AP fires reporter behind retracted ‘Russian missiles’ story

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ap-fires-reporter-behind-retracted-russian-missiles-story

by mighty-fine • 4 years ago

48 74 4 years ago

exabrial• 4 years ago

I’m glad cooler heads prevailed. A lesson for the rest of us to wait for facts and stop being outraged by everything the press throws at us.

That being said, Russia still is shit; and we wouldn’t be in this situation if they weren’t attacking civilian infrastructure in an attempt to freeze Ukrainians to death.

throwawaymedia6• 4 years ago

What Russia is doing is the result of something else. That something else is the root cause of the war in Ukraine.

int_19h• 4 years ago

Yes, that would be the Russian neo-imperial ambitions becoming mainstream. I watched it happening gradually back when I lived in the country - fiction books about war "against Nazis" in Ukraine started showing up in mid-00s, and one first became a hit in 2008.

maximinus_thrax• 4 years ago

I agree with you. The root cause is the complete erosion of civil society in Russia, the failure of the state to create and maintain a democracy and the failure of the West to turn Russia into a North Korea early on, when everyone figured out that the gangsters are actually running the country.

ghufran_syed2• 4 years ago

The americans, germans, french and every other country in the world are all “shit” by those standards - they have all done the same and would do the same again if their “national security objectives” required it. Ukraine would do the same to Russia if it could, the reason they aren’t is logistic, not moral.

In every war, the propagandists try to promote the view that this war is a “good” or “just” war - they are all wrong, just slightly different in their degree of “wrongness”.

idontwantthis• 4 years ago

Butwhatabout!

duxup6• 4 years ago

This war seems pretty a straightforward as far as an unnecessary war of aggression goes.

And frankly it seems just as sad to see Russian soldiers throw into the fight to die by their own government.

elevaet• 4 years ago

So what's your point? Should we join hands and welcome Russia to help themselves in Ukraine?

This whataboutism around Ukraine is emblematic of the problem with misaligned postmodern thinking. The fact of the matter is that Russia has violently invaded Ukraine and they are trying to bend Ukraine against its will. It's wrong and the world _should_ come to their side. Likewise if the tables were turned.

progrus• 4 years ago

Obligatory: https://archive.org/stream/WarIsARacket/WarIsARacket_djvu.tx...

oa335• 4 years ago

Compare and contrast Russian invasion with the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq: https://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/usa1203/4.5.htm

ajross4• 4 years ago

Two-decade-stale whataboutism doesn't change anything about the morality of the war in Ukraine or what our response to it should be. There are plenty of bad guys in the world for you to hate. The question should be what are you going to do about it today? Today, it's clear where the bad guys are. Tomorrow it may be different.

tomjakubowski2• 4 years ago

Both bad things deserving of condemnation.

_-david-_• 4 years ago

Getting fired for almost starting WW3 due to a fake story you wrote seems like a pretty light punishment. Maybe the AP will do a better job fact checking in the future before causing a war.

duxup6• 4 years ago

I doubt anyone at the Pentagon is launching missiles after reading an AP story.

encryptluks2• 4 years ago

Yet Bush gets a free pass for actually starting a war on false information.

roywiggins2• 4 years ago

Even if it had been a Russian missile it would not have caused a wider war. The Soviets shot down a whole airliner in 1983 and didn't cause one.

kube-system4• 4 years ago

Maybe that’s why the Russians got away with the same thing again in 2014.

tomjakubowski2• 4 years ago

If nuclear powers decided to launch missiles based only on random newspaper articles we'd all be long dead.

userbinator• 4 years ago

subsequent reporting showed that the missiles were Russian-made and most likely fired by Ukraine in defense against a Russian attack

They were fired by Ukraine towards Poland in defense?

vpribish• 4 years ago

dude. they are anti-air missiles, pretty easy to understand they were flying west chasing a target

anikan_vader• 4 years ago

They were anti-air missile(s) originating from an S-300 fired at Russian aerial threats (likely cruise missiles or Iranian drones).

LinuxBender• 4 years ago

Could have been chasing missiles, though this is improbable given all reports on the S300's have concluded 100% effectiveness. Another potential could be someone in Ukraine being overzealous and trying to trigger a false-flag to force NATO into the action. Ukraine's president has been making continuous efforts to pull NATO into their war and may be getting desperate especially given they are going into deep winter and both sides will have to make significant strategic changes. It would not be the first time a major war started from a false flag. Thankfully either way cooler heads prevailed this time.

somenameforme7• 4 years ago

It's amazing how quickly fake news is able to spread through "credible" news sources, all without even the slightest bit of real verification. I don't know if its scary or comforting to consider that if the political establishment wanted WW3, they could have it had it right there. The same intelligence agencies that convinced the world Iraq had WMD could have simply agreed with the story/Zelensky/et al, declare anybody debating it to be a "conspiracy theorist promoting Russian misinformation/propaganda", invoke article 5, and away we go.

duxup6• 4 years ago

Personally I think of incorrect news without someone trying to lie or distort the news as just a mistake.

