Mr. Mayer, you seem willing to be neutral in examining and reporting issues and events, so I consider you a rare exception in my following comments. During my lifetime I’ve witnessed an evolution in journalism. The primary focus changed from information to entertainment. Journalists also took on the task of “raising the consciousness” of their readers, listeners, and viewers. Rather than objective reporting of current events we were provided sequenced, subjective campaigns about hunger, homelessness, unemployment, poverty or other selected travesty. Most journalists arrogantly decided it is not enough to simply fulfill the public’s need for truthful information and allow them to form their own honest opinions. It has become necessary to withhold, promote, edit, and nuance the news to sway public opinion and mold our society according to “higher ideals” than the folks would reach on their own. The power to inform is accompanied by the power to misinform. Power often corrupts. Manipulation of the news from Iraq is just another example of the selective reporting that has damaged the integrity and public image of the profession. Vetting the news requires tremendous effort to identify and filter the hidden agenda of the provider.

You danced around the real reason the press has relegated almost all stories from Iraq to the back pages, Alex. One political party and their willing mouthpieces in the media invested everything to make the battle front in Iraq a failure. Now that it’s on the verge of becoming one of this country’s most remarkable military and diplomatic successes, they’re doing everything they can to hide it.

The Malaki government’s dramatic political gains over the past year, the almost complete routing of Al Qaeda in Iraq, and the near total collapse of the Sadrists in the south is due in no small part to the successful counterinsurgency strategy of Gen Petraeus. A great deal of credit must also go to Pres Bush for having the political courage and good sense to the let the general and the thousands of men and women under his command carry it out. Several prominent Democrats and a shamefully partisan media proclaimed that mission a complete failure before it had a chance to take effect. One presidential candidate even went so far as to publically call Gen Petraeus a liar and the NY Times printed a full page ad that questioned his honor and loyalty.

For major news organizations to suddenly do an about face and report accurately what’s happened in the past year and expect the public to take them seriously would mean they have to repudiate just about everything they’ve printed in the past five years. This would reveal themselves as the biased, psuedo-intellectual frauds that they are. They aren’t about to do that.

The liberal controlled MSM loathes any success by President Bush and the current administration. Iraq is a success story of unprecedented historic proportions. History will show that the US, and President Bush, initiated bold, risky, courageous and bitterly unpopular moves to establish democracy in a part of the world that knew only oppression for generations. Democracy and the free market will continue to flourish in Iraq, in spite of liberals’ constant attempt to sabotage President Bush’s amazing record of success.
Liberals lie and disregard stark truth because they choose to refuse to believe in any absolute truth. Absolute truth will hold them accountable. Choosing to believe a lie rather than the truth, they have become fools.
The absolute truth is that democracy and the free market works. Not socialism. Liberals are trying to create Orwell’s “1984” and hide the truth from the people. Their omission of reporting success is alarming, even outrageous.
Liberals: take warning: your day of reckoning is nigh!

If people take the time to read further down in the New York Times article this is what they will see:
“It’s terrible,” Ms. Logan said in the telephone interview. She called it a financial decision. “We can’t afford to maintain operations in Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time,” she said. “It’s so expensive and the security risks are so great that it’s prohibitive.”

Mr. Friedman said coverage of Iraq is enormously expensive, mostly due to the security risks. He said meetings with other television networks about sharing the costs of coverage have faltered for logistical reasons.

Kind of changes the arguement, doesn’t it?

“I’d be willing to bet that the correlation between the drop in violence, insurgent attacks, and U.S. casualties in Iraq and a drop in news coverage is by no means coincidental.”

Wow, just wow. You might want to wait until you spend a couple years in the real world before you start making any bets. Here’ a roundup of the violence in Iraq *from a single day*: http://www.juancole.com/2008/06/councilman-kills-2-gis-mortar-fire.html

From that link (which cites info from McClatchy, here’s just a tiny sample:

“A city council member in Mada’in (Salman Pak) abruptly opened fire on Americans who had been in a meeting with him. He killed 2 US troops and wounded 4 other Americans.”

