National Guard preparing for Internal Checkpoints

This is ancient stuff.

A first principle: when someone claims their assertions are backed up by a commercial media broadcast, and doesn't bother to mention when or where they saw it, you should be suspicious, at least to the extent of asking why they should be deliberately making it impossible to verify the claim- or avoiding the risk that a record of what was broadcast on that channel at that time might surface.

As an example of Martin's level of credibility, in a later column he claimed that Donald Rumsfeld, in a DOD press release, had warned that "those who ask questions could face government charges".

Mind that point- he claimed it was in a press release. Now, a press release is exactly that- an attempt to release information to the public via the press. In other words, a press release is something you publish.

Like any good self-serving bureaucracy, DOD keeps up a steady stream of press releases, news advisories, transcripts of interviews with DOD officials, speeches by same, yadda,yadda- and they publish them all on their Web site.

It was a simple, though tedious task to download every single press release, news advisory, etc., for the month preceding the publication of Martin's column and search them for the text string "ask questions"

One hit. An interview Rummy did with some corpo-media talking head or another, in which he said something absolutely, perfectly, diametrically opposed to Martin's claim.

No sign of it anywhere in any other media outlet. Somehow an official press release containing one of the most laughably stupid public pronouncements by a Cabinet member ever had sunk wihout any trace,

The picture that emerges is that Martin breezily claims a major news outlet as a source, paints a detailed picture of what he saw on their broadcast, but somehow forgets such details as date and time- or anything that might be verifiable or falsifiable, claims a personal encounter with a gummint checkpoint right out in the open where anyone could see it, and is oddly forgetful about where and when- or anything else that could be verified or falsified, and when he does claim something that mgith be checkable, it turns out to be a snipe hunt after something that never was.

Basically, the dude is the Weekly World News of the conspiracy industry. Not only is the stuff on the front page made-up, the fakery isn't even artistic.

There are much better conspiracy theories available on what's proved to be a lively market. I suggest doing some comparison shopping. Try crankdotnet for references.

Why don't you back up this claim with a verifiable reference? If not, then why don't you stop criticizing other people for doing what you yourself do?

Martin's article appeared in early June 2002.

All DOD News articles, news releases, contracts, news transcripts and press advisories for the month of May can be found at:

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/May2002/

June, logically enough, can be found at:

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2002/

There. That's pretty much everything you need to replicate the experiment. All you need to do is to download each item on these pages and do the search. If you have Opera, the "find in page" function is very handy for this; If you're stuck using M$'s browser, the thing to do is use "select all" in the edit menu, copy and paste each article into a text editor like Notepad, and use the "find" function to search for your text string.

Another experiment worth trying is to go to Google, select "advanced search", enter "Donald Rumsfeld" in the "with the exact phrase" box and click search. this will bring up approximately 114,000 results. Then, click the "search within results" link and enter "those who ask questions" into the box (you must include the quotation marks so that Google recognizes it as a complete phrase to search for). This will bring up about 40 results (as of today).

Examine what you get. There isn't a primary source among them. There's Martin's column, there are quite a few bits from message boards with people discussing Martin's column, there are various conspiracist Web sites linking to Martin's column or repeating it verbatim, there's the odious Hal Turner uncritically repeating it when he isn't too busy slinging the words "nigger" and "kike" around...

What there isn't is a single reference independent of Martin's claim. The absolutely identical nature of the references you find is a strong indication that they all come from the same source, spreading by the rumor-propagating mechanism I like to call "Web metastasis".

Something else that might prove instructive arises if you, like me, become curious enough about the provenance of this story to want to write to Martin and ask him if he could please supply a supporting reference. Go to his Web site and try to find a feedback or other contact link.

There isn't one. If you want to buy his book, there's a convenient link for that, if you want to book him to speak there's a handy rate card and a mailto link for his agent; what there isn't is any means by which the great unwashed could ask questions about the Great Man's ex cathedra pronouncements.

In the absence of any kind of support from a primary source (i.e., the actual press release or at least a reference to the date, headline and sender) and in the absence of any means of asking the secondary source for same, I'm as inclined to swallow Martin's argument by assertion as I am to do the same for the unsupported statements of official flacks.

There you go. There are the recipes for the relevant experiments. Feel free to replicate them, and bon appetit!

just because http://www.whatreallyhappened.com sometimes posts old news and editorials (which clearly al martin has written) doesn't mean that there is some truth to this old story.

I'm sure that the national guard really is training for check points and i'm sure they have been for quite some time. It's not news by any means, but still scary, don't ya think?!

History repeats itself and i feel like i've read this chapter before.

just because http://www.whatreallyhappened.com sometimes posts old news and editorials (which clearly al martin has written) doesn't mean that there is some truth to this old story.

I'm sure that the national guard really is training for check points and i'm sure they have been for quite some time. It's not news by any means, but still scary, don't ya think?!

History repeats itself and i feel like i've read this chapter before.

Ok gonda anana land,
it is known the government is restricting information, some of which may be justifiable but some also which well may not be. Al Martin is not wrong to both suggest and or/imply that.

it is known that the government is restricting specific information about troop movements in this country, again, some of which is justifiable and some of which may not be. No one is wrong to suggest or imply it might be a good idea to insist upon a little more on information in this regard.

It is known that the media is definitely not unbiased, and clearly many issues that should be reported in full of late have been as well suppressed. I believe without good a clear information the electorate could be said to be....well....controlled, wouldn't you?

Besides the lively debate that ensues regarding the extent to which the "terrorists" have won as our freedoms are curtailed sharply, and fear and paranoia have risen sharply.

Like good art or music al martin shocks, it is a good shock, a warning shock, it reminds us to ask the hard questions about covenants between the government and us not using the military against us....little things like that. Some of us consider those rather serious issues.