dimwit.
What about his relatives and his friends?
Sounds like you have a beef with the Jordanian officials who released this info. All ABC did was report the news.
While I agree this will endanger his family and make it harder to get informants in the future, a commenter at the abc blog made an interesting point:
I generally agree with the comments above personally. However they report this because the government leaks it because they want the information out. What is does is get the terrorists wondering about each other and whether they can trust one another. That is, if they got to Karbouly did they get to the subhuman sitting in the cave across from me? It is part of the psychological warfare because Karbouly is of no use to anyone now and they feel we are better off letting the terrorist know we can get into the inside. You can dispute the methods, but I don’t think it is fair to blame ABC however left-wing Bush-haters they are.
Posted by: Brett D | Jun 9, 2006 12:26:44 PM
Do you think Joran released the info to ABC and no one else?
Do you think Jordanian news agencies aren’t publishing this info as well? What about Iraqi newspapers and television?
Of course they are!
Blind… you guys are deaf, dumb and blind, and total idiots.
forrest,
OK, that just makes them an accessory.
“OK, that just makes them an accessory.”
No, it makes them a News Organization. You Fox News/Hate Radio/Limbaugh/Whizbang/Michelle Malkin viewers, listeners, and readers don’t have any idea anymore about what makes a bona fide news organization. Amazing.
You have a beef with the fact that this info got out? Tell the Jordanian government!
get off it lee. the kos feverswamps are calling for you.
You can email President Bush, VP Cheney, Congressional Leaders & Rush Limbaugh from my eclectic homepage. You can also read Chapter One from Ann Coulter’s Best Selling book GODLESS!
Wow, Steve! Great! Now go spam somebody else, ya dink.
the kos feverswamps are calling for you
I thought these were the kos fever swamps.
Then again, maybe this is simply a cover story that the government has released to cover the ID of a real informant inside of AQ. Perhaps the MSM is simply being used. Having spent a wee bit of time in MI, such a possibility is not out of the question.
So look it this way folks, maybe the resident fool is actually helping us out this time.
And while we’re turning our attention towards me (where it belongs), this shit — I now will question everything regarding the journalistic integrity of ABC News — is just shit.
One editor on one day does a dumb thing, and so the entire enterprise is bankrupt? Have you followed George W. Bush for any length of time? He leaks, he lies, he stumbles, he fumbles, and his fans treat every word he speaks as if it were gospel (I have been authoritatively informed that W is “God’s perfect man”).
You doubt the integrity of ABC? I doubt you exist.
“you Fox News viewers wouldn’t understand that… your agenda is to smear the MSM, even if you are advocating the protection of Al Qaeda operatives in the process”
That’s right Lee, it’s us Republicans who are so partisan that we find ourselves saying the same things as America’s enemies.
lol at astigafa
forrest – Sorry, but I’m right on topic. Here’s what got to me in Talkback’s post.
Just another example of the culture of corruption that is constantly attacking legitmate news organizations these days. Talkback is just doing what’s he’s told – but look who’s telling him to do it.
It seems quite likely than me that this is disinformation to put the bad guys on the wrong trail. If we really have informants among them, it makes sense to point the finger in the wrong place. Perhaps I give the good guys too much credit, but aren’t we smart enough to feed nonsense to the dopes in the newsrooms?
I felt the same until I found out that this information was first revealed by a press release from the Jordanian government. By the time ABC reported it, the story had already traveled around the world.
Not that I’m defending ABC in general — they’re a bunch of pretend journalists who are doing all they can to keep Bush from conducting his war on terror.
As for the poor dude who spilled the beans, the things he has confessed to doing already warrant the death penalty. Whether he’s hung in Jordan or shot on the streets of Baghdad, it really won’t be a bad thing to see him go.
-Michael McCullough
Stingray: a blog for salty Christians
Lee, we know your politics from previous posts. Have someone you know, who is literate, get a dictionary and have them look up the word “hypocrite” for you, and have them read to you, the definition. I would advise you to look up the word “truth”, but the definition would be lost on you. ABC (Anti Bush Correspondents) only broadcast that which will harm this adminstrations efforts in whatever endeavor. Here is some truth for you. Do you know what Bill Clinton was doing to Kathleen Wiley as her husband was dying? Bet you cannot find out from ABC.
