In a recent interview with The Register, Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) CEO Patrick Byrne told (his side of) the story of Force Protection (NASDAQ: FRPT), a maker of armored vehicles for the military. To hear Byrne tell it, this is company that is keeping our troops safe but that, because of naked short selling, has been unable to raise the capital necessary to fill orders.

Force Protection was down more than 20% yesterday after the company again delayed the filing of its 10-K, citing the "scope of the work to be performed to complete its analysis and to identify the material weaknesses in the Company's internal control over financial reporting, including the need to restate its financial statements." Darn those naked short sellers! Why did they mess up the company's internal controls? Oh wait. They didn't. And in the middle of this mess, the CEO resigned earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Overstock.com, the crown princess of the naked short selling victims, announced that it actually lost four cents more in 2007 than previously reported as a result of changes in its revenue recognition based on "accounting comments from the staff of the SEC."

Here's what investors need to keep in mind: these naked short selling crybabies have serious problems that could not possibly have been caused by market manipulation. Rather, the aggressive short selling of companies like Force Protection and Overstock seems to be a reflection of serious and fundamental problems at the company. The short sellers were right long before other investors saw it!

Moral of the story: bet against short sellers at your own risk. In the case of Overstock and Force Protection -- and many other companies -- they were ahead of the curve in sniffing out serious fundamental weaknesses.