Media Matters Lies to Protect 'Fallujah Four' Democrats

Democratic party front group Media Matters for America has lied twice in recent weeks while coming to the defense of Democrats up for reelection who have come to be known as the ‘Fallujah Four’ for allegedly aiding terrorists in Iraq.

Democrats Sen. Barbara Boxer (CA), Rep. Henry Waxman (CA), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (OH) and Rep. Raul Grijalva (AZ) were reported by an Islamic website, Islam Online, to have given diplomatic courtesy letters to Code Pink/Global Exchange to facilitate the delivery of $100,000 cash and $500,000 in humanitarian aid to what Code Pink called the “other side” in Fallujah in late 2004 as the U.S. was clearing the Iraqi city of al Qaeda and other Sunni terrorists.

[youtube dd1SniD7zJY nolink]

The letter by Rep. Waxman, obtained by Blue Star mother Beverly Perlson, was addressed to the U.S. Embassy in Jordan and requested “Any assistance you could offer… Global Exchange would be appreciated.” Mrs. Perlson is still being stonewalled by Sen. Boxer in her efforts to obtain Boxer’s letter.

The aid was primarily collected by the California-based groups Global Exchange and its side project Code Pink. The groups used enemy propaganda accusing U.S. Marines of mass murdering civilians and other war crimes in their appeals soliciting aid for Fallujah. No mention was made by the groups that Fallujah had become the home base for al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

In separate articles defending Fallujah Four members Sen. Boxer and Rep. Grijalva, Media Matters makes its case that the aid was meant solely for refugees by ignoring copious evidence to the contrary. Instead, Media Matters defends the Democrats and Code Pink/Global Exchange by citing Code Pink propaganda reported by the AP and Islam Online as well as a quote from a 2005 interview with a left wing activist Gold Star mother who participated in the aid delivery.

Media Matters says it is “completely baseless,” a “total fabrication” and there is not a “shred of evidence” to support the charge that the letters from the Fallujah Four aided terrorists. To reach that conclusion, Media Matters ignores the statement by Code Pink/Global Exchange founder Medea Benjamin reported by Agence France Press at the time the aid was delivered that it was intended for the “other side.”

“I don’t know of any other case in history in which the parents of fallen soldiers collected medicine … for the families of the ‘other side’,” said Medea Benjamin, the founding director of Global Exchange, a human rights group.

Benjamin also stated the groups’ intention was to undermine the U.S. efforts in Fallujah and Iraq.

“It is a reflection of a growing movement in the United States … opposed to the unjust nature of this war,” she said.

“This is the positive face of the American people which we would like to show … so that we are not looked at with animosity but with love. Our hearts go out to the people of Fallujah and to all the Iraqi people,” she said.

Media Matters also ignores that four months earlier, Code Pink participated in and endorsed the Beirut Communique, which supported “the right of the people of Iraq and Palestine to resist the occupations” and called for “the unconditional withdrawal of US and “coalition” forces from Iraq.”

Media Matters also ignores Code Pink’s explicit endorsement of the use of force of arms against American troops in Iraq issued six months after the delivery of aid to the “other side.”

There is widespread opposition to the occupation. Political, social, and civil resistance through peaceful means is subjected to repression by the occupying forces. It is the occupation and its brutality that has provoked a strong armed resistance and certain acts of desperation. By the principles embodied in the UN Charter and in international law, the popular national resistance to the occupation is legitimate and justified. – World Tribunal on Iraq, Finding #11

Media Matters also ignores the 2007 movie Meeting Resistance, filmed in Iraq in 2004 that documented family members of Iraqi terrorists acting as arms smugglers for the insurgents.

IRAQI WOMAN: [translated] When I leave the house to go and bring the weapons, I feel very happy. Very, very happy. But when I am actually carrying it, I’m very worried about the weapons and about myself. So I have these two feelings at the same time. I am facilitating a mission. I have done this job many, many times. Yes, now there is a kind of fear, because of the many house searches.

Even before I had the children, my husband was a good citizen, a patriot, a fighter. And for twenty-nine years, I have been his wife. So even if I didn’t have this patriotic instinct through our life together, this patriotic sentiment would have been created inside me. The whole family is patriotic. And how could I be so deviant when I am the one who married a Fedayeen?

Media Matters also ignores Code Pink’s promotion of Meeting Resistance in 2007.

In honor of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, CODEPINK co-hosted an event at Busboys and Poets to provide an insightful look into the present state in Iraq with Haifa Zangana and the filmmakers of Meeting Resistance.

…Molly Bingham and Steve Connors partnered in directing Meeting Resistance, a documentary of the resistance in Iraq through a collection of personal statements by members of the opposition.

