BY DAN
KENNEDY
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Thursday, May 13, 2004
THE FALLOUT CONTINUES.
Former Marine major Cecil Turner writes:
Dan,
If anything, you're being too
kind to Turner, Kambon, and the Globe.
More than a week ago, someone
tried to peddle
those pictures on Roger
L. Simon's blog, and it was immediately debunked. A casual glance
at the photos shows out-of-date and mismatched uniforms,
improperly worn, wrong color t-shirt and boots, and lack of unit
patches. Even without knowing about the porn site, there is no way
this should have stood for a minute.
Turner's "just wanted to get
verification" story is nonsense - and certainly wouldn't require a
press conference. The technique of proffering a slanderous
statement and hoping something will stick was old when practiced
by Roman senators, and the Globe should never have fallen for it.
The real story here is that Nation of Islam is spreading Islamist
propaganda - and it certainly appears to be
intentional.
regards,
Cecil Turner
Major, USMC (Retired)
Also, in my quick
update this morning, I
neglected to note that the Globe failed to include some pretty
vital information in its "Editor's
Note" today - or, for that
matter, anywhere else in the paper: the fact that these photos had
been exposed as fakes quite a bit before Boston City Councilor Chuck
Turner and local activist Sadiki Kambon unveiled them at a news
conference on Tuesday.
Yes, reporter Donovan Slack's
story
was properly skeptical, but if either she or her editors had known
that the photos had already been identified
as having come from commercial porn sites, this never would have seen
the light of day. Those who hadn't been following the tale of the
fake rape photos on the Internet would have had to buy today's
Herald to find
out the whole
story.
Chuck Turner popped up on The
Pat Whitley Show on WRKO Radio (AM 680) this morning and
continued to peddle the line that he never wanted the media to
publish the photos, just verify their authenticity. He called the
Globe's decision to publish the photos a "serious mistake,"
and said he was "shocked and surprised." (Time out: the Globe
didn't "publish" the photos; it published a photo of Turner and
Kambon showing the pictures to the media. I still think that's an
important distinction, because in the edition I saw yesterday, the
images were so tiny that I really couldn't make them out. Still,
there's no question that the Globe ran it big
enough to shock in earlier
editions.)
What crapola. You don't call a news
conference to release photos that you don't want published. You don't
say - as the Globe quoted Turner as saying - "The American
people have a right and responsibility to see the
pictures."
Here is the text of a press release
sent out on Monday by Kambon's organization, the Black Community
Information Center:
Release of US Military
rape photographs in Iraq!!!
Assignment Desk/City
Desk:
The Black Community Information
Center Inc. will hold a press conference on Tuesday, May 11th,
2004, 9:30 a.m. The purpose of the press conference is to release
copies of dramatic photos of members of the US Military, gang
raping innocent Iraqi women in Iraq.
The press conference will be
held in the Curley Room at Boston City Hall (5th Floor) in
downtown Boston, Massachusetts.
For more information, call
[phone numbers deleted].
Sadiki Kambon
Director, BCIC Inc.
Now, it's true that at the news
conference Turner asked the media to use their contacts to
authenticate the photos. But the tone of this press release admits to
no doubt whatsoever, does it?
posted at 11:12 AM |
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
