The Scriptorium

Be sure to read this excellent article by Mark Steyn which draws attention to the medias ignorant coverage of the war in Iraq and the Democrat’s inability to handle reality.

Speaking of the biased MSM, the AP is reporting today that Iraqi leaders called for a withdrawal of American troops at a conference of the Arab League today. There’s just one problem with their reporting. Their translator has been trained to translate Arabic into liberal media spin. Luckily, we have blogs. Gateway Pundit has their own translator who can actually translate the Iraqi leader’s words into normal English. He translated this AP article this way:

Al-Talebani pointed out that those who are currently fighting the Iraqi government are of two primary factions. The first, stand behind “Alqaida” and the Sunni Loyalists or Alzarqawi. The second faction is Iraq’s Arab loyalist and Saddam Loyalists. Each of these factions have their own militia. Al-Talebani added that the success of the Cairo meeting will allow us to win over the second faction. This will tame the Iraqi Arab nationalists and stop their armed resistance. Al-Talebani said he is willing to meet with the Iraqi resistance if those responsible for it ask. The positive atmosphere, which dominated the Cairo meetings, will have a constructive effect on the Iraqi elections in mid December. The U.S. forces will be leaving at the most within two years.

He clarified; the American forces would rather leave today than tomorrow. The sooner we are prepared the sooner they can leave. This should not take more than one or two years. After we complete the preparations of the Iraqi Army and security forces during the next two years there will be no need for the American forces and they will leave at once.

That’s a little bit different than this AP interpretation:

Reaching out to the Sunni Arab community, Iraqi leaders called for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces and said Iraq’s opposition had a “legitimate right” of resistance.

I think the AP is confused. The DEMOCRATS are calling for a timetable. The IRAQIS are calling for the same withdrawal promised by the president. When the Iraqi armed forces and security forces are trained, we will pull out of Iraq. The Iraqis won’t be “putting in place an immediate national program” to rebuild the armed forces, they will continue this process over the next year or two. The DEMOCRATS are the ones who think this process hasn’t already begun. Iraqi leaders also separated the terrorists from the nationalists and predicted the policy he was outlining would win over the nationalists. He did not say the terrorists had a legitimate right of resistance. The DEMOCRATS are the ones who think the terrorists are freedom fighters and have a legitimate right to wage Jihad in Iraq.”

Don’t trust what you read in the MSM. Ben speaks Arabic and was an Arabic Linguist in the military. Perhaps he’d be willing to translate what the Iraqi leaders are saying from time to time and further expose the MSM’s lies and spin. I have a feeling we’d be shocked at the blatant misrepresentation going on in the media.

See also: The Bad Hair Blog, Protein Wisdom, and scrappleface adds some humor to the mix.