“Guerrillas in Udaim, about an hour north of Baquba, guerrillas bombarded an Awakening Council unit with mortar fire, killing 10 and wounding 24 of them.”

“Gunmen opened fire on a checkpoint manned by Iraqi Police in New Mosul, south Mosul killing one policeman and one civilian female, severely injuring two civilians.”

Anyone who bothers to pay attention would know that most days are similar. Juancole.com is a good source of the news that the mainstream media now thinks is not worth reporting. Please do some research before your next post.

There is a lot of news both good and bad not being reported in Iraq. The media has lost its objectivity. The network news operations are a joke and cable is full of spinmeisters on all sides.

You forgot to mention that the “Harvard-educated” blogger Richard Fernandez, whom you agree with, is actually hosted by Pajamas Media, a right-wing blog founded by the same guy who runs Little Green Footballs. That is, the same guys who have been telling us “we’re winning!” for the past five years. So much for an objective analysis.

Wow, the more I look into this post the more I see how full of giant, gaping holes it is. The reason that you don’t see headlines like “Roadside Bomb attacks decrease by 90%” is because its not true! The methodology of that article was to compare U.S. troop deaths in May ‘08 to those in May ‘07. The problem(s)? (1) May ‘08 is clearly an outlier; April ‘08 had twice as many U.S. deaths than May and June ‘08 already has more. And May ‘07 had more deaths than all the months around it. (2) The article equates “attacks” on Americans with “fatalities”. There might still be the same number of attacks with less fatalities, which hardly would be a sign of Iraq being more stable. (3) By focusing exclusively on American forces, it ignores the fact that roadside bombs often target Iraqi security forces. (see the above link to the Juan Cole piece). Considering that American forces have been traveling on Iraqi roads less since the surge began, this is a pretty significant omission.

Adam S. You may be missing the point. I was against a ground war in Iraq before it began and agreed with Colin Powell’s warning “if you break it, you own it.” The sectarian violence in the Middle East goes back centuries, and does not lend itself to Western style democracy. Once there were boots on the ground, however, I became committed to victory rather than invested in defeat to validate my opinion. Despite the valor and supreme efforts of the troops, the strategic conduct of the war has been terrible from the beginning. If a surge worked in 2007, why didn’t the surge happen at the outset? The point is, the media should provide the American people with complete, unbiased, unfiltered information and allow us to do our own analysis and form our opinions as you have done. It is commendable that you do the additional research needed to support your opinion. But, if you don’t recognize the bias and selectivity in the mainstream media coverage on Iraq you may be the one needing a few more years in the “real” world.

Adam S:

With all due respect, the facts completely contradict your assertion that violence in Iraq is “as bad as ever.” Your “analysis” falls short on several levels:

1) May 2008 was not an “outlier” in terms of casualties. In April, 50 Americans were killed, compared to 105 in April 2007. In March, 40 Americans were killed, compared to 80 in March 2007. In February, 30 Americans were killed, compared to 80 in February 2007. I could go on. Oh, and as for June 2008, we’re currently at 22 (compared to 19 in May). June 2007 saw 100 U.S. troops killed. (p.s. — I’m getting these numbers from the Post-Dispatch graphic tracking U.S. military deaths by month, as found in today’s print edition, page A4.)

In fact, you’re wrong about the attacks maintaining the same frequency, too. If you look at the month-by-month totals since the surge began to take effect in mid-2007, you’ll see that there has been a steady and dramatic decline in not only U.S. casualties, but a) roadside bomb/IED attacks; b) attacks on Iraqi infrastructure and government facilities; and c) insurgent mortar and rocket attacks. A nice graph displaying all the above information can be seen here:

http://iraqstatusreport.com//images/stories/image001.jpg

And I’m not alone in noticing this, by the way. Many people who have been consistently critical of the war have been acknowledging the progress of the surge.

