Hoax // Current TV

Men Landed on the Moon... Riiiight

http://wp.me/pWlqU-2V Searching the google machine that is the Internet for... more

donniccolo
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1 year ago
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President Obama assassinated according to hacked Fox News Twitter

Earlier today the Fox News Politics Twitter account was hacked and a number of... more

sbacker
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1 year ago
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1 comment

Fox News Lies! Edits Xin'an China Mirage Photo

Many have heard about the miraculous mirage that occurred in the Xin'an river;... more

Tim_Patrick
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1 year ago
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20 comments

Hippies “Reminding Scott Walker He Is a Douchesack”

Hero Wisconsin Protesters Succeed At Ruining Scott Walker’s Saturday

joeeddy
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1 year ago
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Israeli’s Use Dirty Trick To Try And Discredit Flotilla

A YouTube video featuring a man who presented himself as an American gay rights... more

joeeddy
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1 year ago
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1 comment

Gay Girl in Damascus hoaxer accused of defending himself with new online persona

Tom MacMaster, the Edinburgh student from the US who was behind the Gay Girl in... more

sbacker
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Why I fell so hard for ‘A Gay Girl in Damascus’ (and why the hoax makes me angry and conservative)

One of my touchstone moments for understanding the relations of the US and the Arab world was an exchange at a crowded outdoor restaurant five years ago in Aleppo, Syria. My wife and I were out to dinner with someone we'd met there and grown to like, a Tunisian woman who worked in Dubai. Very modern. And we were talking all about American policy in the region when I said to her, "Hey what's the deal with the role of women in the Arab world?" She said in a quiet voice, "Let's talk about this when we get back to the hotel."

I was surprised that she felt a need to censor herself in a public place. And then on our way back to the hotel, I thought, Well there are subjects we censor ourselves about publicly in the U.S. I wouldn't go into a restaurant in New York and launch into the Israel lobby.

Then later I thought, Well, I'm going to deal with the U.S. censorship issues-- we gotta fight the powers that be!-- and let the Arabs deal with their censorship issues.

And that is why I fell hook line and sinker for A Gay Girl in Damascus. I thought, here at last is the strong voice of an Arab woman openly taking on the oppressive traditions in her society. I am on her side, I celebrate her presence.

I posted from A Gay Girl a few times. I completely bought her story in February that her father had faced down thugs who had come to arrest her, and that he embraced her sexuality at the family's front door. And when the blog said she had been arrested a week back, I said I was praying for her and urged my government to jump in.

What a fool. Today, thanks to the energies of people like Ali Abunimah, Andy Carvin of NPR, and our contributor Seham, I know that A Gay Girl was a hoax. She was the fabrication of Tom MacMaster, an American writer in Scotland. You can hear him talking on BBC about his confection, an interview in which he doesn't show much awareness. I think he must be spinning emotionally like Anthony Weiner. Apparently he's apologized at the Gay Girl site, which I'm allergic to visit right now. On BBC, he explained that people dismissed him when he tried to talk about the issues as an American. So he invented a name to get "real facts and opinions" discussed, the "actual issues." The facts he provided about Islam are "true."

I feel angry today that I was punked, and doubly angry that MacMaster played on my credulity about the Arab world. I was the perfect mark. I wanted what Gay Girl was saying to be true: I wanted to believe that an out lesbian woman could be so empowered and vocal inside Syrian society.

You can call me an orientalist, and you can say that occupation and ethnic cleansing and massacres and imprisonment are more important issues than gay rights, and you can say that America is still a traditional society in some places, and fine, I won't quarrel with you. I know I'm seeing surfaces; I'm a universalist in my (gullible) heart; I can tell you that on my last visit to Egypt a covered and apparently-traditional woman I shared a car with through the Sinai on New Year's 2010 turned out to be a free spirit, who brought me to a sybaritic party on the Red Sea, and I thought I don't know the half of it. But again: Can an out lesbian be embraced by her family in Syria? I don't know.

My wise friend James North likes to say that we all have conservative and radical and liberal and militant elements in our political hearts, and different circumstances call on the different aspects, and this fraud calls on the conservative in me. We're in a global conversation, and I think the east has something to learn from the west about these freedoms.

And I have a lot to learn about the internet.

