Assume for a moment you were writing an article about how the United States had fewer troop mortalities in Iraq this July than in the last eight months. Would you do your best to present this as good news?
Well, the Associated Press' Sinan Salaheddin either woke up on the wrong side of the bed Tuesday morning, or didn't fully comprehend that when it comes to military casualties, on your team less is better.
Maybe Salaheddin thinks AP stands for "absurdly pessimistic," as despite the uplifting headline "U.S. Toll in Iraq Lowest in 8 Months," after mentioning it again in the opening paragraph, the article quickly rained on any optimism the reader might have been briefly feeling (emphasis added throughout):
President Bush's nominee to head the Joint Chiefs of Staff, meanwhile, acknowledged that slow progress in Iraq is hurting America's credibility and emboldening Iran's regional ambitions.
While steady progress has been made on the military front, Iraq's political factions have made only limited headway in achieving reconciliation, said Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, who has been nominated to replace U.S. Gen. Peter Pace as the nation's top military officer.
In fact, in an article that, from the title, one would think would be about the declining death toll, and how things from a military standpoint might be improving in Iraq, the piece devoted seven of the first nine paragraphs, and more than 50 percent of the total print space, on political problems in the embattled nation.
And, when Salaheddin finally elaborated on the reduced death toll in July, it was curiously pessimistic:
Also Monday, a U.S. Marine was killed while conducting combat operations in the vast Anbar province west of Baghdad, the military said.
The attack raised to at least 75 the number of U.S. service members who have died in Iraq in July, the lowest number since November 2006, when at least 70 U.S. deaths were reported. The monthly toll topped 100 in April, May and June.
In all, at least 3,652 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians.
The No. 2 commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, expressed cautious optimism about the downturn last week. He said casualties had increased as U.S. forces expanded operations into militant strongholds as part of a five-month-old security crackdown aimed at clamping off violence in Baghdad, but were going down as Americans gained control of the areas.
"It's an initial positive sign, but I would argue we need a bit more time to make an assessment whether it's a true trend," he said.
Hmmm. So, this was the lowest death toll since November, and since before the surge began. You couldn't find someone to quote who thought this was really good news, Sinan? Or that it was proof that the surge was working?
Oh. That's right. The surge wasn't even addressed in this piece. Instead, it was referred to as a "five-month-old security crackdown."
And, of course, Salaheddin nicely avoided any reference to President Bush having orchestrated this "five-month-old security crackdown" against the wishes of the left and their media minions.
I guess it's verboten at the AP to connect the president with good news in Iraq regardless of how much your article downplays it.
What a disgrace.
Of course, it will be interesting to see how the broadcast networks report this tonight, and how they rain on it as well.
Stay tuned.
—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters.
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In the Spring.....
July 31, 2007 - 11:07 ET by Prester John.........IEDs were killing and maiming our guys every day. Now you hardly hear about them.
An insidious Pentagon plot to hide the human cost of the war or an indication that the tide is finally turning?
While steady progress has
July 31, 2007 - 11:23 ET by dscottWhile steady progress has been made on the military front, Iraq's political factions have made only limited headway in achieving reconciliation,
I find it interesting that the libs point the finger at Iraq's Parliment as a failure for not coming up with certain legislation as solutions the Dems demanded called Benchmarks, and whine when they go on recess, while the Dems 1. can't even cut off the funds to the Iraq theater, 2. can't pass universal health care, 3. Can't recind the Bush tax cuts, 4. Can't deliver the cleanest Congress in history, etc., etc., etc. The only thing the Dems have managed to do is pass a minimum wage hike tacted onto the Iraq military supplemental bill. In other words, they couldn't even pass the minimum wage hike on it's own merits (there were none btw). This Friday they (Congress) go on recess themselves until September 3rd. They spent their entire time investigating the Bush Admin, and haven't even passed one appropriation bill due October 1st. Talk about the most ineffective, incompetent Congress in the history of the Republic! And they have the nerve to criticize the Iraqi Parliment???????
On second thought, I'm glad they are incompetent, at least no legislation is better than the meddling and tax increases they are wont to do.
“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane"
Liberals are going after
July 31, 2007 - 11:46 ET by futbolisgreat1Liberals are going after Bush and his administration for "allowing" the Iraqi Parliment to go on vacation for a month. Isn't amazing how it is the left that claims that the Iraqi government is the puppet of the USA, yet it is the left that wants to dictate to the Iraqi government how to run their affairs.
but if we follow the Liberal logic that the Iraqi Parliment shouldn't go on vacation while our brave men and women are dying in Iraq, then our Democratic led Congress shouldn't go on vacation either, right? Our Congress is about to go on an August break, HOW DARE THEY?! right? I mean if we use the Liberal logic.
Shouldn't the Democrats in Congress forget about their vacations and worry more about our brave men and women in uniform and stop the war in Iraq before they ever again go on a break?
Let us not forget that all Democratic politicians in DC and many Republicans in DC are demagogues, charlatans and hypocrites.
Hiya Fut - good to see ya. More hypocrisy from the Left.
