The Unbelievable Gullibility of the Right

A Pakistani Taliban member has announced that he is responsible for the Binghamton shootings in which 13 people were killed and 26 wounded.

Fox News was first to report the claim (emphasis in original):

A Pakistani Taliban militant leader has claimed responsibility for the attack on a U.S. immigration center in New York state in which 13 people were killed, Reuters reported.

“I accept responsibility. They were my men. I gave them orders in reaction to U.S. drone attacks,” Baituallah Mehsud told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location on Saturday.

[…]U.S. officials were not immediately available for comment about Mehsud’s claim, Reuters reported, and one Pakistani security analyst dismissed the claim as a publicity stunt.

Representative Maurice Hinchey, whose district includes Binghamton, told the New York Times that indications are the gunman was an immigrant from Vietnam.

Incredibly (or maybe not), several bloggers on the right are, to various degrees, giving this absurdity credit.

Pamela Geller is calling for “moderate Muslims” (her quotes, because of course there are no moderate Muslims) to “denounce this depravity.”

MacRanger shares his expertise on the Taliban with doubters:

… this isn’t something that a Taliban leader would brag about if there wasn’t some truth to it. He would lose credibility among his people for such a lie.

Michael van der Galien’s first instinct was to believe the Fox report:

I reported yesterday about yet another mass murder in America, this time in New York. I automatically assumed the shooter was a lone wacko. However, Fox News reports that this was not the case; it says the Taliban has claimed responsibility for the shooting. This means it was a terrorist attack, and not ‘merely’ another episode of a crazy person going on a shooting spree.
[…]
I didn’t want to write about this massacre again, but I’m afraid I’m forced to by Mehsud’s claim. If he is indeed responsible for the attack, it is reason for major concern: it would mean the Taliban is still able to strike against American targets, in America, and kill innocent, unsuspecting citizens.

“Forced to”? Um, I don’t think so. “Felt compelled to” would be more accurate. But perhaps Michael should have resisted the compulsion, because, number one, he was not even sure he could trust his first reaction (“However, it’s probably just a publicity stunt”), and because, number two, the Taliban leader’s claim smelled like 10-day-old fish from the start — which Michael’s colleague, Jason Arvik, decided to point out in an update to Michael’s post:

UPDATE by Jason Arvak: The Taliban claim of responsibility contains a “red flag” indicating that the claim is almost certainly false — the Taliban spokesman claims “these were my men”, indicating an attack my more than one person, yet by all accounts the shooter was alone. Getting the details wrong about a crime is an easy way to determine that a confession is false, and a “claim of responsibility” is just a confession that the confessor is proud of.

To his credit (and, I will admit, my great surprise), JammieWearingFool dismisses Mehsud’s claim with the disdain it deserves (emphasis in original):

Maybe this moron thinks Binghamton is part of New York City. Or something like that. Whatever the case, I suspect a lone Vietnamese gunman shooting up an immigration center in central New York isn’t working on orders from the Taliban.

A Pakistani Taliban militant leader has claimed responsibility for the attack on a U.S. immigration center in New York state in which 13 people were killed, Reuters reported.

“I accept responsibility. They were my men. I gave them orders in reaction to U.S. drone attacks,” Baituallah Mehsud told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location on Saturday.

U.S. officials were not immediately available for comment about Mehsud’s claim, Reuters reported, and one Pakistani security analyst dismissed the claim as a publicity stunt.

Gee, you think?

Warner Todd Huston also dismisses the claim — in fact, he calls it a lie. But he does not display any integrity or common sense in so doing. He uses the falsity of the claim as a convenient weapon to bash Reuters for reporting the story.  “Reuters Knowingly Reports Lie About Binghamton Shooting — the Taliban Did It,” he shrieks. Reuters did this, in Huston’s diseased mind, because “Lies are okay if they lead to anti-American ‘news’.”

Huston’s post is worth quoting in full because it demonstrates just how contemptibly mendacious some on the far right can be:

Reuters published a story today, April 4, detailing some nonsense from a Taliban terrorist who has claimed “responsibility” for Friday’s shooting rampage in Binghamtom, New York. The question that comes to mind is why? Why did Reuters imagine this idiotic claim, this obvious lie, was worth reporting to the world? Does Reuters not have the good sense God gave a door knob? Why would Reuters pass this Taliban propaganda off as news?

From Peshawar, Pakistan, Reuters reports that this Taliban leader wannabe has said that the murderous rampage perpetrated by an unhinged Vietnamese immigrant was done by his “men.” This half-wit terrorist claims that he ordered the “men” to attack the U.S. because of the use of Predator drones that have been so successful in cutting out so many of those nits in their Pakistani strongholds.

But we all know this “acceptance of responsibility” is an outright lie. We may not know why Jiverly Voong went off the deep end, but we know he had zilch to do with Pakistan. So, why did Reuters think it a story worthy of reporting? There can only be one reason.

You see by telling us the lie of Baitubooolah Meshaweazel Muhammad something-or-another who is claiming he was responsible for the rampage Reuters can also promulgate anger toward our Predator drone program that has been so successful in killing these Taliban and al Qaeda scum-bags.

Reuters knows full well the story is bunk. But if it helps turn more people against the U.S. efforts to stop Islamofascist terror, well, that is a tale worth telling.

So, the upshot here is that Reuters posted a story that it knew was a lie and a story that had no value as news at all. The only purpose it served was as anti-American propaganda.

Set aside for now the fact that U.S. drones have killed scores (at least) of civilians in their quest to “stop Islamofascist terror” — and that, indeed, the continuing drone attacks in Afghanistan are not only not stopping Islamofascist terror, but actually are encouraging it because of the anger all these civilian deaths are causing. That’s a good topic for another post.

Here and now, let’s focus on the fact that Huston singles out Reuters for his attack, despite the fact that FOX NEWS also reported the Taliban leader’s claim — independently of Reuters. And in collaboration with the Associated Press. If Reuters is to be condemned for reporting that a Taliban leader took responsibility for the Binghamton massacre, then Fox and AP should be condemned as well. But, of course, that would require Warner Todd Huston and RedState to criticize a media source they rely on for consistently conservative-friendly news coverage. Can’t have that.

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Tags: Afghanistan, Binghamton shootings, Pakistan, right-wing bloggers, Taliban

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