–From a Washington Post editorial two weeks ago:

“While Washington’s attention has been fixed elsewhere, military analysts have watched with astonishment as the Iraqi government and army have gained control for the first time of the port city of Basra and the sprawling Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, routing the Shiite militias that have ruled them for years and sending key militants scurrying to Iran. At the same time, Iraqi and U.S. forces have pushed forward with a long-promised offensive in Mosul, the last urban refuge of al-Qaeda. So many of its leaders have now been captured or killed that U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, renowned for his cautious assessments, said that the terrorists have “never been closer to defeat than they are now.”

…Iraq passed a turning point last fall when the U.S. counterinsurgency campaign launched in early 2007 produced a dramatic drop in violence and quelled the incipient sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites. Now, another tipping point may be near, one that sees the Iraqi government and army restoring order in almost all of the country, dispersing both rival militias and the Iranian-trained “special groups” that have used them as cover to wage war against Americans.”

–Even the French admit the progress that has taken place in Iraq:

“BAGHDAD (AFP) — French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Sunday that the security situation in Iraq was improving and reaffirmed France’s willingness to help rebuild the war-ravaged country.

“I have the feeling that things are better. Statistics show a drop in security incidents,” Kouchner told AFP after a working lunch with his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari on the last day of his two-day visit to Iraq.

There is “an improvement in the situation in Iraq,” he said.

Kouchner also voiced satisfaction at efforts by the Iraqis to take charge of their own country, saying they were making “progress.”

–Michael O’Hanlon, Brookings Institution fellow who opposed the war and has been a vocal critic of the Bush administration:

“O’Hanlon explained that the last three months has been the “spring of the blossoming of Iraqi security forces” and Iraq is on an “impressive trajectory” although we have not yet “reached a stable end point.” He stressed that the 80% reduction in civilian violence was much better than he thought possible. He went through a detailed review of Basra, conceding that Maliki’s actions took the Americans by surprise and that in the first week things went poorly. However, by the second week two brigades were deployed from Al Anbar (a testimony to massive improvements in Iraq security force logistics) and that the mission was successful, allowing the Iraqi army and national police force to now control the streets of Basra.

He credits the military success with allowing for a “fundamental rearrangement” of Iraqi politics, observing that Maliki is now “flying high” with new found respect from Sunnis. The big picture take away, he says, it that having achieved remarkable success with major issues we now can begin to address “second and third order problems” such as insuring that military forces “stay in their lane” and do not subvert civilian leadership.”

–Andrew Sullivan, a well-known liberal blogger and die-hard Obama supporter, offered his candidate this advice:

“The trap Obama must not be caught in is one of excessive pessimism. Conditions now favor expeditious withdrawal more than they did only a few months ago. But the manner of withdrawal, its pace, and its concomitant diplomacy now require a different cast, and may require an even different one next February and March. None of this means that this war was not a mistake; it does suggest it need not in the medium term be a catastrophe. Petraeus deserves the lion’s share of the credit; luck and time and the self-defeating nihilism of the Jihadists have helped. But Bush and McCain equally merit points for pursuing the surge, even though the metrics pointed to failure. Obama needs to capitalize on these gains, not dismiss them.”

*****

The reduction in violence in Iraq is undisputed. Are attacks at “zero per day?” Of course not, but to imply that if they aren’t, then the U.S. is making no progress in Iraq and it’s a total failure is simply ludicrous. Such a conclusion requires willful blindness of the evidence and a deliberate refusal to allow changing facts on the ground to influence one’s pre-conceived conclusions about the war.

Bb,

You speak vaguely enough that I’m not sure whether I agree with you or not. I’d definitely appreciate it if you provided any specific examples of what you’re talking about. If you are claiming that the media focuses too much on entertainment and often allows this to bias coverage, I completely agree. If you are claiming there is a liberal bias in the analysis of how the war is going, then I wonder what planet you’ve been living on the past six years. Scott McClellen just came out with a book about how complicit the media was in the run up the war. Prior to that, a story broke about how all of the “military experts” employed by major media outlets were wined and dined by the Pentagon and provided special access in exchange for relating positive spins on Iraq. The blogger Atrios coined the term “FU” or “Friedman Unit” to refer to all of the times that pundits claimed that some major change just happened in Iraq and that the next 6 months would be the defining moment. Your claim that everything has gotten better sine 2007 is just another example of us being told about success in Iraq, like we have for the past five years. The surge has reduced American casualties, which is great, but it has not done anything to secure the long-term security of the Iraqi people.

