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SBD
Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2004
Posts: 1022
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 Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2005 8:25 am Post subject: WHICH SIDE OF THE WAR ON TERRORISM IS THE NEW YORK TIMES ON? |
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| Quote: | To The Point News
WHICH SIDE OF THE WAR ON TERRORISM IS THE NEW YORK TIMES ON?
Guest Author
By Jack Kelly
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Colonel Thomas Spoehr is annoyed with New York Times reporter Michael Moss,for what I think is a good reason. Spoehr is the director of materiel for the Army staff. He had a good newsstory to tell Moss, which Moss converted into a bad news story.
Here is the story as Spoehr tells it: Last year, senior leaders of the Army became aware of technological developments which make it possible to improve the "Interceptor" body armor worn by our troops.
The "Interceptor" consists of a vest, two SAPI (small arms protective insert) plates worn in the front and the back, and "backing" material around the plates. The plates are made of boronic carbide, the second hardest substance known to man (only diamonds are harder) but fairly light weight. The plates will shatter a standard rifle bullet, and the backing catches the bullet fragments to prevent injuries from shrapnel.
The "Interceptor" is the best body armor manufactured in the world today, and represents a remarkable improvement over the protective vests worn by our troops in the first Gulf War, and Somalia in 1993. Those vests could protect against shrapnel, but a rifle bullet would cut right through them.
Those vests weighed 24 lbs each. The interceptor ensemble -- which can stop an AK-47 bullet fired from just 10 feet away -- weighs just 16 lbs. But the best isn't perfect. There are some special types of ammunition that can penetrate the boronic carbide plates.
Last year Army leaders became aware of improvements that could be made to the SAPI plates that would protect against most (though not all) of these special types of ammunition.
There is little evidence insurgents in Iraq are using the special types of ammunition that can defeat the "Interceptor." But the Army wanted to be proactive, to defeat a potential threat before it emerged.
"We're taking what we think is a prudent step to guard against a step (the insurgents) could take, but that's a step that really hasn't developed yet," Spoehr said.
Altering the formula by which the SAPI plates are manufactured is not a simple process, since these plates must be manufactured to extremely precise (1,000ths of an inch) dimensions.
"Making one of these plates is like making one of those tiles that protects the (space) shuttle from heat," Spoehr said.
Yet though the specifications weren't set until early in January, new plates were being manufactured -- and delivery begun to U.S. troops -- in March. Those familiar with the Pentagon's procurement process recognize this as lightning speed.
The process was speeded up in part because in this instance the Army departed from the normal Pentagon practice of telling contractors not only what the Army needed, but how the contractors were to build what the Army wanted.
This time, Spoehr said, the Army told contractors what the Army needed, and let the contractors figure out how best to meet the need.
"It's our belief that we put the specifications out there, and then we let good old American ingenuity go to work," he said. "We have realized improvements in our own system from innovations contractors have come up with."
The new plates are a little thicker, but they weigh just two lbs. more than the ones currently in use. The new SAPI plates cost $1,300 a set, up from $1,000 for the older set.
Here's how the story was presented by Moss in the New York Times Aug. 14th:
For the second time since the Iraq war began, the Pentagon is struggling to replace body armor that is failing to protect American troops from the most lethal attacks of insurgents.
The ceramic plates in vests worn by most personnel cannot withstand certain munitions the insurgents use. But more than a year after military officials initiated an effort to replace the armor with thicker, more resistant plates, tens of thousands of soldiers are still without the stronger protection because of a string of delays in the Pentagon's procurement system.
Spoehr told Moss all the things he told me, but there is not a single positive quote in his story.
"You would get the impression that our soldiers were in harm's way or at risk," Spoehr said. "That is not true."
Americans are becoming increasingly pessimistic about the war in Iraq, because all news about Iraq is presented as bad news, even when it isn't. Which side of the War on Terrorism is the New York Times on? |
SBD |
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dusty
Admiral
Joined: 27 Aug 2004
Posts: 1264
Location: East Texas
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| Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2005 6:05 pm Post subject: |
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The answer to that question is painfully obvious. The New York Times is a Communist sympathizer organization and as such will always try to put the United States in a bad light.
And do all it can to turn the people of the United States against it's own government.
To argue this is not true is to argue against reality.
Dusty
_________________
Left and Wrong are the opposite of Right!
Last edited by dusty on Sat Aug 27, 2005 6:28 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Leeman
PO3
Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 265
Location: Connecticut
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| Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2005 6:11 pm Post subject: |
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In my Humble opinion They are on the side of the terrorist.
It is also my observation they are not the only ones, case in point there is a post about AOL front page everyday an article bashing Bush, on this dissusion board & they are right.
count how many times CNN says Cindy sheehan's name in a 1/2 hr.
notice how the reporters sigh at poor Cindi's plight.
If I mentioned all the papers & TV sations I'd take up the whole site here.
You get the idea. thats why we need sites like this & bloggers
I'll tell you a secret. they are on the way out.
_________________
Leeman
"We are all Ghost now"
"But once we were men"
from an unsigned diary recovered from Cabanatuan Camp |
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PhantomSgt
Vice Admiral
Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 972
Location: GUAM, USA
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| Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2005 12:46 am Post subject: |
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I wouldn't use the NY Times to line a birdcage or train a puppy if it were free.