Huh … interesting. I bet the very same people that are saying, “Who cares if this snitch gets killed? He’s terrorist scum too!” also whine endlessly about the poor, poor souls being “tortured” at Gitmo or had panties on their head at Abu Ghraib ….
astigafa, You claim the President leaks, lies, stumbles and things of that nature. You ofcourse, can back up your lies. Since the Presdient is the decider, he can not leak. You cannot show one instance where Bush has lied. Notice how al-Qaeda got stronger and stronger during the 90″s. Notice we have on had a successful terrorist attack on us since 9/11. If that is your idea of stumbling, what do you call the fumbling moves Clinton made concerning terrorism? You are not capable of truth, so why bother.
1) Lee, we know your politics from previous posts. Have someone you know, who is literate, get a dictionary and have them look up the word “hypocrite” for you, and have them read to you, the definition.
People do a lot of that here, “Can you say/spell/understand the word hypocrite?” Illiteracy is rampant.
2) the poor, poor souls being “tortured” at Gitmo or had panties on their head at Abu Ghraib
I have panties on my head right now; doesn’t seem to hurt anything.
Are we sure this is a real guy, and the right guy?
The release of this info just doesn’t make any sense; if you release it someone will print it.
I just don’t understand this release, unless it is part of a misdirection, otherwise it is a huge F’up.
What I said on an earlier thread pertains here, it should be no surprise that MSM reporters want to handicap our intelligence efforts. Simply put, they want things to go bad for the USA in the Middle East.
I think the Bush administration in conducting the GWOT has already taken into account the fact that the American left and the MSM want things bad for the USA in the Mideast, and assumedly are currently conducting their strategerie in the GWOT with that (sad) fact in mind. In other words, even if the leak was an intentional “psy-op”, it would have been done with the calculation that the MSM WANTS US TO LOSE IN IRAQ (which would be a factor in how the psy-op would have been done)!
What I said on an earlier thread pertains here, it should be no surprise that MSM reporters want to handicap our intelligence efforts.
Yes! It’s true! MSM reporters hate America, you know it — hate mom, hate apple pie, hate NASCAR — torture puppies, worship Satan, eat babies, yes! Yes! Yes! It’s all true!
How did you know, you clever man?
jhow66, nice of you to call someone who posts on the internet a coward, who wouldn’t say it to your face. Because why? You’ll wipe Cheeto grease all over them? It’s ironic that a bedwetting 101st Fighting Keyboarder would ever call someone else a coward. No one can infer another’s bravery or lack thereof as you claim to have done. Stick to engaging with ideas, rather than playing internet macho man.
If only because it makes you seem like a drooling idiot.
Zelsdorf, as for Bush not lying, he sure as hell doesn’t go out of his way to give the American people the full picture before making a decision. Also, I think you’re the only person who refers to him as the ‘decider’ with no intent to ridicule. It’s a stupid way to refer to your president. That same president who sat in a school room in shock when he was informed of the attacks on 9/11. Karl Rove was quick to change his diaper, but the whole world saw just how decisive George W. Bush is when the going gets tough.
You would not be so Bemused if I could reach into my computer screen and pull off your cowardly nuts. Rather than bitch and moan about the elected President, why don’t you see how many votes you can get yourself on a platform of liberal stupidity.
Stingray, that the information was released by Jordan does not submarine the theory. Jordan is squarely on our side in the war on terror, and has in fact more risk from Al Qaeda that we do ourselves.
astigafa,
…because they’ve said so, repeatedly?
Lee,
No, you’re missing the point. The Jordies can release whatever they like. ABC still has a moral obligation NOT to report it.
Reset: His right, and his families’ right, to stay alive trumps your right to even know his existence, never mind his name.
If this is, somehow, a surprise then you do need help. And you’ll find that help in a Christian* church. On Sunday morning.
*Jewish synagogue is a suitable sub…
Do you realize that the truth is the truth, no matter what the political consequences?
Do you realize this is war, not politics?
