Some days the Newspaper of Record says a lot–not always in ways you might expect.
Today (3/21/13) a story by Mark Landler and Rick Gladstone about allegations of chemical weapons in Syria includes something you see often–anonymous government sources. That can often be a bad thing; but today it’s pretty useful:
Two senior Israeli officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak, said that Israel was sure that chemicals were used, but did not have details about what type of weapons were used, where they came from, when they were deployed, or by whom.
A third senior official, also refusing to be identified, said, “It is possible that chemical weapons were used, or some concoction of chemical substances,” but he said he had not “seen clear confirmation.”
Why is this helpful? Because other Israeli officials, speaking publicly and for attribution, pretended to be more certain. From the very same Times piece:
Two senior ministers in Israel’s new cabinet said publicly on Wednesday that chemical weapons had been used, and several government officials said in interviews that Israel had credible evidence of an attack. The ministers, Tzipi Livni and Yuval Steinetz, were among those who met with Mr. Obama here on the first day of his trip.
and:
Israeli officials provided no proof of their assertions but appeared more confident that chemical weapons had been used.
Ms. Livni, the new Israeli justice minister, said in an interview with CNN, “It’s clear for us here in Israel that it’s being used,” adding, “This, I believe, should be on the table in the discussions.”
Mr. Steinetz, the minister for strategic affairs, said on Israel’s Army Radio, “It’s apparently clear that chemical weapons have been used against civilians by the rebels or the government.”
So is the Times, in its own way, telling us not to trust the officials speaking on the record? That’s certainly one way to read the piece.
Elsewhere in the paper we learn that part of Barack Obama’s visit to Israel includes a look at the country’s “Iron Dome” missile defense system, which is funded by the U.S. government. In one story, by Mark Landler and Jodi Rudoren, we read this:
Mr. Obama was driven across the tarmac to inspect a battery of the Iron Dome air-defense system. The system, built by Israeli companies but financed by the United States, is credited with intercepting more than 400 rockets fired from Gaza at Israeli towns….
Israeli officials say that Iron Dome has been a huge success, intercepting 86 percent of the 521 incoming rockets it engaged in the Gaza conflict. Some American missile-defense experts have questioned that figure, putting the hit rate at closer to 10 percent.
So they either knock down almost every rocket, or almost none. That’s pretty unhelpful; but the Times has another piece that actually digs into the evidence (“Weapons Experts Raise Doubts About Israel’s Antimissile System”). According to this account, “a growing chorus of weapons experts in the United States and in Israel…suggest that Iron Dome destroyed no more than 40 percent of incoming warheads and perhaps far fewer.”
One former Pentagon official says there’s no system that is 90 percent effective. And the article, by William Broad, includes this:
Theodore A. Postol, a physicist at M.I.T. who helped reveal the Patriot antimissile failures of 1991, analyzed the new videos and found that Iron Dome repeatedly failed to hit its targets head-on. He concluded that the many dives, loops and curls of the interceptors resulted in diverse angles of attack that made it nearly impossible to destroy enemy warheads.
“It’s very hard to see how it could be more than 5 or 10 percent,” Dr. Postol said.
Mordechai Shefer, an Israeli rocket scientist formerly with Rafael, Iron Dome’s maker, studied nearly two dozen videos and, in a paper last month, concluded that the kill rate was zero.
Reading all of that, it’s hard to imagine anyone could really believe the Israeli claims about Iron Dome’s success rate.
So if you want to get a handle on Iron Dome, ignore the story on page 10 and pay attention to the story on page 11. And if you’re trying to figure out which Israeli officials to trust on the Syria chemical weapons story, the unnamed sources seem to be the ones who are more forthright about what they know.
That’s a lot to ask of readers, isn’t it?
> How to Read Stories About Israel in the NY Times (Hint: Very Carefully)
Just about the same way to read anything about the Middle East on Fair.Org!
What do you figure the percentages are regarding the Times or other corpress outlets being on target in their reportage?
Friends of mine who serve in the iron dome project say its no bullshit and that all those rumors are just conspirecy theories. Every one in the top millitery think it works amazingly
I would comment on this post, but unfortunately, I am not authorized to speak for the institution for which I represent; however, I can tell you on background that you can be certain that everything I am saying here is correct, even though I do not have anything to present to support that claim.
You may quote me on this as you see fit, so long as you give credit to me as an unidentified source.
Most of those rockets are Israeli auto attack to blame Palestine and to have an excuse to attack them. About NY Times is well known that this paper is not to trust at all. I am glad that Fair.org exists, good job!
This is the kind of attitude I see from supposed Liberals all over the place – Brux
Alright, who left the door open, one of the corporate troll just came in and took a dump. Ya, it has to be liberals because ‘Conservatives” never lie, tell falsehoods, or make up shit; If you going to use drugs, please do so after posting.
What do you figure the percentages are regarding the Times or other corpress outlets being on target in their reportage? – Doug
That’s easy, if it’s to obfuscate, and muddy the issue – 100%., If it’s to get the truth out and have meaningful debate – 0%. And those aren’t conflicting numbers either. (:-)
That’s right, Brux, we liberals are a bunch of anti-Semites.