As for the cNN International Commie Edition (in Guam) I found a way to program my set to eliminate the high pitched whine from cNN whenever I would accidently tune in.
The DELETE CHANNEL function was the magical tool needed to eliminate the problem.
_________________
Retired AF E-8
Independent that leans right of center. |
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GenrXr
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 05 Aug 2004
Posts: 1720
Location: Houston
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| Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2005 8:20 am Post subject: |
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| PhantomSgt wrote: | | I wouldn't use the NY Times to line a birdcage or train a puppy if it were free. |
_________________
"An activist is the person who cleans up the water, not the one claiming its dirty."
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing." Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Founder of Conservative Philosophy |
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shawa
CNO
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
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| Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2005 10:04 am Post subject: |
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Remember a few months ago when thr NYT published a frontpage story of the CIA using private planes to transport captured terrorists, complete with a picture of a plane, tail number and all! I was so infuriated I posted the story on this forum.
Well, the NYT was inundated with complaints about that article being published. So much so, that the Public Editor of the Times was compelled to write this explanation of why they published it. An explanation which infuriated me even more!!
The UTTER ARROGANCE of these leftists! Basicly saying "we are the best judge of what the public should know".
I say COWCRAP!!! Let the government do whatever is necessary to keep us safe. The NYT concern is all about the mistreatment of terrorists!!
| Quote: | EDITORIAL DESK
THE PUBLIC EDITOR; The Thinking Behind a Close Look at a C.I.A. Operation
By BYRON CALAME
Published: June 19, 2005, Sunday
A STRIKING number of readers have denounced The New York Times for describing the Central Intelligence Agency's covert air operations for transporting suspected terrorists in a Page 1 article on May 31.
The 2,900-word article focused on a C.I.A.-affiliated company, Aero Contractors Ltd., whose planes are often used when the agency wants to grab a suspected member of Al Qaeda overseas and deliver him to interrogators in another country. The legal term for this is rendition, and the practical result is interrogation in a country with looser rules on what constitutes torture. Given the heated public debate over the rendition program, the article's detailed look at the C.I.A. air operations was especially controversial.
The generally strident e-mail messages demanded to know why The Times had decided to publish information that the readers believe will aid terrorists and make life in the United States less safe for everyone -- especially the people carrying out the operation. Most of them didn't seem to be aware that the once-secret air operations had been mentioned in earlier articles and broadcasts elsewhere.
So it seems like an apt time to explore with readers The Times's process for handling covert intelligence stories as the war on terrorism continues. We'll start with a fairly typical reader complaint letter, and then consider a response prepared by one of the reporters and sent by the public editor's office to most of the readers who wrote to us about the article. Finally, I'll offer some comments from Times editors and my thoughts about the process.
A ''disgusted'' Matthew Mooney of Washington wrote this to me:
''I am writing today to register my deep disgust with [the] May 31 article, 'C.I.A. Expanding Terror Battle Under Guise of Charter Flights,' by Scott Shane, Stephen Grey and Margot Williams. I find it absolutely reprehensible to publish in the 'newspaper of record' identifying characteristics, information and operations regarding the C.I.A.'s alleged air transport activities in the war on terror.
''Exactly how does this serve the greater good, other than to attempt to derail our nation's intelligence apparatus from conducting the missions given to it by our president? Journalists often seek to hide behind the conceit of serving the public by unearthing secret or buried information -- in this case, all you've done is weaken our country, and this citizen repudiates your motives and tactics.''
Here is reporter Scott Shane's response, initially written in reply to a complaint sent directly to him, that's now gone out to Mooney and other concerned readers:
''Your criticism of our article on C.I.A. air operations is a thoughtful one. Writing about secret intelligence operations is always a balancing act, and reasonable people can draw the line in different places as to how much the citizens who pay for the intelligence agencies should be told about what those agencies are doing.
''The C.I.A.'s practice of rendition has come to light almost exclusively through analysis of the agency's air operations, starting with plane-spotting hobbyists who routinely post airplane tail numbers and photos on the Web. Media coverage of those rendition cases in many countries has started an important debate about the wisdom and competence of the agency in carrying them out. But no such debate could take place if the press did not aggressively seek to find out what the agency is doing and inform the public about it.
Perhaps it's the result of my having worked as a correspondent in the Soviet Union for a few years, but I think there's a strong case that excessive government secrecy leads to waste and abuse, and that an aggressive press improves the effectiveness of intelligence agencies in the long run. In this case, if reporters using public information can penetrate these air operations, I suspect foreign intelligence services, or Al Qaeda operatives, would have little difficulty doing so. Our story was based on information from public F.A.A. and corporate records and F.A.A. flight plan data available to all from commercial vendors. Before our story was published, the tail numbers, and photographs, of several of the rendition planes could be found easily via a Google search on the Web. |
NEW YORK TIMES
_________________
“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (Thomas Paine, 1776) |
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Guest
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 5:04 pm Post subject: |
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| YOU HAVE IT WRONG, IT'S SPELLED "THE NEW YORK SLIMES". |
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