.One of my touchstone moments for understanding the relations of the US and the Arab... more

maasanova
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1 year ago
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Gay Girl in Damascus is a 40-year-old married man living in Edinburgh

So the joke is on all of us. The now infamous blogger 'A Gay Girl In Damascus', a.k.a. Amina Abdallah Arraf al-Omari, a 25-year-old half-Syrian half-American lesbian living in Damascus who was "abducted" last week was in fact a 40-year-old American Middle East activist called Tom MacMaster who is studying at Edinburgh University. MacMaster started writing the popular blog in February this year and due to the recent unrest in Syria it was followed intensely by news agencies and activists around the world.
However, last week he posted that "Amina" had been abducted by armed men not to be seen or heard of since. That last post caused worldwide concern and received a lot of media attention leading to "Amina's photo" being plastered on every news website (including Current.com) as a genuine news story.
The real woman, whose picture MacMaster had used as the profile pic of his fictional "Amina" character spotted her picture in the news and came forward saying her identity had ben stolen and that she worried for her safety. The woman in question was Jelena Lecic, a Croatian woman living in London who had nothing to do with Syria. In an interview with the BBC MacMaster defended his actions saying: "I really felt a number of years ago, in discussions on Middle East issues in the US, often when I presented real facts and opinions, the immediate reaction to someone with my name was: 'Why are you anti-American? Why are you anti-Jewish?' So I invented a name to talk under that would keep the focus on the actual issue."MacMaster said he had wanted people to listen to the facts without paying attention to "the man behind the curtain", claiming that the success of the blog took him by surprise.He said: "From the beginning I never expected it to get anywhere near the attention it has."I thought when I was starting I would be read by four, five, maybe as many as 10 people."MacMaster told the BBC that he accepted the concerns that he may have made it harder for bloggers within Syria, and that he had backed up government claims there were no problems in the country and that it was all "foreign lies".He said: "However, the reality is that I have been in contact with a lot of people inside Syria and I have been following things very closely."He said the most important thing was to "get the information out" and added: "People should stop focussing on the hoaxer and really be focussing on the most important people, the real people who are suffering in Syria."
You can read Tom MacMaster's full apology here.So the joke is on all of us. The now infamous blogger 'A Gay Girl In... more

sbacker
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1 year ago
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'Gay Girl In Damascus': Missing Or Mythical?

We've been holding off on reporting about the mystery surrounding the blogger... more

wanderingmissy
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1 year ago
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CIA chief Leon Panetta orders Osama bin Laden killing cover-up

Leon Panetta, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike... more

maasanova
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1 year ago
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Proof: Bin Laden Death Another Gov’t Lie "VIDEO"

Bin Laden Death Another Gov’t Lie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ksatFd8gkY

Radical_Centrist
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2 years ago
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18 comments

Disney to trademark US commando unit 'SEAL Team 6'

Disney has filed an application to trademark the name of the U.S. commando unit... more

maasanova
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2 years ago
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2 comments

CIA created fake drunken Osama bin Laden homosexual peodophile video

In May 2010, the CIA admited to creating a fake video of a drunken Osama bin Laden and... more

maasanova
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2 years ago
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6 comments

Associated Press files FOIA request for bin Laden evidence

Even the AP wants to see the proof? *** Last Monday, the AP filed a Freedom of... more

maasanova
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2 years ago
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48 comments

Abbottabad residents say operation of killing Bin Laden a hoax

An eyewitness of Pakistan said, "We are not fools, it's America, and the... more

maasanova
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2 years ago
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1 comment

Hoax: White House Claims 4-Year-Old Bin Laden Video Is New Footage

In a desperate effort to bolster its crumbling official narrative, the White House... more

stupidamericanz
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2 years ago
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5 comments

A bit of fuel to the fire of news

Cover your left eye and read the bottom line for me... more

riverratt50
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2 years ago
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French TV News: bin Laden received treatment in a Dubai hospital in July 2001

According to a partner at the American hospital in Dubai, Osama bin Laden was in the... more

maasanova
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2 years ago
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NFL star in hot water over Osama bin Laden, 9/11 Twitter comments

NFL star Rashard Mendenhall has found himself in hot water over comments posted to his... more

maasanova
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2 years ago
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Navy Seal memoir raced into print after Bin Laden killing

The book is already written, proof-read edited, typset and ready for distribution?... more

maasanova
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2 years ago
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