[NYTr] Idiot FOX News Claims Calif wildfires an al Qaeda Plot Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 02:53:07 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit [This was also reported, hilariously, by Keith Olbermann on tonight's "Countdown" http://www.msnbc.msn.com followed by a discussion on rightwing conspiracy-mongering. More amusingly, at the right-wing NewsBusters Blog, Noell Sheppard also blasts the "liberal mainstream" media -- for "blaming another natural disaster on Bush" [see below]. He apparently hadn't yet seen the GAO report issued months ago warning of inadequate preparation for the California fire season. SEE: KATRINA WEST: GAO Warned Bush About Poor Firefighting Plans Oct 24,2007 http://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/Week-of-Mon-20071022/070715.html Sheppard does, at least, get the date of the original, questionable, FBI memo about al Qaeda's potential "plot" right -- 2003. But he alludes to it, and of course would never admit that reporting such as FOX's -- or his own blogging -- are aimed at the right-wing tinfoil-hat conspiracists who are ready to believe such nonsense and that the whole propaganda aim is to ratchet up the hysteria levels among the right (and, as Olbermann said, the growing tendency among everyone else to just start laughing at every new warning from the Bush regime. -NY Transfer] *** Raw Story - Oct 24, 2007 http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Fox_advances_theory_that_CA_fires_1024.html Ill-informed Fox anchors spread fears of al Qaeda link to Calif fires by David Edwards and Nick Juliano Questionable 4-year-old FBI memo presented as new to stoke terror fears Did al Qaeda start the California wildfires? As more than a million people escaped the flames, Fox News anchors couldn't help speculating about a terrorism link to the blazes ravaging southern California. "I've heard some people talk about this a little bit to me, but have you heard anybody suggest that this could be some form of terrorism," Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy asked Wednesday morning. Correspondent Adam Housley said he's received "hundreds of comments" from readers of his Fox News blog speculating about a link to terrorism. Investigators have determined that one 15,000 acre fire in Orange County was deliberately set, and Housley reported that authorities arrested one man who set a hillside on fire. Causes of most other fires are still being investigated, and there has been little speculation beyond Fox News about a terror plot. A review of Housley's blog posts about the fire reveals that his characterization of the terror fears perhaps was inflated. Of his 15 posts on the fires, just two included speculation from commenters about a terrorism link. "Is anyone asking how these fires started? I see no comments or speculations," observed "clyde teeter" in response to a post Tuesday. "Could it be linked to illegal alien misadventure on the border [...] Terrorism? ... If you are a journalist, then these questions need to be asked and investigated. Your coverage is admirable but the emotional journalism about the loss of peoples homes is not helping to find the causes." Fox & Friends co-host Judge Andrew Napolitano tried to serve as the voice of reason. "That's a fear, Adam, but is there any evidence of it?" the judge asked. Such skepticism could not last, though. Later Wednesday, Fox anchors returned to fanning the terror fears, digging up a four-year-old FBI memo and presenting it as new information relating to an al Qaeda link to the fires. In June of 2003, FBI agents in Denver detailed an al Qaeda detainee's discussion of a plot to set forest fires around the western United States, although investigators couldn't determine whether the detainee was telling the truth, and his plot did not include setting fires in California. Such small discrepancies in dates and details proved to be no obstacles for Fox anchors, who reported that the memo was from "late June of this year" and "is just popping up this morning." The memo was first reported by the Arizona Republic in July 2003, although a Fox anchor said it was reported "five days ago." That confusion seems to stem from an inability to read the date on an Associated Press account of the memo from the time it was first reported. A July 11, 2003, AP story, still available online via USA Today, reported, "The contents of the June 25 memo from the FBI's Denver office were reported Friday by The Arizona Republic." On Fox, that information became, "The June 25 memo from the FBI's Denver offices was reported three days ago, excuse me five days ago, by the Arizona Republic." Further distorting the report, Fox failed to mention a key caveat from the 2003 AP story they appear to have ripped from. "Rose Davis, a spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, told The Associated Press that officials there took note of the warning but didn't see a need to act further on it." The following video is from Fox's Fox & Friends, broadcast on October 23, 2007. [Video LINK] *** Think Progress - Oct 24, 2007 http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/24/fox-news-al-qaeda-is-causing-the-ca-wildires/ Fox News: Al Qaeda is causing the CA wildfires. This morning on Fox News, hosts of the show Fox and Friends blamed the wildfires in California on a new culprit: al Qaeda. They pointed to a 2003 FBI memo, which raised the possibility that al Qaeda may try to set wildfires around the western United States. They also noted that men in a bhovering helicopterb saw ba guy starting one of these fires.b [Video LINK] Later in the segment, host Steve Doocy acknowledged that in [the] memo, al Qaeda didnbt even mention California. bThey mention Colorado, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming,b he added. Transcript: DOOCY: Youbre looking live at pictures from San Diego b Santiago, CA, where the wildfires continue. We were talking earlier in todaybs telecast with Adam Housley and apparently police officers in a hovering helicopter saw a guy starting one of these fires. And Allison Allison Camerota, an FBI memo from late in June of this year is popping up this morning and it is ominous. CAMEROTA: This actually has happened for many years in the past as well. An FBI sent out to local law-enforcement said that an al Qaeda detainee had given them some information that the next wave of terrorism could be in the form of setting wild fires. Adam Housley said lots of people on his block were asking him about it. Obviously this is something the FBI has looked into. They will continue to investigate it. CARLSON: If they have this person in custody it probably wonbt take long to be able to develop a link if there is one. KILMEADE: A June 25 memo from the FBIbs Denver offices reported three days ago, excuse me, five days ago, by the Arizona Republic, that is a newspaper, they have been carrying the story and they