The Real News…
I stumbled upon Joe Scarborough’s show on MSNBC tonight, which I’ve never watched before, but I was intrigued by what he was talking about tonight. He called the segment the “Real News out of Iraq”, and in it, he shamed the mainstream news media for their blatant negative spin on their news coverage of the Iraq situation. You can read the article in full here, but for those who are curious and/or time-strapped, I’ll highlight a few items here:
- Shiites and Kurds make up roughly 80% of Iraq’s population, and the overwhelming majority of these support the elections slated for the end of January.
- Sunnis (Saddam Hussein’s clan) make up the remainder of Iraq’s population, and many of them support the elections.
- Many of the most powerful Shiite Muslim leaders are telling their people that their participation in the elections next month is a religious duty right up there with fasting.
- An overwhelming majority of the U.S. armed forces in Iraq not only believe that the war is just, but they strongly support both the President’s handling of it as well as Secretary Rumsfeld’s leadership.
It’s really a shame that the media chooses to neglect these facts. I guess it’s an indicator of the human condition, huh? The media moguls know very well our obsession with gore, violence, despair, and injustice, and they exploit said obsession to pad their own pockets. I’m not saying that they need not cover events like car bombs, military failures, etc. I’m just saying that they ought to listen to their hearts for once and tell the real story – not just the negative side.
Oh – and as a side note, as most of you know, a tape surfaced today supposed recorded by Osama, in which he names al-Zarqawi as his top deputy in Iraq. Yes, I know this tape hasn’t been verified 100% yet, but it certainly sheds a little light onto the Iraq-Al-Qaeda link.
It’s hard to call the negative news “spin” when Iraq cannot keep a standing army. Its fledgling police force is falling apart, as witnessed in Mosul (where most of the 5000 militia units deserted) or Faluja (where up to 1/3 of the forces defected and fought for the insurgency).
As for the article you linked to, favorable public opinion isn’t good news, stability is good news. If the media doesn’t have attacks that leave many innocents dead every day to report on, then that is good news. I’ll start worrying about media bias when they are breathlessly reporting on attacks in the middle of nowhere that wounded a couple of people (as opposed to massive car bombs exploding at the walls of the Green Zone that kill dozens).
In any event, the Sunnis need representation as much (if not more) than the Kurds and Shia. I’m not sure what the significance of “just 20%” means, but I’d think that 100% of the Iraqi people need a voice. And the current administration is contemplating rigging the vote to get more Sunnis into the government (since the last major Sunni party withdrew from the elections). That’s not democracy, that’s election tampering.
You missed the point of my post. I’m not against the media covering the negative aspects of the war. Certainly they need to be covered as much as anything. I’m only asking that the media consider covering just a meager few of the positive things that are going on as well.
Methinks stability cometh not without favorable public opinion.
Wouldn’t giving ths Sunnis more representation than they are due be election tampering? Check your words next time, please, Mr. Colvin.
I believe Mr. Colvin was suggesting that the need to have a voice representing the Sunni people is of a greater necessity due to previous suppression; I didn’t read into his comments that this group should be given more votes or greater governmental representation than their due… unlike the views of the US administration regarding this matter.
I guess I can see that POV.
Thanks jed, that’s what I meant. When you say ‘previous supression’, I imagine you mean shia suppression under saddam. Of prime concern is that the shia don’t turn around and do to the sunnis what saddam did to the shia.
Also, keeping the Kurds happy is important as well. There have been reports of an independence movement gaining steam, if they decide to secede then the whole country will probably go up in flames. Kirkuk could turn into a new Jerusalem, with Sunnis and Kurds fighting for the city they both think is “theirs”.