As far as I know that was the case here, and bound to happen a great deal.

I think of fake news as something else.

kodyo7• 4 years ago

Shitty reporting that supports your intelligence agency's agenda is pretty straight-forward fake news.

roywiggins2• 4 years ago

Okay, but consider the fact that they didn't as evidence that NATO doesn't actually want to escalate this war. It's going pretty well for NATO, at relatively low cost (to NATO at least).

ajross4• 4 years ago

The same intelligence agencies that convinced the world Iraq had WMD could have simply agreed with the story/Zelensky/et al, declare anybody debating it to be a "conspiracy theorist promoting Russian misinformation/propaganda", invoke article 5, and away we go.

But... they didn't. The people with the power put on their big boy pants and said "No, I don't think this is right", refused to engage with the outrage machine, and shared what intelligence they could to refute the story. And the new media retracted the piece within 24 hours and has now fired the author after an investigation.

Isn't that evidence that the system is working? Shouldn't you be celebrating it as a victory instead of complaining about things that didn't happen?

somenameforme7• 4 years ago

In wartime the cost for reporting false information can be catastrophic. And wartime is also when everybody has a very strong motivation to lie, and even some moral rationalizations for such. This news article put the US in a situation where the US had to say "our media is lying, our military ally is lying, our anonymous senior intelligence source is lying, and our enemy is telling the truth" or start WW3.

The one and only reason they did so is because the cost of this lie would have been too high. If the cost had simply been "Russia will be even more demonized" do you think, even for a second, that they would have "corrected the record"? And beyond this, also consider that the news sources running these stories had to realize the potentially massive implications of this. Yet they seemingly themselves did effectively 0 fact checking before running with it.

No, the system is most assuredly not working. The only system that is working is the desire to avoid Mutually Assured Destruction.

HDThoreaun• 4 years ago

The story was retracted the next day. Sure some madman could launch a bike whenever they want, I don’t think this ap story has anything to do with that.

defrost2• 4 years ago

The same intelligence agencies that convinced the world Iraq had WMD

To be more accurate about something that matters, no intelligence agency in the US, the UK, AU, or other major intell nation claimed that Iraq had WMD's.

That was completely and utterly a senior US political position that demanded non existeant evidence to support a bizarro "known unknowns" claim .. backed by then UK politicians and tacitly agreed with by the then AU Prime Minister.

US Colin Powell did the worst dog and pony show at the UN talking up cartoons as "evidence" and agencies did what they do and made no public comment but . . .

Nobody with a clue and eyes on the ground from the Intell community thought WMDs were a thing, that one was all from the political sphere.

kamaal2• 4 years ago

>That was completely and utterly a senior US political position that demanded non existeant evidence to support a bizarro "known unknowns" claim

Asking people to "Prove a negative" is such a logical stupidity that is hard to understand how often people get into this.

Imagine you ordering something online on Amazon. And not getting it delivered. And then when you complain to Amazon about this, they asking you to provide a proof that it was not delivered and you don't have it.

How does somebody prove they don't have something? How do they get punished for not showing the absence of something they don't have?

somenameforme7• 4 years ago

This is a declassified section from the National Intelligence Estimate 2002, which was used as one of the primary justifications for the invasion:

-------------------------- Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction

       We judge that Iraq has continued its weapons of mass 
     destruction (WMD) programs in defiance of UN resolutions and 
     restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as 
     well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions; if 
     left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during 
     this decade. (See INR alternative view at the end of these 
     Key Judgments.)
       We judge that we are seeing only a portion of Iraq's WMD 
     efforts, owing to Baghdad's vigorous denial and deception 
     efforts. Revelations after the Gulf war starkly demonstrate 
     the extensive efforts undertaken by Iraq to deny information. 
     We lack specific information on many key aspects of Iraq's 
     WJMD programs.
       Since inspections ended in 1998, Iraq has maintained its 
     chemical weapons effort, energized its missile program, and 
     invested more heavily in biological weapons; in the view of 
     most agencies, Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear weapons 
     program.

https://irp.fas.org/congress/2003_cr/h072103.html --------------------------

Here is reporting from WaPo and NYTimes on what you're saying you saw as Colin's "dog and pony show."

Washington Post - "Irrefutable" : https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/02/06/i...

NYTimes - "Irrefutable and Undeniable" : https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/opinion/irrefutable-and-u...