…Through their work on Meeting Resistance, Bingham and Connors were able to learn the underlying ideological foundation of the resistance and how members funded, recruited, armed, organized, and now run this US counter-insurgency operation.

…Bingham, and Connors explained the counter-insurgency operation as being comprised of anyone who assists by even simply providing shelter, leaving a gate open, or refusing to give information.

Media Matters also ignores Code Pink’s well-documented history of supporting the terrorists in Iraq, Hamas and Middle Eastern state sponsors of terrorism.

Media Matters also ignores the statement by President Obama and Sen. Boxer funder Jodie Evans, a Code Pink co-founder who helped deliver the aid to the “other side”, that she was working to “undermine the war effort” and Evans’ statement endorsing the terrorists in Iraq.

We must begin by really standing with the Iraqi people and defending their right to resist. I can remain myself against all forms of violence, and yet I cannot judge what someone has to do when pushed to the wall to protect all they love. The Iraqi people are fighting for their country, to protect their families and to preserve all they love. They are fighting for their lives, and we are fighting for lies.

Media Matters also ignores the curious ease with which Code Pink’s man in Fallujah, Dahr Jamail, moved about enemy strongholds in Iraq at a time when Americans caught by the terrorists were beheaded or otherwise mutilated. Jamail acted as a ‘Tokyo Rose’ propagandist, sending e-mails to Code Pink/Global Exchange and appearing on the Democracy Now! radio show to accuse U.S. troops of routinely committing horrific war crimes in Falluajah.

Media Matters also ignores a similar delivery of “humanitarian aid” by Code Pink earlier this year in Gaza. Medea Benajmin said the safety of Code Pink in Gaza was “guaranteed” by the terrorist group Hamas.

Media Matters also ignores a recent Supreme Court finding that giving humanitarian aid to terrorists is the same as giving weapons to terrorists when it upheld a federal ban on such practises.

…”Material support” is a valuable resource by definition. Such support frees up other resources within the organization that may be put to violent ends. It also importantly helps lend legitimacy to foreign terrorist groups–legitimacy that makes it easier for those groups to persist, to recruit members, and to raise funds–all of which facilitate more terrorist attacks. “Terrorist organizations do not maintain organizational’firewalls’ that would prevent or deter . . . sharing and commingling of support and benefits.” McKune Affidavit, App. 135, 11. “[I]nvestigators have revealed how terrorist groups systematically conceal their activities behind charitable, social, and political fronts.” M. Levitt, Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad 2-3 (2006). “Indeed, some designated foreign terrorist organizations use social and political components to recruit personnel to carry out terrorist operations, and to provide support to criminal terrorists and their families in aid of such operations.” McKune Affidavit, App. 135, 11; Levitt, supra, at 2 (“Muddying the waters between itspolitical activism, good works, and terrorist attacks. Hamas is able to use its overt political and charitable organizations as a financial and logistical support network for its terrorist operations”).

Money is fungible, and “[w]hen foreign terrorist organizations that have a dual structure raise funds, they highlight the civilian and humanitarian ends to which such moneys could be put.” McKune Affidavit, App. 134, 9.But “there is reason to believe that foreign terrorist organizations do not maintain legitimate financial firewalls between those funds raised for civil, nonviolent activities, and those ultimately used to support violent, terrorist operations.” Id., at 135, 12. Thus, “[f]unds raised ostensibly for charitable purposes have in the past been redirected by some terrorist groups to fund the purchase of arms and explosives.” Id., at 134, 10. — Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project 08-1498, pages 25-26

And finally, Media Matters ignores Code Pink’s after action report on the delivery of the aid that reads like an al Qaeda press release.

During our week-long exchange with Iraqis, we heard allegations of US atrocities that made Abu Graib seem like childish pranks: a woman raped in full view of other prisoners, who is now seeking permission from religious leaders to kill herself; a seven-year-old girl, left momentarily in the car while her father stopped at the market, screaming and clawing at the window while a US tank crushed the vehicle; a mother watching in horror as the troops raided her home in the middle of the night, shot her son in the chest and then stomped on him as he bled to death. In Fallujah alone, thousands of civilians were killed in one brutal week. We wept together as we saw gruesome pictures of bodies burned beyond recognition, possibly from the use of napalm, and limbs eaten by dogs because anyone trying to retrieve the dead would be shot. A young Iraqi woman who risked her life taking our humanitarian aid to those too old and infirm to flee was still traumatized by the devastation she witnessed.

Media Matters betrays our men and women in uniform with its defense of the Fallujah Four and Code Pink/Global Exchange. One has come to expect a lack of respect for truth and honesty from Media Matters. However David Brock and company have sunk to a new low with their backstabbing propaganda on behalf of those who are getting our troops killed.