This week, bloggers are exposing another huge scandal of the mainstream press. It turns out that The Associated Press has been reporting news from Iraq based on individuals pretending to be Iraqi police officers.

The story of the six Sunis being burned to death was based on information from some locals and an Iraqi policeman identified as Captain Jamil Hussein.

But Capt. Jamil Hussein is not a police captain. He isn’t even a police officer. He isn’t even an employee of the Ministry of Interior. He is a propagandist posing as a police captain to feed disinformation to the International and American media with the objective of influencing popular opinion.

Propagandist Hussein has been the source for at least 10 different stories about Iraq published by The Associated Press since April 2006.

And he isn’t the only one. Another propagandist posing as a police lieutenant in a different police station, named Maithem Abdul Razzaq, has been the source for at least 11 other stories published by the AP since the beginning of April.

The way I understand it, the press had been informed previously, in unambiguous terms by the Ministry of the Interior, that no one below the office of Chief was authorized to be an Iraqi Police spokesperson.

Back in August, I wrote about the Reuter’s Photoshopping scandal, which has since been dubbed Fauxtography, as well as other instances of propaganda being distributed through mainstream media.

As I said then, we all innocently repeat falsehoods from whichever side we tend to believe. But the mainstream press should at very least openly exhibit the unreliability of their sources and be a lot more hesitant to publish sensationalist stories without first confirming them through more reliable sources, and reporting, for instance that neither the official Iraqi police nor the U.S. military are able to corroborate the information. Of course, now that the unreliability of their sources has been revealed by bloggers, they will go and subtly edit the previous stories on their websites to correct the problem quietly, without drawing attention to it. But the correction will do little to mitigate the blaring original headline which may have already entered into the cultural consciousness as “fact.”

I have no doubt that there are a lot of people dying in Iraq and that things are not going well. But under these circumstances it is impossible to know what is really happening out there.

On my way to work this morning I listened to a portion of NPR’s Diane Rehm show as she was interviewing former U.S. President Jimmy Carter [Listen to it: Windows Media]. When asked about whether it is right to call the conflict in Iraq a “Civil War,” he responded (according to my own transcript):

“I think the semantics, only that, they don’t have any substance. I think that some of the major news media decided this week that from now on their correspondents are going to refer to it as a “civil war.” But you know, compared to other civil wars with which I, at the Carter Center, have been intimately associated, this is not a civil war yet. We have devoted a good deal of our time for the last twenty years trying to resolve the civil war, for instance, in Southern Sudan. Two-million people have died. And we just finished helping hold the first democratic election in history for the republic of Congo. Four-million people have died there in the last eight years. So compared to those so-called civil wars, this is not a civil war. But I don’t think there is any doubt that it is civil strife. And I think it is just a matter of the news media deciding that this is what we’re going to call it. As a short-hand expression I don’t think it has any substance.”

Semantics are playing such a huge role in this war, and it is easy for perceptions sewn disingenuously to become reality. Often the legacy media seem complicit with the enemy within that particular theatre.

UPDATE: The AP responds :

The attempt to question the existence of the known police officer who spoke to the AP is frankly ludicrous and hints at a certain level of desperation to dispute or suppress the facts of the incident in question.
…we have conducted a thorough review of the sourcing and reporting involved and plan to move a more detailed report about the entire incident soon, with greater detail provided by multiple eye witnesses.

The police captain cited in our story has long been known to the AP reporters. The AP stands by its story.

-AP International Editor John Daniszewski

The more detailed report is available here .

It will be interesting to see how this goes. The military still insists that the source is not a police officer, but the AP is sure that he is. Perhaps I am wrong about the AP in this case. Hopefully we’ll figure it out in the next few days.

Take out a $20 bill and take a good look at the picture of President Andrew Jackson on the obverse side. Let’s review a little of the history of this controversial president, and then I’ll tell you what it can teach us about how to remedy our bloated and burdensome government.

In 1791, the U.S. Congress chartered the First Bank of the United States, and the bill was signed by President George Washington. The First Bank was chartered for 20 years, and in 1811, when the charter expired, Congress declined to renew it by just one vote. The First Bank ceased to exist. Then in 1816, Congress changed its mind and chartered a Second Bank of the United States, which was signed into existence by President James Madison (who had opposed the establishment of the First Bank, but changed his mind in the intervening years). The Second Bank was chartered for another 20 years.

The charter for the Second Bank of the United States expired in 1836, and Congress approved the renewal of the charter. However, President Andrew Jackson felt that — despite a Supreme Court decision to the contrary — central banking was unconstitutional. He vetoed the bill that would have renewed the Second Bank, and it ceased to exist. Ironically, Jackson’s image now adorns the face of our $20 bill under the modern incarnation of the national bank: the Federal Reserve.

I am not interested in arguing about Centralized Banking, International Banker Conspiracies, or Jackson’s role in increasing the power of the presidency. What does interest me is what the history of national banks and Jackson’s refusal to renew the charter can teach us about how to fix our unwieldy federal government. While the drama and political controversies are interesting, the most important aspect of Jackson’s murder of the Second Bank is so utterly obvious and uncontroversial that it is easy to overlook: the charters for both the First and Second Banks contained what is often called a “sunset clause.” They included their own expiration dates. After a twenty year period, the bank charters had to be renewed by the currently elected government or they would cease to exist.

Today, the federal government is mired in bureaucratic auxiliary organizations. We have a murder of Bureacronyms including the CIA, the FBI, the IRS, the DOJ, the DOD, DEA, FDA, FCC, HUD, the Federal Reserve, and a bunch of other bureacronyms. The Bush administration has added the Department of Homeland Security.

While I am not arguing for or against any specific auxiliary organization, many of them were added to the government before I was eligible to vote or before I was born. They are part of the government, and there is nothing I can do about it now. I do not think that such auxiliary organizations are unconstitutional; the government needs to be able to exercise its constitutional powers, and that may require such organizations to be created.

The Department of Homeland Security is an excellent example. At the moment, it is arguably necessary. But what about twenty or thirty years down the road? What if our children or grandchildren find it inefficient, intrusive, or oppressive? How are they to remove it from the government?

My suggestion is that we amend the Constitution to require all Bureacronyms, even traditional cabinet positions like the DOD to include a mandatory sunset clause or expiration date and that the expiration be no more than 35 years in the future. As its expiration date nears, each auxiliary organization would have to justify its existence, its current organization, function, and cost and its methods of fulfilling that function to the people and current elected government of the United States in order to renew its charter. Unless actively supported, government dead weight would automatically expire.

Sunset clauses might also be considered for involvement in international organizations and treaties, such as NATO and the United Nations. Unless participation or memberships were actively renewed, they would automatically expire on a given date.

The Founders were wise enough to include a sunset clause when establishing a national bank. They knew that just because it seemed to be a prudent action at the time, did not mean that twenty years later it would prove to be so. They wanted to be sure that the created entity would only continue to exist if the people continued to supported it. We should be as wise.

Now, thank Mr. Jackson for the lesson and put your $20 bill away before the IRS sees it.

When the Patriot Act was first adopted in the aftermath of September 11th, Congress wisely included sunset clauses on portions of the bill. In my view the Patriot act should be renewed as an important tool in the war on terrorism, but it should be renewed with a sunset clause that will ensure that the powers granted therein expire in ten or twenty years unless they are actively renewed by the representatives of the people. There is nothing wrong with granting our government necessary powers to win the war, but we should ensure that the powers are temporary by a vigorous use sunset clauses—not only in the Patriot Act, but in nearly all aspects of government.