Alex,

Actually, I never said that casualties haven’t decreased, so you are arguing against a straw man. I said that the claim that “attacks are down 90%” is false, which it is for the reasons I provided. May ‘08 was an outlier in respect to this claim. It’s true that violence against Americans is less in April ‘08 compared to April ‘08, but it is nothing near a 90 % reduction. In other words, USA today (and you) cherry-picked May in order to get the ridiculous 90% number. Ignoring the obvious spin of such a claim is “willful blindness.”

I take it, however, that your larger point is that there has been a general reduction in violence. I agree with that claim, but in terms of the war’s larger goals this is largely besides the point. We have not made serious progress in providing a stable country for Iraqis. The primary reason for the drop in violence has been al Sadr’s decision to temporarily ask his militia not to attack as he regroups; this is hardly security. Furthermore, a brief survey of the violence in Iraq shows that it is anything but a “normal country,” which you would also know if you had listened to the entirety of Logan’s interview.

To wit,

Monday: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/212/story/41923.html
Sunday: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/212/story/41843.html
Saturday: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/212/story/41810.html

and on. and on. and on. Your adopting of the right wing talking point that “everything is different now” is just another example of what we’ve been hearing for the past 5 and 1/2 years.

And BTW, O’Hanlon is certainly not an anti-war Bush critic: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/05/21/o_hanlon/ .

Adam S,

You seem pretty determined to stick to your conclusion that Iraq is a failure and no progress is being made, so I won’t waste my time or yours trying to convince you otherwise.

But you did say one thing that I feel compelled to respond to: the claim that despite a reduction in sectarian violence, insurgent attacks, and U.S. casualties (Which apparently you now acknowledge), that all that progress is meaningless because “in terms of the war’s larger goals,” the U.S. has “not made serious progress in providing a stable country for Iraqis.”

Now, I’m really not sure how you can seriously argue that a dramatic reduction in sectarian violence, insurgent attacks, and bloodshed is “beside the point” in terms of making “serious progress in providing a stable country for Iraqis,” but I’ll let that slide, since I take it you’re referring only to “political” progress as the preferred metric for such “serious progress.”

Since January, the Iraqi parliament has passed four major pieces of legislation: an amnesty law, a provincial powers law, de-Ba’athification reform, and a $50 billion budget. They are currently debating a provincial elections law that would ban any political parties with militias from participating in the provincial elections this fall. By all accounts, the Iraqi Security Forces have made huge improvements — though they still have plenty of improving to do — in terms of operational efficiency, reliability, and combat performance in the past year.

All of those accomplishments, by the way, were among the 18 “benchmarks” set last year.

Despite the significant challenges that remain (such as passing the hydrocarbon revenue-sharing law), I’d say that’s pretty considerable progress towards “providing a stable country for Iraqis.” But hey, believe what you want.

Alex,

It’s beside the point because a reduction in violence due entirely to Muqtada al-Sadr’s temporary declared cease-fire does not constitute stability. And having car bombings in several major cities every single day as well as millions of refugees forced out of their homes hardly can be called a return to normalcy. The fact that Iraq is a hellhole that is arguably slightly better than the hellhole it was last year does not suggest that we are marching towards victory, no matter how much you clap your hands and want to believe.

As for the benchmarks, one might think that (1) disarming militias, and (2) ensuring political groups do not undermine security forces are the ones that show that serious progress has been made on the security front. Unless those are achieved all of the other benchmarks are merely teetering on a precipice.

Oh, and here’s another day in Victoryland: http://www.juancole.com/2008/06/5-us-troops-killed-90-wounded-in-mosul.html After reading this, people can decide for themselves whether they agree with Alex’s thesis that the lack of media coverage in Iraq is because of its amazing return to normalcy.

