A tip of the helm to Lady Quixote, who sent me this Healing Iraq post. The New York Times has hired guards that are threatening the local property owners in their zeal to protect their own rental property. Here are some excerpts from a letter written to the Times by one of the besieged.
My family has a property in the green zone in down town Baghdad on Abi-Nuas street. The New York Times rents the adjacent property. For several weeks now my brother Ali Al Ali has been denied automobile access to our property by security guards. Until two days ago we thought this was a coalition security measure. Now we known these guards are not coalition personal but are instead the private security force employed by your news paper.
The family property has two store fronts. Yesterday (Saturday November 15, 2003) my brother and two hired men were in one of the stores installing shelves. My brother lost his livelihood in the war and needs to open this store to make a living. His efforts were interrupted by several of the security guards employed by your paper. He was knocked roughly to the floor and threatened. Your guards pointed there AK-47 rifles and my brother and his work men and told them they would be shot if they did not leave immediately.
I feel sure if learned the United States Army was responsible an incident such as this you would feel obligated to publish the story and condemn the act.
[No doubt!]
This is a level of hypocrisy staggering even for the liberals at the New York Times. However, before I pull a Wayne Madsen, it would be nice to confirm this story. The elements in this story - a large hypocritical liberal conglomerate who disdained the use of force to liberate Iraq is now using force to harm Iraqis – could have come out of a conservative novel. On the other hand, truth is stranger than fiction.
I have written the New York Times to ask if this is true. While I await a response, which may or may not arrive, I would like to harness the power of the internet to verify this situation. If you know anyone who might be able to verify (or deny) this, please email them and ask them to contact me at quixote@solport.com. If you blog, please bring this story to the attention of your readers and ask them if they can verify or deny it.
If this story should be true, let us see how long it takes the blogosphere to fix the situation. I will post updates as they come in.
Update: With the help of Glenn Reynolds, I have confirmed the story. I will be posting details as soon as I finish writing it up - probably in an hour or so.
Final Update: A complete post of the events appears here.