THE IRAQI RAPE HOAX LIVES ON

Here's the actual headline of a new column by the international representative for the Nation of Islam, Akbar Muhammad, who distributed the photos used in the sham of a press conference covered by the Boston Globe, AP and others:

Photos show U.S. soldiers gang raping Iraqi women and girls

It is the same mentality their fathers - white Americans – and their great grandfathers, former slave owners, had who raped our Black men and women during the days of slavery. That is how graphic and barbaric the pictures are that I viewed.

These pictures and the mention of what these soldiers did to the Iraqi women were available, then later blocked, from the Internet. . . .

The rape of the Iraqi women in those prisons has been completely omitted from the Western press reports. The pictures were so viscious and humiliating to the entire Muslim and Arab world that they found a way to delete and block entrance into the websites that published them. However, I was fortunate enough before they deleted them all to get the pictures. . . .

I thought long and hard on why the pictures of the women being raped were not shown in America and how they were wiped off the websites. I also reflected on why the writings that I have read from one paper to another failed to mention what these women have suffered in Iraq.

This was published in the San Francisco Bay View -- named "National Black Newspaper of the Year" by the by the National Black Chamber of Commerce in 1997.

What he says is very interesting, because I pointed out below that the photos Akbar Muhammad personally distributed to the men in the Boston press conference do not match the photos from our cache of the now-closed Albasrah.net. Unlike the ones printed in the Globe, those photos were blurred by responsible editors. Mr Muhammad was so upset that the photos were taken offline (because they were widely exposed as fakes), and that the mainstream press was not covering them as real rape, that he redistributed the rape porn to shills for a press conference.

Just a few days earlier, his Nation of Islam boss held his own press conference:

...recent photographs of prisoners abused in U.S. custody, has unmasked an ugly America, Min. Farrakhan said.

The pictures and policy are so ugly that the Arab and Muslim world grows inflamed, he observed. Soon Americans will not be able to travel abroad, the Minister warned.

So why is Farrakhan's international rep attempting to inflame the world in coordination with his speech?

And why isn't the Associated Press reporting the truth about the obvious hoax?

...a photograph that purportedly showed U-S soldiers raping Iraqi women

...The newspaper says the photo shouldn't have run because it was overly graphic and couldn't be authenticated

...The photos showed men in unidentified military uniforms engaged in sex acts with unidentified women.

The AP and the Boston Globe still haven't figured out the photos are what's known as "porn" performed by people called "actors" and posted on what is known as a "porn site." Get this:

Boston Globe ombudsman Christine Chinlund said she had been unable to locate the source of the images.

"My attempts to figure out where the photos originated have failed," Chinlund said.

Christine Chinlund's problem is that she's assuming that Boston Globe reporters have a clue and can help her. She should venture out onto the scary Internet and use that popular goofy-sounding website she's heard about to search for the answer. It will show up in real reporting here.

The Boston Globe should know better. They also published this story on Jan 4, 2004:

Rumors of rape fan anti-American flames

Paper's claim against troops widely believed

The allegations can be heard almost everywhere in Turkey now, from farmers' wives eating in humble kebab shops, in influential journals, and from erudite political leaders: American troops have raped thousands of Iraqi women and young girls since ousting dictator Saddam Hussein.

Articles in Turkey's Islamist press reporting the allegations have fanned opposition here to the US invasion of Iraq to white-hot anger -- and even, apparently, to murder.

Nurullah Kuncak says his father, Ilyas Kuncak, was boiling about the rumored rapes just before he killed himself delivering the huge car bomb that devasted the Turkish headquarters of HSBC bank last month, killing a dozen people and wounding scores more.

"Didn't you see, the American soldiers raped Iraqi women," Nurullah said in a recent interview. "My father talked to me about it. . . . Thousands of rapes are in the records. Can you imagine how many are still secret?"

. . .One of the most dangerous aspects of these rumors, say Turkish and Western officials, is that people who do not at all fit the stereotypes of suicide bombers -- people like Ilyas Kuncak -- may be motivated to drastic action.

Leave it to the Boston Globe to give worldwide attention to the new allegations of rape four months later by only half-apologizing and leaving the authenticity of the bogus photos open to debate.

UPDATE: This is becoming a much bigger scandal about the Globe's overall management. The Globe has now proven beyond all doubt that the paper is run by an incompetent and deceptive staff. I expect the New York Times Company to fire some people after this shameless attempt to fool readers about their shameful screw-up.

Editor Baron refused to speak with WND yesterday when told I wanted to question him as to why the Globe was refusing to admit it knows the images came from a porn website.

He also refused to answer e-mails indicating WND's surprise over the comments the Globe ombudsman made in yesterday's Agence France-Presse article, implying that she had no idea where the photos were from and had "failed" to find their source.

"… So my question to you would be, why are you pretending like you don't know and haven't already verified that the photos came from the Sex in War site and were created by the Extreme Traffic content providers?" WND asked.

"In April you were quoted in Editor & Publisher as saying, 'Editors bear responsibility for what's in their newspapers and if they are alerted to problems they have an obligation to pursue them.'

"So WND's question also would be, why have you not pursued telling the truth in this matter? Do you consider it now your responsibility to lie and to direct your ombudsman to lie as well?"

When WND walked Slack through the porn site, she seemed excited to get the scoop on the source of the photos, and said, "This is great," adding however that her editor was "dying" since finding out the photos were from a porn site.

Update: To make matters worse, the Globe has now published an editorial confirming that the photos are "bogus" and saying that they "appear" to have come from a porn website. That admission has only taken the media giant three days, and it only came after repeated denials that they knew the source. Even worse, the Globe blames Turner for the gaffe, calling him "reckless" and "inflammatory."

So now, the Globe has expressed even more incompetence: After failing to confirm or deny for three days that the "rape" photos were from a porn site, the newspaper today both confirms and denies it knows the source of the photos.

Pathetic and half-baked, this "pass-the-buck" editorial also slammed Turner for having "no regard for truth or consequences" and for making "unsubstantiated charges," while admitting Turner left authentication of the rape photos to news media.

Another update from Sherrie Gossett here.

Why are the Globe editors -- and even the ombudsman -- so attached to this bogus story? They're dripping out half-apologies and lies that just fuel the rumors. As they've reported in January, a rape hoax can lead directly to murder. What the hell is going on at the Boston Globe??

Their initial response to this scandal was to circle the wagons around the hoax. You know, "Don't blame us, it could be true!!" It's probably not ideological, but now that they're being deceptive we can't rule it out. It could be that they're simply trying to minimize their original guilt and limit the mistake to the photo only -- sort of the same reason they only shrunk the photo instead of removing it from later editions. But this reaction is absolutely reprehensible when it involves the subject of a war crime. They're now part of the hoax and have known it was a hoax for days. So why aren't they distancing themselves from it with truth rather than lies?

We might now reasonably suspect now that there was an ideological agenda behind the original publication of the story and photo. It almost seems that their goal from the very start, to today, has been to "keep hoax alive!" Normal professional journalists would react to someone trying to fool them, or to a successful scam, by investigating and running a story exposing the hoax and slamming the hoaxers. They've done some of that now, but only to deflect from their negligence. The Globe is still covering for themselves and refusing to report the facts, or investigate the role of the radical Nation of Islam, even after being told the truth.

**I updated this update to reflect the Globe's transparent blame-shifting "We hope this kills the story by Monday" update.