continue to expand upon it. DOOCY: Brian, the plot they say, according to this detainee, and they donbt know if the detainee is telling the truth. The plot was to set three or four wildfires. But they donbt mention California. They mention Colorado, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming. We do know for a fact that a number of the fires in southern California are of a suspicious nature and they are investigating arson. *** NewsBusters - Oct 24, 2007 http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/10/24/california-wildfires-media-blame-another-natural-disaster-bush California Wildfires: Media Blame Another Natural Disaster on Bush By Noel Sheppard As wildfires rage throughout Southern California, media have predictably begun to blame this awful natural disaster on President George W. Bush much as they did almost exactly two years ago when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. On Tuesday evening, MSNBC's Dan Abrams set up an interview with California Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-Cal.) thusly: But the fire storms in California`s raising tough questions about what the National Guard is extended too much to handle emergencies at home. Back in May, before the fire started, "The San Francisco Chronicle" reported that the California National Guard was down a billion dollars worth of equipment. Two hundred and nine vehicles in Iraq, including 110 humvees and 63 military trucks. According to report the California guard should have had 39 diesel generators on hand. They say it had none. The Kansas governor raised similar concerns earlier this year when she said the deployment of National Guard troops to Iraq hurt the emergency response to a deadly tornado in her state. The question -- is this another unanticipated cost of a prolonged and expensive war effort? On Wednesday morning, CNN's John Roberts asked a similar question of FEMA Administrator David Paulison: Senator Barbara Boxer from California is complaining that because the National Guard from California is engaged in the war in Iraq, there were not enough members from the National Guard to respond to this fire. What do you say to that? The MRC's Kyle Drennen reported Wednesday that CBS's Hannah Storm asked roughly the same question of Paulison on today's "Early Show." Not to be outdone, the good folks at the New York Times are already making the Katrina connection in an article published Wednesday entitled "With Katrina Fresh, Bush Moves Quickly." And, as NewsBuster Scott Whitlock transcribed Wednesday, ABC's Claire Shipman asked the following of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on "Good Morning America": So, you think the comparison to Katrina that everybody's making in the back of their mind these days is a good one in terms of state and federal." Of course, the other way this will all get blamed on President Bush is by tying these fires to global warming as CNN, CBS, NBC, and others have already done. Yet, the actual culprits for these fires conveniently getting little attention were reported in an Orange County Register editorial on Monday, namely, arson and downed power lines (emphasis added): Our dismay is doubled, however, by the circumstances that authorities believe caused the fire that has burned at least 8.800 acres in Orange County. Almost all the other fires in the region have been tentatively attributed to natural causes, mostly power lines knocked over by the powerful Santa Ana "devil winds." (We know some people might call power lines unnatural.) But the fire that began near Santiago Canyon on the northern edge of Irvine is suspected arson. Another article from the Register Monday, entitled "Modjeska Canyon residents evacuated: Arson suspected in Santiago Canyon Fire," was a tad more specific: The blaze, which was moving steadily north into Silverado Canyon at nightfall after threatening Foothill Ranch and Portola Ranch, was triggered at three separate points near the intersection of Silverado Canyon Road and Santiago Canyon Road in an area called "Grumpy's" after a man who sells beef jerky there. There was one point of origin on one side of the road and two more on the other side, said Kris Concepcion, a battalion chief with the Orange County Fire Authority. "Whoever did this knew what they were doing," he said. Yet, of the 148 television reports logged about these wildfires since Sunday, a LexisNexis search identified only two that addressed the possibility of arson: one done on Fox News's "On the Record" Monday, and; one filed on CNN's "Out in the Open" the same evening. And, only eighteen discussed the downed power lines. Another angle media seem to be ignoring is the terrorist one. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security's National Terror Alert website reported the OC Register's arson claims Monday as having a possible terrorist connection: We are NOT implying that the California fires are an act of terrorism however; the threat of pyro-terrorist attacks pose a significant risk to the U.S. and the fires in California and in Greece earlier this year should be a wake-up call. In 2003 an FBI memo alerted law enforcement agencies that an al-Qaeda terrorist being held in detention had talked of masterminding a plot to set a series of devastating forest fires around the western United States. It was reported that the detainee, who was not identified, said the plan involved three or four people setting wildfires using timed devices in Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming that would detonate in forests and grasslands after the operatives had left the country. The Associated Press reported on this issue July 11, 2003 (emphasis added): The FBI alerted law enforcement agencies last month that an al-Qaeda terrorist now in detention had talked of masterminding a plot to set a series of devastating forest fires around the western United States. Rose Davis, a spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, told The Associated Press that officials there took note of the warning but didn't see a need to act further on it. With arson considered the cause of at least one of these fires, shouldn't investigative journalists be addressing this issue, as well as the real identified cause for many of the fires? Or would that make it too difficult to blame this catastrophe on President Bush? Of course, the good folks at CNN have another idea in mind: use the wildfires to push their global warming special "Planet in Peril." Honestly, you can't make this stuff up! [Noel Sheppard is an economist, business owner, and Associate Editor of NewsBusters.] * ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us Our main website: http://www.blythe.org List Archives: http://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ Subscribe: http://blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr =================================================================