Alan Caruba: The Real Story from Iraq Alan Caruba The Real Story from Iraq

[gekko]

The Real Story from Iraq
July 31, 2003
By Alan Caruba


On one night in late July, gunmen in Irvington, N.J., killed two people and wounded three others. A week later in Newark, N.J., gunmen killed four people and injured 14 others. Such murders are commonplace in American cities, and local news organizations report them routinely as crime news on their inside pages as part of the inevitable mayhem of society.

In sharp contrast, the NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw on July 25 aired nationwide an in-depth report on the funeral of a 54-year-old American soldier killed in Iraq which also included the names and other information about those slain in the line of duty there.

Why is it that a single U.S. casualty in Iraq is major national news? What it tells me is that the U.S. news media's bias against the Bush administration is leading many of them to deliberately spin their coverage of events in Iraq.

After watching coverage of the war and its uneasy aftermath, I have come to the conclusion that the liberal news media is deliberately trying to undermine the morale of the home front with this kind of coverage. The post-9/11 patina of patriotism worn by liberal journalists has long since worn thin.

Having failed to turn public opinion against the president’s decision to take the action necessary to rid the world of Saddam Hussein’s evil regime, the news media could barely manage to hide its hope the mission would fail. Within days after the initial thrust into Iraq, the word “quagmire” popped up and, despite reports from the embedded journalists, the anchors and commentators immediately seized on any hint of failure – even a sandstorm that briefly halted ground operations.

Three weeks later, with our tanks in downtown Baghdad, the news coverage turned to criticism about widespread looting – including the major “scandal” over the Iraqi National Museum of Antiquities that turned out to be a total fabrication.

Initially, reports about American casualties were brief, restricted only to the numbers. In previous wars, major news outlets did not devote chunks of valuable broadcast time every evening to each and every casualty. Only toward the end of the Vietnam War did the number of casualties take on increased significance due to the growing public demand that it be ended.

There was, and is, no such demand regarding Iraq. It is manifestly and widely seen and understood to have been a military triumph. No amount of negative reporting and media carping can undo the obvious. Moreover, unlike previous conflicts, the Internet permits the real news on the ground to reach vast numbers of people, in particular the news junkies who understand the liberal bias of the mainstream press.

Then there is the curious sight of Democrats demanding we put more troops in harm’s way to provide peacekeeping services in Liberia. Many of them were the same legislators who vociferously resisted our invasion of Iraq. None seem to recall the ill-fated mission in Somalia, nor are aware that the civil war in Liberia is now in its 14th year (some count it as the 22nd year, depending on whether you date it from the last coup). Other than our historical bonds with Liberia, there is very little strategic reason for the United States to engage there.

All of this adds up to a condemnation of the U.S. news media (to which one can add their counterparts in Great Britain) for the coverage of what is unarguably a military triumph in Iraq. That's the bad news. The good news is that the American public is not buying it. The desperation with which the news corps struggles to find some failure to publicize is overwhelmed by the speed with which Iraq is moving toward an extraordinary transition to a freer society after more than three decades of dictatorship.

Our troops in Iraq are already beginning to rotate home and, when they do, they will tell their stories to the local press, confirming what the wider Internet news is informing us. Their message will percolate throughout their communities, sweeping aside the false images and impressions of the liberal media: The killings on the mean streets of America are nothing compared with the horrors of Iraq's mass graves.

And the real story from Iraq is being understood in America. It is about justice. It is the messy, but essential work of liberation and transformation.

*applaudes*

[Jason1]

Why is it that a single U.S. casualty in Iraq is major national news?

Because that death could've been prevented if we never went to war in the first place....

[gekko]

And the deaths of thousands of Iraqis, and who knows how many others have been prevented. It's all about trade-offs.

[Jason1]

I still think Until Iraq actually threatens us, we shouldnt have gone to war with them. There's poor, starving people all over the country that the war money could've gone to. (dont know how many times thats been said.)

[gekko]

There are way too many flaws with that argument. Should I even begin to list them?