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.