APDD - Fausta's Blog

May 21, 2007 By Fausta

I wonder if Nancy has her scarf ready….

Via Jihad Watch, Islamic militants, security forces battle in Lebanon. The AP calls them Islamic militants, the NYT calls them Islamists, and people are dying:

Eight civilians were killed by shelling today, according to Reuters, adding to the 22 Lebanese soldiers and 17 militants killed in the fierce fighting on Sunday.

Witnesses said that militants belonging to Fatah al-Islam fired rocket-propelled grenades as well as machine guns today at army posts on the camp perimeter, according to Reuters.

The continuing violence is one of the most significant challenges to the Lebanese army since the end of Lebanon’s bloody civil war.
…
Many of the complex crosscurrents of Lebanon’s politics have been visible in the crisis. The camp in Tripoli has been off limits to the Lebanese army under an agreement with the Palestinian leadership and Arab countries. On Sunday, Lebanese citizens, who hold the Palestinians responsible for sparking the civil war in 1975, cheered the army on the streets of Tripoli and outside the camp.

Syria, which Lebanon accuses of backing Fatah al-Islam, closed several border crossings in the area. And the fighting broke out as the United Nations Security Council took up a resolution to try suspects tied to the February 2005 assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri. Syria has been accused in previous investigations of ordering the killing, but vigorously denies any connection.
…
Fatah al-Islam has been a growing concern for security authorities in Lebanon and much of the region. Intelligence officials say that the group counts between 150 and 200 fighters in its ranks and that it subscribes to the fundamentalist precepts of Al Qaeda.

The group’s leader, Shakir al-Abssi, is a fugitive Palestinian and former associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia who was killed last year in Iraq. Both men were sentenced to death in absentia for the 2002 murder of an American diplomat, Lawrence Foley, in Jordan.

Christians are targeted

I haven’t figured out why the BBC’s using scare quotes, Lebanon clashes ‘kill civilians’ but the death toll is significantly higher than the AP report shows. Update: The WaPo states that 50 combatants were killed in the first day of fighting Sunday

Here are some Facts and figures on Palestinian refugees in Lebanon

Gateway Pundit posts that

One of the men killed in Sunday’s fighting, Saddam El-Hajdib, was a suspect in a failed German train bombing a sign that Nahr al-Bared refugee camp had become a refuge for militants planning attacks outside of Lebanon.

A spokesman for the Lebanese government was interviewed by the BBCA newscast and blamed Syria for the bombing. Certainly the Lebanese media’s clear about it: Lebanon media see Syria behind violence.

Michael Totten links to Why Syria, why now?

The Lebanese citizen says, “justice is a principle above all. Security on the other hand has its own logic; you kill this guy, you spare that guy…”

Yeah, but you don’t understand, as Assad’s court scribe Patrick Seale put it, “Syria cannot tolerate a hostile government in Lebanon”! So it must kill all politicians that it doesn’t like! But hey, “it doesn’t mean the end!”

Will Nancy don her scarf again and go ask her buddy to stop?

Via Pajamas Media, From Beirut to the Beltway, explains that even if the Lebanese army wins this one, the battle will not be over and that,

In other words, Hizbullah is siding against the Lebanese government and army by not even acknowledging Fatah al-Islam, or its sponsor, and blaming it on a US-Israeli conspiracy.

I’m sure Nancy can’t wait to sink her teeth on that, too.

Meanwhile, you wouldn’t know that Israel is under attack by reading the headlines.

Update Captain Ed asks,

And where is the UN in all of this? It’s their refugee camp which has fostered these groups and allowed them to operate openly. Shouldn’t the UN be disarming people in refugee camps? Or have they abandoned that mandate, as they have abandoned others?

Update 2: Welcome, EU Referendum readers. Please visit often, and if you have a chance, listen to my Blog Talk Radio podcasts, including my most recent ones on on Tony Blair, and on Israel

April 24, 2007 By Fausta

And now for more propaganda from AP

Associated Press is back to shilling for the charismatic-leader-helping-the-poor-offering-free-health-care-education-adult-literacy-and-job-training-initiatives-that-help-millions-of-Cubans^tm through a lie, not that they ever stopped:

Castro, 80, is a leading example of Cuba’s healthy life expectancy

Fidel Castro may be ailing, but he’s a living example of something Cubans take pride in — an average life expectancy roughly similar to that of the United States.

Living?

Depends how badly:

Homes that were luxurious before Castro’s 1959 revolution are now falling apart and many cramped apartments contain three generations of family members. Food, water and medicine shortages are chronic.

But most prescription drugs and visits to the doctor are free and physicians encourage preventive care.

Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of that. I also know that people who travel to Cuba to see their relatives (who are not allowed to leave Cuba) have to get them the most basic supplies, such as sanitary napkins, aspirin, Tylenol, band-aids, and first-aid ointments like Betadine and iodine. Ask my sister’s next-door neighbor, who works at a pharmacy that provides ready-made “care packages” of first-aid items to take to Cuba.

Of course Will Weisert, the AP reporter, hasn’t been told that Cubans treated in Cuban hospitals have to bring their own bed linens because the hospitals don’t have any. The linens are available in Cuban hospitals only to foreigners paying in dollars.

The article continues,

Cuba’s average life expectancy is 77.08 years — second in Latin America after Puerto Rico and more than 11 years above the world average, according to the 2007 CIA World Fact Book.

It says Cuban life expectancy averages 74.85 years for men and 79.43 years for women, compared with 75.15 and 80.97 respectively for Americans.

Here’s the CIA Factbook info on Cuban life expectancy:

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 77.08 years
male: 74.85 years
female: 79.43 years (2007 est.)

For Puerto Rico

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 78.54 years
male: 74.6 years
female: 82.67 years (2007 est.)

And the USA (by which they mean the 50 states, since Puerto Ricans are Americans from birth)

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 78 years
male: 75.15 years
female: 80.97 years (2007 est.)

But back to the AP article,

A relaxed lifestyle, which prizes time spent with family over careers, helps keep Cubans healthy, Tache said.

Just ask these Ladies about their relaxed lifestyle:

Just another day of Associated Press Deficit Disorder (APDD)

Update Via Irwin, The Big White Lie
Don’t Worry, Be A Commie
Update 2: A Shredding, at Opinion Journal

If an old American lady told a reporter, “Sometimes you have all you want to eat and sometimes you don’t,” is there any doubt he would write a story bewailing our country’s shocking neglect of the elderly, poor and hungry? Why are American journalists more favorably disposed toward an America-hating communist personality cult than their own country?

March 15, 2007 By Fausta

APDD strikes again: "Castro said to seek re-election in 2008"

On October 1, 2005 I defined Associated Press Deficit Disorder as

the innatention of Associated Press and other news agencies to the actual words said by a person who doesn’t fit what AP wants to hear.

In this particular case, the words are that Fidel Castro is a dictator that came into power through the use of force.

Will Weissert of AP wants you to think otherwise: Castro said to seek re-election in 2008

Fidel Castro will be in “perfect shape” to run for re-election to parliament next spring, the first step toward securing yet another term as Cuba’s president, National Assembly head Ricardo Alarcon said Thursday.

As if there had been free elections in Cuba since Castro came to power.

As Zivainla said

This article is an abomination. Fidel Castro has never been elected, there are no free elections in Cuba and to imply otherwise is disingenuous. Every Human Rights organization denounces the appalling lack of Human Rights in Cuba. Shame on your writer for this piece of propaganda and shame on AP for not exercising responsible editorial authority.