No Difference is right.
Quoting people “speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak” — especially when they represent a vicious government with asses to protect — is disingenuous, in fact conniving with smoke blowers.
If the smoke coming from these assholes is so important it must be reported, why not just say “speaking on the condition of anonymity” FULL STOP — unless you are convinced the source is really speaking out of turn. Media that use such self-serving phrases should be regarded as communications arms of the sources.
The Free Syrian Army has already indicated that the chemical weapons were used by the Assad’s regime weeks ago. No matter whether that is true or not, these articles seem to focus only on one issue which is the safety of Israel, and has no sympathy whatsoever to the actual victims of these weapons, the Syrian civilians.
Regardless of whether chemical weapons were used or not, is it acceptable to kill those civilians by tanks, missiles, bombs, cluster bombs, white phosphorus bombs, TNT barrels, helicopters, Mig21, Russian Sokhoi bomber planes, as well as ballistic scud missiles launched 200 miles away to hit civilian targets ? is it acceptable to watch the slaughter of civilians by knives, torture to death, destruction of the electric and water stations, bakeries and other structures supporting basic life necessities?
Is it ok to see the siege on food and water supplies, no water, food, electricity, telephone , internet, or communications services, in whole towns and large suburbs of major cities affecting millions of people at a time ? And then have useless arguments about whether chemical weapons were used or not?
All these methods of killing and destruction were used by the Assad’s regime against his own country with the support of Hezbollah, Iran and Russia
Human lives are sacred and the observer will find the numbers to be astonishing:
More than 100.000 casualties have been reported by the French president , MORE than 150.000 prisoners and disappearing people have been reported, these are fathers, mothers, grandfathers , sons and daughters that lost their lives , more than 2.4 million houses have been destructed ( according to UN sources end of 2012) , which means about 10.0 million people are without shelter in the harsh weather conditions this past winter , more than a million refugees in the surrounding countries, and more than 4 million persons displaced inside, families are living in caves, and cemeteries, afraid of airplane bombing and we still are having a ” philosophical ” arguments about whether or not chemical weapons have been used or not !!
I have never heard before in history about torture children to death, this has taken place in Syria with the children tortured to death starting from age 5 months old!!
I am really disappointed by the way this discussion is going on, ignoring the real problems and concentrating on platonic discussions, our inaction against the Assad’s atrocities is costing human lives and bloodshed every day, These arguments are only used to justify the inaction of the US, and the whole so called “free world” that they are showing in front of these atrocities and many more that have been ongoing for 2 full years and are still ongoing on a daily basis!!
I am starting to wonder whether the human values we claim in the USA are methods used only when certain selfish interests are needed or not met. Or are they only empty words for world consumption and our real values of human rights, and the value of human lives are lost forever?
> Andy
> Yeah, I think “provincial” was the appropriate term.
I think you don’t know the history behind the history that you have apparently accepted and have nothing more to say but name calling now.
Do you ever wonder what objective a government assumes when they begin creating massive political advocacies for lifestyles that depletes the process of generations having families and multiplying. Consider this ! American Eugenicists created the eugenics movement in Germany in the 1930’s by personally interacting , sending literature and promoting eugenics in their medical and scientific communities. Their forced sterilization programs in this era were contrived by America inspiration, thought and practice. Many German eugenics programs were developed and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation such as the one Josef Mengele attended before transferring to Auschwitz. American Eugenicists leader C. M. Goethe openly bragged about how American Eugenicists shaped and fortified the political , intellectual and public support that brought Adolph Hitler to power and control of Germany. The American Eugenicists Researcher Harry H. Laughlin bragged that it was his model of Eugenic Sterilization Laws that were implemented in the 1935 Nuremburg racial hygiene laws. He later received a doctorate from Germany for the science of racial cleansing at the anniversary of Hitler’s 1934 purge of the Jews from the Heidelberg faculty. A 1911 Carnegie Institute Report stated that our doctors had quietly implement variable programs of eugenic euthanasia to perform social cleansing in America. I wonder if our first black president is a Eugenicists.
> I wonder if our first black president is a Eugenicists.
I sort of doubt it. But your post about Germany provoked a thought … unrelated to the post, but still … the point about Germany was not so much that they segregated a group, it was that they vilified and “genocided” a purely INNOCENT group for sadistic power and for profit, for all the wrong, bad and evil reasons. As far as I have ever heard Jews in Germany were “secularizing”, that is in the process of becoming and blending in with Germans. Jews in Germany never wanted to or tried to take over Germany or claim Germany did not have a right to exist, or that Germans were by nature evil. Jews in Germany never bombed German establishments or assassinated German civilians or government officials.
The use of the German Nazi analogy to the Middle East is entirely inappropriate and not applicable in any relevant way to Israel, and it’s blatantly obvious, so those that do it know what they are doing just as the Nazis knew what they were trying to bring about.