But you seem to have a bit of an axe of your own to grind here, in the way you scorn those critical of HTS.

Ultimately, and this is my conclusion about the article: I don’t actually care. It was written with the U.S. taxpayer in mind, and I am not American. How American taxes may be wasted, who might be sloppy, which computers might not be installed, none of that means anything to me. If the program were super efficient, low cost, ultra-rigidly professional, with oppressive amounts of oversight…it would mean absolutely nothing for my own criticisms of HTS.

If I were in charge of the program, and this is what was published — not just on Pravda by the way — I would at least post corrections or contradictions…you know, the same way they did with Newsweek. Newsweek was unable to verify that the corrections were indeed corrections, and did not reprint the response from HTS. Also, let’s not pick on Pravda too much — as I recall, one of the sources of anti-Iraqi propaganda that asserted the existence of WMDs, was the New York Times. Today, CNN continues to “slip” when it speaks of Iran’s “nuclear weapons program,” still unproven.

Don’t you have any questions about the silence that has been maintained in this case by HTS? Their silence does not mean Stanton’s piece is true…just that it remains unchallenged.

I am disturbed about the “identifiable source” issue and COMM 101. The major newspapers frequently quote unidentified sources who request anonymity. Why is Stanton being singled out here? Should he reveal the names of his sources? Should I? I can assure you, I won’t. What I can say is that I notice Stanton uses just a shaving of what he is told, which suggests to me that he is using only that information which he can corroborate.

Incidentally, there is no need to suggest anyone is being conspiracy-minded, we all already know the most important details: it is a military program, put in place by the nation that invaded and occupies Iraq. That ought to be enough.

By the way, have you posed any of these questions to Stanton? I would be interested in knowing what his responses are.

My problem with the Stanton ‘thing’ — I refuse to call it an article — is that none of it is sourced, not a single claim. That’s the most basic tenet of reporting that every freshman journalism student learns in COMM 101 class; without identifiable sources you don’t have a story, you have, at best, an editorial; at worst, it’s rumormongering. Do I really need to tell you this? You’re smarter than this, Max. Your blog is smarter than Stanton’s ‘work’; and your blog also suffers by holding it up as a source of credible information. Why not just say that you hope the stuff he ‘reports’ is eventually proven true, if only because it comports with your ideas about the awfulness of the HTS program. At least that would be honest.

You can’t be serious when you say that because the HTS program hasn’t denied Stanton’s claims, then the claims must be true. Again, Max, you are not this boneheaded, but perhaps you are more than a little conspiracy-minded when it comes to the HTS program. Did it occur to you that Stanton’s ‘thing’ is so laughably absurd that it doesn’t deserve comment? I’m only commenting because I’m a working journalist and I’m flabbergasted that anyone would take Stanton seriously. I’ve read the responses on this blog, responses from people who are probably intelligent, who seem to believe Stanton wholesale. It’s just mind boggling to me.

I’m already giving Stanton way more time and attention than he put into that thing he wrote, so off I go to beat my head against the wall.

The thing is that I am open to the possibility that there are problems with the account, but I am not seeing any corrections or contradictions. Have you wondered why that is, and what it means to let these articles stand without any kind of denial? In “the real world” of public politics that means the articles are valid.

Just saying it is bad journalism is not enough. In fact he seems to be bringing up a lot of details that the other published reports, from what I imagine you would call good journalists, have not raised. So good or bad does not matter so much to me as whether or not what he reports is valid and accurate. Of course he is motivated in what he writes, and he is fairly open and direct about it. Political journalism has a long tradition, I am not sure it is “bad” for that.

Then again, I obviously have my own biases here and the way I write on this blog will often make Stanton’s writing look rather tame. Regardless of any disagreements, I am thankful for your visits and comments, and you should feel welcome to post further if you like.

What if I went out and chatted with some Afghan villagers and wrote up the experience as some kind of ethnographic ‘report’ (I don’t know what you anthros would call it) and published that ‘report’ on the web. Would that make me an anthropologist? I assume not.

I feel dirty after reading about anthropology being abused like this.