Adam S… I’ve been living on the same planet you have for the last six years. The is no ambiguity in my statements. I’m not trying to change your mindset. As Alex said, believe what you want. In my opinion there is absolutely an unethical liberal bias in the delivery of hard news about Iraq and all other aspects of current events and social issues. In today’s journalism hard news reportage is too often filtered through editorial position. You are welcome to disagree based on your own perceptions and interpretations of the facts. I’m simply expressing my views, which are independent and not influenced by the disgraceful partisan propaganda of either national party.

Maybe this newspaper would be interested in putting a map of the murders in Bagdad so we could compare it with the murder map of St. Louis.

Bb,

With over 2 million people displaced and daily attacks, electricity problems, sewage problems, etc. etc. etc., Iraq is clearly a horrible place to live. What do you want; news reports on people opening up lemonade stands or painting the walls of schools that got mortared two weeks earlier? We actually had plenty of those earlier. Any news story pretending that Iraq is not a terrible place to live for the vast majority of its residents is straight-up disingenuous, and the reason there aren’t more of those stories is because the American people can see through them now after hearing them for the past five years. Although, now that you mention it, I surely won’t be surprised if before the next election the right-wing launches a “waaah, we’re secretly winning in Iraq and nobody reports it” campaign and the mainstream media dutifully goes along with it.

Hey Big John (John Cornyn is that you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vcB7uCqdFk ?),

Here’s what happened in Iraq today:

Guerrillas deployed a roadside bomb to kill 3 American soldiers and an interpreter in northern Iraq on Tuesday.

In Mosul, guerrillas set off a massive bomb outside a coffee shop, wounding at least 90 persons. McClatchy is reporting 2 deaths, but said the total would rise.

In Baghdad, a meeting of a local district council was bombed, killing 11 persons and wounding 11. An election was just about to be held for the chairman of the local admisory council in Sadr City. Among the dead were two US soldiers and two USG employees, one of them a PRT officer for Sadr City, Steven L. Farley. Two Defense Department civilians, one an American, were also killed. A US soldier and 10 Iraqis were wounded.

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that families in the destitute al-Ansar quarter of Najaf are complaining about the raw sewage that comes into their district, and saying they believe it is implicated in the recent deaths of 25 persons of cancer in the one square kilometer neighborhood.

MOSUL - Gunmen kidnapped four university students from their halls of residence in western Mosul, north of Baghdad, police said. They later released two of them.

BALAD - Two members of a U.S.-backed Iraqi neighbourhood patrol were killed and four others were wounded when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle on the outskirts of Balad town, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

Sure sounds like St. Louis to me!

When violence — be it a war or gang shootings — becomes “routine” there is always a tendency to move it to a “secondary” status. This particular war has now been going on for a while. With the many different media being available, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain an effective presence in every case.

I generally listen to NPR (Morning Edition and All Things Considered, and the World), then I refer to the newspaper (I buy the PD off the newsrack), then I check the various internet sources. Not all of them cover the same stories due to time and space constraints. However, I have yet to have aday go by wherein there was not a story about Iraq in at least one of these sources.

If you want to broaden your view and sources of information try going to:
al-Jazeera, The Dawn (Pakistan newspaper web site), haaretz (Israeli news paper) and the China Daily (PRC news web site). The surprising thing is that many of these share the same international news sources.

My only hope is that the Olympics give me the needed respite from all of the silliness surrounding Iraq and the coming campaign.

Though Alex changed the subject to a discussion of “are we winning in Iraq” and offered the usual right wing talking points for that claim, the fact remains that the basic argument of this post has been decisively refuted. Alex was arguing, in particular, that *the reason* that media coverage has declined is because of a drop in violence. This is clearly false, as all of the links I have provided have shown that every single day in Iraq has numerous stories of extreme violence that do not get widespread coverage in the mainstream media. A council member killing 3 American soldiers? Bombs that kill and injure scores of people? People having to live in sewage? All of these would make perfectly good stories about how screwed up Iraq is, yet none of them get widespread coverage. Therefore, the idea that the recent lack of media coverage of Iraq can be explained by a “msm likes negative stories on Iraq and doesn’t like positive stories” meme is pretty clearly wrong, despite whatever other subjects Alex would prefer to discuss.