Astigfa, don’t resort to a “strawman” argument. I never said that the MSM reporters “hate” America. Why won’t you discuss the issue at hand, which is, they simply would rather have things go bad for the USA in Iraq if that would mean the end to GOP control in the US Government.
Nothing more, nothing less.
In other words, the MSM and the libs and the Dems simply would rather pay the price of USA humiliation and/or defeat in Iraq if that would lead to the Dems regaining control of the USA government.
They would rather live in a USA which meets its comeuppance in Iraq, thereby confirming their position against Bush’s actions, than live in a USA in which the USA policy prevails in Iraq if it would mean Bush and the GOP come out on top politically.
astigfa, does that get it said?
“Lee,
No, you’re missing the point. The Jordies can release whatever they like. ABC still has a moral obligation NOT to report it.”
Oh I disagree. I think that ABC has a duty and obligation to the American public to not filter the news and only publish that which their own values suggest is appropriate, but to instead keep their frickin’ personal morals out of it and publish the news regardless of whether the editor or publisher’s personal values agree or disagree with that decision. Let me decide what’s important to me, and what isn’t, but give me all of the news — not just some of it.
They can editorialize and publish opinions, but if they claim to give us the “news” then it should be all of the news, not just the news that fits with the moral values or religious beliefs of the owners of ABC. There are exceptions in the case of national security, but that doesn’t apply here, in my opinion.
…or don’t call it “news” call it “stuff we think is important for you to know” because that, after all, is what you’re suggesting as the alternative — if I understand you correctly.
I may not agree with the Jordanians decision to release the information, but I wholeheartedly agree with ABC’s decision to publish the information; assuming they verified it, had a reliable source, etc.
Feel free to elaborate as to why you feel that the morals of the Board of Directors of Disney Corporation (owners of ABC) should be the deterining factor as to what news Americans receive…? after all, when you talk about ABC’s “morals” you’re talking about a decision that ultimately rests with the top management of ABC.
Media concerns make that judgment all the time … they choose to not reveal the identity of rape victims, victims that are children, snitches … do you think the general public has the “right to know” that information too?
You may not give a whit about the life of this man, who participated in terrorist activities, (and you have not addressed my previous post either, I noted) but do you also not care about the lives and well-being of his family? Innocent by-standers? If AQ goes after him, they won’t care to take out whoever else is in the way … they would blow up a restaurant full of innocents just to kill one person.
Are you honestly that morally bankrupt?
Lee creeps me out. He seems to lurk here a lot. Not sure why anyone bothers to even address what he says. He’s like that disruptive kid who sat next to you in grade school… always looking for attention.
Tiresome.
Lee, with all due respect, your entire comment can be boiled down to one statement you make, “there are exceptions in the case of national security, but that doesn’t apply here, in my opinion.”
OK, so it boils down to being “your opinion” that there is no national security issue here. What, pray tell, if a USA defense or intelligence or security professional had a different “opinion”, i.e., that the question of national security was present.
So, your whole debate is not about duty/obligation of ABC, etc., but rather, who determines “national security”. You, or the military or intelligence professionals of the USA.
Good stuff, McCain. Real highbrow comment.
As to why I don’t run, I have the luxury of not having to persuade people in flyover country that their populist idiocy has no place in government because I live in Canada. Our “Conservative” Party is basically equivalent to your Democrats. That’s why I spend time on American political blogs–because our politics are just fine, thanks very much. And don’t say we’re pacifist cowards; we’re pacifying Afghanistan. Remember? The country that had something to do with 9/11?
You are a chucklehead.
Cananda, eh? Anywhere near the place where that … random assortment … of young men was plotting some misbehavior recently?
Bemused, I am confused. Me thought that Canada was safe from terrorism. What happened? For the first time in your history, you cowardly turned your back on the good fight. That was supposed to insolate you according to your liberal poopie theories…. you know, horrible USA is encouraging terrorism against us and all. But nooooo, seems that the bad guys still want to destroy your western civilization just as much as my superior one. Perhaps next time, you’ll join the fight in Iraq, you cowardly lions. Thank God real men were in charge of your pacifist nation in WWII.
By the way, I was pleased to see a silly little Canadian girl finish second in our national spelling bee, reflecting the proper ranking of nations on the continent.