{"id":1189,"date":"2005-12-09T07:24:24","date_gmt":"2005-12-09T11:24:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/wordpress\/?p=1189"},"modified":"2005-12-09T07:24:24","modified_gmt":"2005-12-09T11:24:24","slug":"did-abizaid-give-this-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=1189","title":{"rendered":"Did Abizaid give this speech?"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to Brian Lamb, an unidentified person on C-Span<\/a>‘s staff received from a friend these contemporaneous notes (pdf<\/a>) allegedly taken by a student of the Naval War College on a speech the authour claims was given there by General Abizaid. The friend felt it was vital the notes be given a wide audience. Brian Lamb hosting Washington Journal<\/em> this morning featured the notes along with comments made by Donald Rumsfeld to Jim Lehrer on 8 December 2005<\/a> when he battered the media for what he considers its negative-only reporting on the Iraq occupation. C-Span restricted call-ins to military officers, enlisted personnell, and contractors who’ve actually been to Iraq, ostensibly to finally provide a forum for the good news the MSM refuses to acknowledge and report.<\/p>\n

The copy C-Span makes available includes an introduction (with warmest regards) from General Schoomaker. The same e-mail was posted here on 6 December 2005<\/a> but with an introduction from VR, S1Net. The Free Republic posted only the notes on 22 November 2005<\/a> introducing them as an “Email received from the West Point ?old grad? network?” and what follows is the final comment made in the post, a thread that stressed the importance of getting this message out to the MSM and conservative talk radio.<\/p>\n

I looked on the Naval War Colleges website for all the graduation speakers, and I didn’t see Gen Abizaid there…
\nhttp:\/\/www.nwc.navy.mil\/pao\/L1\/Speeches%20and%20Presentations.htm<\/a> <\/p>\n

Also, the CENTCOM website doesnt have the listed speech’s transcript listed either (most COCOMS post transcripts for the GO’s speeches etc for historical\/research purposes)… <\/p>\n

Lastly, their PAO denies he particpated in the 17 November graduation. Are you sure your facts are correct? DO you have a transcript available? The reason I ask is that there are several websites with the EXACT same posting (word for word). I think we do well enough without having to make stuff up…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I put “Abizaid speech” into the Naval War College’s search engine and came up empty. It would seem C-Span vetted the speech as thoroughly as it did the callers. Not at all. One caller said troops have built “schools galore.” Another said electrical grids have been so well restored that Iraq is lit-up “like a Christmas tree.” Another guy said only 1% of the population wants the U.S. gone! But where is the transcript for this speech? And why did Lamb continually refer to the speech as being given “last week”? Lamb certainly wouldn’t be in such a hurry to cheerlead for the war that he’d front an e-mail hoax as fact, right?<\/p>\n

Update<\/u>: I’ve attempted to e-mail C-Span to request specifics of General Abizaid’s speech but my IP address is blocked as a spammer even though I’ve never e-mailed the site and my efforts to correct this slight were unsuccessfull. I’ve yet to find any proof, other than the e-mail Lamb read, that the speech was ever given.<\/p>\n

Update<\/u>: The comment I posted from this thread<\/a> at The Free Republic is no longer the last. The questioner has posted twice more and is still being ignored. Referring to the alleged introduction by General Schoomaker included in C-Span’s copy:<\/p>\n

Nice post…Did this come out on AKO? To every one on the different posts? It’s not the “official” holiday message. Also, if the remarks attributed to General Abizaid are not correct, how can the e-mail be correct? <\/p>\n

One last thing, the syntax of the message isn’t typical of corresepondance coming out of his office…. <\/p>\n

Can you clarify? Perhaps “cut and paste” the entire message with headers?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and this:<\/p>\n

Ok…one last bit of confusion…Looking at the imagery of the 2005 NWC Graduation, I don’t see Gen. Abizaid at all. Nor do I see him in the Strategy Symposium held a few weeks earlier. Can you double check your source? There may be an integrity issue here.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The person who started the thread has now included a link to Lamb’s C-Span reading of the e-mail but can’t be bothered to verify the speech even exists!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to Brian Lamb, an unidentified person on C-Span‘s staff received from a friend these contemporaneous notes (pdf) allegedly taken by a student of the Naval War College on a speech the authour claims was given there by General Abizaid. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-jb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}