As someone who has lost his rag more than once in the comments at WoC, I thank you for stepping into the breach and knocking some heads together. I simply don't have the energy or time for it anymore. The substance/polemic ratio is still lower there than most warblogs, but has gotten higher over the past couple of years. You can still get some decent discussion from people like AMac, Dave Schuler, Dan Darling (NOT Dan Dare), etc, but they're often outweighed by logorrheic ignoramuses like Rockford, Telenko, 'Cicero', etc.

BTW, matoko/jinni is a she.

Ah, they're specifically pro-Iraq war blog?

Intresting.

Ah, they're specifically pro-Iraq war blog?

not really.
they try, through Armed Liberal, to span the rightside leftside ideology gap.
sometimes there is interesting discussion.
like when Matt posts.
;)

BTW, matoko/jinni is a she.

thank-you, matt.
it must be my posting style, so aggro, so unfeminine.
even aziz called me habiibi the other day.
instead of habiibti.

Actually, the abundant smilies give it away. I think the issue is not immediately connecting Matoko Kusanagi, matoko_etc and jinnilyyah.

Lounsbury, I use "warblog" loosely to describe any blog whose authors supported the Iraq war and whose primary focus is US foreign policy. AFAIK all of the regular contributors were pro-Iraq war.

Jinni, thank you. Yeah, I bet your testosterone count is a good SD above the female mean.

your testosterone count is a good SD above the female mean.

lol! that explains my obssession with sex then!
i should be tested.

Hah. A good guess, then.

Oops. I just noticed that in my first comment "higher" and "lower" should be swapped around, indicating a decline in quality rather than a rise, which is assuredly not the case. We regret the error.

Two points.

First, one of the key things the full transcript demonstrates is that Al-khouly DID NOT threaten Wafa Sultan, suggest she should be killed, place a "fatwa" on her, etc., etc.. I think it is clear that MEMRI artfully chose a dubious translation of atheist/heretic so as to give that impression -- and Wafa Sultan ran with it.

More serious, however, is that MEMRI clearly edited the exchange to make it appear to be something it was not. MEMRI produced a movie review. You know, when the review says,

This film was the greatest disaster every to disgrace a movie screen that I have ever seen. You have been warned: Sitting through this film was such agony that only a cinematic masochist would voluntarily experience it!

But the ad for the movie says,

This film was the greatest . . . movie . . . I have ever seen. . . . Experience it!

As long as everyone understands MEMRI's vigorous spin, I suppose it's OK. But up until now, hardly anyone does. Many bloggers want to believe that Wafa Sultan was speaking truth to power. She wasn't. Al-khouly, though he has some dubious ideas and a weak grasp of history, is a decent representative of that pious middle Collounsbury was writing about.

Unlike the MEMRI excerpt, the full transcript shows that the exchange between Wafa Sultan and Al-Khouly was the Islamic equivalent of a debate between Madeleine Murray Ohare and Billy Graham. As entertaining as her antics were, MMO never really resonated with the public. I suspect the same is true of Wafa Sultan.

You again. I really like you, Clever Anon.

Sadly, I came to the conclusion nothing good would come of WOC back in 2003 when Joe Katzman was dancing on Edward Said's grave.

Yes me too eerie, maybe you should just comment as Clever Anon? Not that it is that difficult to tell him apart from other Anons...

Did you notice MEMRI's version of the "Saddam interview"? See:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/brian_whitaker/2006/03/hello_is_that_saddam.html

dear all,

the really important question, however, is: how do we get the funding to establish a counterweight to m.e.m.r.i.?

last time i checked, there was no powerful a.a.p.a.c. in the u.s. come to think of it, i wouldn't even WANT to take $$$ from an arab propaganda institution.

no-strings-attached amount of money that is big enough to finance a team of, say, 30-50 translators and analysts -> that's exactly what we'd need.

do feel free to circulate this proposal at will.

ciao,

--raf*

so...i was up late arguing with armed.
he says my post is too narrow.
my read from him, is that it is not worth taking MEMRI taking a veracity hit unless Al-Khouly said, oh, i guess, a buncha stuff about reforming Islam and woman's rights and anti-sharia, not just the wahabs but all sharia, etc.
so, free speech is not really a strongly held tenet of the west after all.
You can only have free speech if we agree with what you are saying, is what armed is telling me.

BUT some good things came from this, Meph.
here is something better from Dean Esmay, who left a very good comment at Winds.
And AMac, bless his heart, is trying to keep the discussion going.
note that both Dean and i reference Dr. Rusty at Jawa-- he has been a hard-core Islam basher in the past, so this is a HUGE thing for him to admit that there are evern moderate muslims.
so, some incremental progress.
(not feeling good enough for smiley)

so, like L., i have work to do and i can't goof on the Web anymore today.
best witches to you all

Raf: Agreed, what we need is some sort of ideologically-neutral, ultra-wealthy patron.

Go find a rich woman to marry.

Why would he need to marry her? He could just be a kept man, laying around all day eating bonbons and translating Arab media.

Did you notice MEMRI's version of the "Saddam interview"?

Brian, have you seen this amusing little note on the MEMRI scoop? I nearly spit coffee all over my monitor.

I have seen reference to the MEMRI pick up of the faux interview, but no direct screen shot etc. of the same. I hate to be doubtful.... however.

Well, the MEMRI transcript introduces the interview this way:

Al-Fayhaa TV Hoax: A Telephone Interview from Jail with Saddam Hussein

Following are excerpts from an Al-Fayhaa TV hoax. The station faked an interview with former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.The interview was aired on Al-Fayhaa TV on March 28, 2006. [Emphasis not mine]

Brian Whitaker wrote:

An excited colleague comes over to my desk. "Have you seen the interview with Saddam Hussein?"...