In the midst of war, if you dared to call such thing a "dog and pony show" you'd be called a Saddam shill. War propaganda is a hell of drug, and we often only realize what's happening long after its over. And then we rewrite history in some sort of cognitive dissonance, failing to learn from the past.

robswc• 4 years ago

Seems wild how it seems lately there's no room for gray, only black and white.

I got torn apart for saying the "ghost of Kyiv" wasn't real, followed by the "most level headed take" of a reply that went something like "hey, even if its fake, people need something to believe in right now so saying this stuff only helps Russia."

I am of course 100% against what Russia is doing. I just feel like we should all be very aware of what is real and what is fake. Otherwise we can't make good judgments.

I saw people calling for WWIII because of the missile incident. Just blows my mind. I truly think that some people feel so insulated from the effects they view it as some "event" that just takes place in a distant land where if you cheer loud enough and show enough support the "good guys will win" after a few months. The world doesn't need more destabilization. Of course, Russia can't keep killing people either... but at the end of the day, this isn't and shouldn't be solved by online commentators.

I really wish Putin would throw in the towel at this point... its barbaric, depressing and embarrassing.

duxup6• 4 years ago

What I find interesting is among a few sites where you see amateurs talking about combat footage and news of that war, everyone is well aware how little they know.

It’s everyone else who seems to draw grand conclusions.

andrewflnr• 4 years ago

It's not really about missing black and white. I'm inclined to say it's the opposite. Too many people have gotten used to bending or ignoring the truth in favor of their ideology (whoever you're thinking of: not just them). In their minds this seems to be a matter of defending some "higher truth", or rather keeping people from pesky details that might prevent them from coming to the "right" conclusion, but they forget reality is made of pesky details. Any ideology that drifts from reality is doomed to not only fail, but probably cause a lot of suffering on the way. Truth matters, all of it.

Anyway, in a war these pesky details usually blur the nice black/white, us/them narrative that gets people motivated to fight. I mostly agree with your post, just wanted to say my piece on that.

throwawaymedia6• 4 years ago

When Ukraine hits Poland (even by mistake), people take step back and blame Russia, because Ukraine wouldn't have had to use an anti-missile system if there was no Russian missile in the first place. Fair enough.

Now, why don't people use the same analogy for Russia starting that war? Let's take a step back and ask a basic question - who escalated this all? Who benefits from this war? Who pours money there? Why is nobody asking these questions?

piva008• 4 years ago

Now, why don't people use the same analogy for Russia starting that war?

Because a war of invasion and annexation is something we've learned since WW2 that won't ever be tolerated in Europe again, history has shown why.

Let's take a step back and ask a basic question - who escalated this all?

Pretty easy: Putin and Russia. First 2008, then 2014 and a full-scale invasion in 2022. Russia chose to invade a neighbouring country in 2008 (Georgia, hope you remember it), Russia decided to escalate that and annex Crimea in 2014. Russia shadow-invaded Ukraine in 2014 (or have you forgotten all the military personnel wearing Russian gear that went "on vacation" to Donbass and Crimea?). Russia downed a civilian airplane in 2014.

Or isn't any of that escalation?

Who benefits from this war?

Very good question, if the war ended in 3 days as it was Putin's fantasy who would have benefited from this war?

As it didn't end in 3 days, no one is really benefiting from this except the military industry in multiple countries, mostly in Europe, which didn't have to arm themselves for decades of relative peace.

Who pours money there?

All the Western countries are pouring money in there, to fend off an invasion, to keep the sovereignty of a state, a thing that wasn't really required to be taken care of since the end of WW2.

Why is nobody asking these questions?

Because they are fucking dumb questions posed by Russian propaganda, that's why.

throwawaymedia6• 4 years ago

Ok, smarty. Why was there a conflict in Georgia? What were the events that led to it?

Russia decided to escalate that and annex Crimea in 2014

Putin CLEARLY said that he will annex Crimea if X. What is that X?

4ft4• 4 years ago

It really seems like you are part of Russian propaganda. In another comment you say that you pay taxes in the US.

Now, why don't people use the same analogy for Russia starting that war? Let's take a step back and ask a basic question - who escalated this all? Who benefits from this war? Who pours money there? Why is nobody asking these questions?

You clearly want to make a point here, so why don’t you answer these questions yourself. Who, in your opinion, escalated the war? The way you formulate your questions, it seems like you are spreading conspiracy theories. So please enlighten us with your brilliant insights into a war that kills thousands of innocent people and kids, destroys so many lives, just because a dictator wants to boost his ego. Territorial war is unnecessary and useless. So prove that you are not a Russian troll, and explain what you want message you want to convey with your stupid questions.

AP fires reporter behind retracted ‘Russian missiles’ story

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