MEMRI clearly has a world exclusive on its hands here and, needless to say, its scoop has been instantly lapped up by World Net Daily and a website called The American Thinker" [sic]....

But hang on a minute. Does Saddam really have a phone in his cell? And aren't some of his remarks just a little bit over the top, even for Saddam?

Click on the link to MEMRI's TV clip of the interview and there's a somewhat different headline: "Al-Fayhaa TV Hoax"

Now, World Net Daily appears to have pulled the article, but its search engine still has it indexed (have screenshot) with the headline "Saddam curses own people".

My question: did MEMRI first publicize this as a legit interview or a hoax? Counterpunch describes one instance where a Right wanker assumed it was real and then had to issue a retraction.

Curious.

Much clearer now. A Technorati search of blogs citing the interview suggests that MEMRI did not declare it a hoax initially (see LGF).

BUT some good things came from this, Meph.

Clearly, cheers for all the tireless peddling and making somewhat of a dent in the somewhat stubborn attitudes. Best witches to you too and hopefully see your testosterone driven intellect around Aqoul sometime soon.

You can only have free speech if we agree with what you are saying, is what armed is telling me.

Jinn: I think it's more likely that al-Khouly's rhetoric, while not extremist, is still not "familiar" enough to resonate with average Westerners. MEMRI's selective translation fits very well with the "conventional wisdom" on Islam in the West (hence L's assertion of cognitive dissonance after some WoC wankers dismissed al-Khouly's remarks altogether).

Many blogs are just echo chambers that parrot back the views of their readers (as opposed to challenging them). Playing to the market.

Truth and nuanced fact, as exihibted in Aqoul's translation, succeeds by patience over time, it has to seep in and reach critical mass, as facts are stubborn things. (Enough mixed cliches and metaphors I hope, but nonetheless valid ones.)

Also there will be a second wind of interest when the When God is Godzilla book comes out.

Brian and E,
Glad I did not put my translation glasses on in a fit of more virtuous counter-translation of the Saddam interview. Off to have some Mecca Cola instead.

I'm pretty sure MEMRI first published it as a real interview. I viewed it on their website without ever seeing anything about it being a hoax. And ... when checking the actual video clip (www.memritv.org), it now begins with "MEMRI apologizes". So, settled.

When I first saw it, I found it profoundly odd, though I assumed MEMRI would have checked their sources well enough that it couldn't be a straight-out bluff. My bad -- can't really figure out why I assumed such a thing in the first place.

Most revealing was how completely insane SH seemed, which really stunned me. Not that he was ever a Great Thinker, but you'd expect SOME grasp of reality, some understanding of his best interests.

I thought maybe the interview was very heavily edited, or that the controlled flow of info in jail had done his brains in, or, possibly, that he was saying this as a favor to the US/Iraqi gov. in the hopes of not getting executed.

I assumed there had to be some kind of US involvement, since otherwise he could hardly a) conduct interviews from his cell, b) be informed about Iz ad-D's very recent message to the Arab League. And it wouldn't be a dumb thing to do, from the standpoint of the US, to feed him rumors about disloyalty, get him all worked up in a staged interview, and then go all over the news with it to split the Baathist part of the insurgency.

...although, all of the above speculation of course rested on the axiom that it COULDN'T be a hoax, since that would just be too easy to double-check for anyone to publish.

Silly me to trust the journalistic standards of MEMRI.

no-strings-attached amount of money that is big enough to finance a team of, say, 30-50 translators and analysts

That's around 500K$/year at least if you want quality work while outsourcing it in order to keep it cheap. If you really want to remain independent, that means you have to find 50,000 people willing to pay a 10$/year support.

So to be pragmatic, it might be easier to look for money the easy way (if you have time to invest on researching funds) and expect "strings-attached". Just chose the right ones.

My question: did MEMRI first publicize this as a legit interview or a hoax?

It WAS first published as a legit interview. It took around a day to be corrected.

ya shaheen,

i was thinking more of someone with his own oil well who "just feels like" giving me 550k$/year 'cause ... well, i don't really care why s/he does.

alternatively - 5,000 people paying $100 each isn't THAT hard. there must be a lot of pissed-off MENA experts (academics, journalists [dear brian, how are YOU today?], intelligence & policy people, etc.) who COULD spare that money. or even more.

--raf*

Probably, but you need somebody who will gather the money.

I've posted about another example of MEMRI manipulation over at my blog (Eye on Gay Muslims), this time some snips made in a transcript of comments made by Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi regarding homosexuality. They snipped the part where he advocated choosing the least sever juristic opinion on punishment for committing sodomy.

Rasheed: Quite revealing, but not so surprising.

Considering how many people MEMRI manages to piss off with their weasly translations and unacknowledged bias, I can't help wonder why there isn't a www.memrimonitor.org somewhere out there.

Incidentally, I find Rasheed's site gross.

How come?

btw the Irshad Manji Youtube video was quite funny, although I feel like a bastard for laughing.

And this comment was priceless:

"That was fast and sweet. I didnt even see the lightening bolt."

although I feel like a bastard for laughing.

Actually, I don't think you do.

why? because it pimps the viewpoint that Islam is against gays.

Actually, I don't think you do.

You know me too well. I'm cackling just thinking about it. Terribly immature of me.

Klaus: Haven't read that site extensively, but I imagine there is a spectrum of acceptability depending on region/culture (just like every other issue).