July 31, 2007 - 11:55 ET by acaiguanaThe Left has always demanded the US demand that the Iraq government (that puppet) demand of its people whatever behavior is in faddish vogue and irrational to the Iraqi people.
An Iraq Constitution that actually doesn't agree with the Left?
We are DOOMED I tell ya, Doooomed.
ACA
...
Quoted from: 'Acaiguana Notes from the Bomb Shelter' (soon to be a movie at theaters near you)
Yeap, Liberals who claim
July 31, 2007 - 12:25 ET by futbolisgreat1Yeap, Liberals who claim that the Iraqi government is the puppet of the Bush administration are demanding the Iraqi government do the will of the Democratic politicians of the United States.
Liberal/Democratic hypocrisy no longer surprises me.
Try to find this article at
July 31, 2007 - 11:36 ET by futbolisgreat1Try to find this article at any left wing blog or website. It is sad that the left in America rejoices when our brave men and women are dying in Iraq, but they can't celebrate an article like this one. Every month, for the past few years, the left wing blogs have always reported the amount of deaths in Iraq. They have rejoiced in it. At the end of every month, if you went to a left wing blog they had the exact number of soldiers and iraqis dying and obviously they showed it as a point of how Bush was failing. Now this story comes out and you can't find it in left wing blogs. Talk about feeding propaganda to the left wing kooks of America.
Granted the AP writer made sure to give the goodnews a negative spin, but it is still given how the media has covered this war, declaring at a quagmire on the Friday of the first week that we went into Iraq, this is very good news.
Also, has anyone else noticed how the left has gone after the two New York Times repoters that dare say that the surge is working? The left now claims that these two have been bought by the White House, etc, etc, etc.
Amazing how so many on the left want and actually need Iraq to fail in order for them to be back in power.
We all know that success in Iraq means that Democratic politicians will look like idiots come the 2008 elections.
Noel, I notice the Left can be slapped across the chops and...
July 31, 2007 - 11:49 ET by acaiguanapretend the slap never happened.
The Democrat Party was claiming victory in 2006 because of the War in Iraq. Bush immediately announces he's going to increase rather than decrease troop levels.
"Ouch" - that's gotta hurt.
Then when Bush's plan is working they cannot bring themselves to even grudgingly admit the slightest taint of defeat in their defeatism.
The Democrats are so invested in the US losing this war that I believe some of their Party are seeing total disaster in the next election. The biggest barrier to a Republican sweep would be the corruption issues.
In order for the Republicans to overcome the broad brush of corruption and over spending they need to purge their Party of some of the worse offenders and go after Pelosi, Feinstein, Murtha and the rest of the ilk with a vengence.
Never happen?
Well, if they want to win it will happen.
As long as they allow the Democrats to define the substance of the news cycle with Alberto Gonzales as the villian (some multi-cultural love there?) and junk like John Edwards screaming about that which he has no clue there will have to be a larger battle.
Return to Fiscal Conservative roots, guys.
ACA
...
Quoted from: 'Acaiguana Notes from the Bomb Shelter' (soon to be a movie at theaters near you)
Uhh.... My memory of that
July 31, 2007 - 13:40 ET by usinkoreaUhh....
My memory of that time before the election and subsequent change in policy to the surge was that ----
----the dem leadership in Congress --- supported wholeheartedly by the media ----- was parading around a bunch of former generals and any currently serving officer to denounce Donald Rumsfeld and Bush for not having enough troops in Iraq to do the job....
I am pretty sure the Dem leadership and MSM was highly pro-surge ------
----before it happened...............
And since it did happen, both hand and glove have been fighting just as hard for timetables and beginning the withdrawal ------ as they did for the troop surge --- when Rumsfeld and the administration were against it.....
With a name like Sinan Salaheddin
July 31, 2007 - 11:51 ET by Lame CherryWhat could one expect with a name like Salaheddin as this individual is not western and their entire upbringing was in the glorious Xerxes, Raj and Saladin, the tyrants who butchered westerners.
When a child learns such things and then finds out Europeans vanquished their empires proving them futile and then the world has to be saved by America which is completely different from them from religion to economics.....it just rubs it in their faces again.
Salaheddin is the worst form of bigot and racist. Salaheddin also does not look at living US soldiers as a good thing as Salaheddin wants them all murdered. That is what would give a glowing account.
*HIC IACET ARTORIVS REX QVONDAM REXQVE FVTVRVS
Its amazing how many people
July 31, 2007 - 12:19 ET by DontTreadOnMeIts amazing how many people think this is a terrible war and the costs are way too great. God Forbid they ever see what a real war looks like, Iraq is merely a conflict.
Im surprised, given the attitude most Americans have when losing less than 4000 troops in 4 years, that China hasnt decided to take agressive action against Taiwan daring us to do anything. We have got to be looking a hell of a lot weaker than we ever have. Perhaps Bush and his unpredictable nature in foreign policy is keeping them at bay.
For now. Beware 2008.
Exactly [][][][][][][]hand
July 31, 2007 - 13:42 ET by usinkoreaExactly
[][][][][][][]hands clapping[][][][][][][][]
China knows....
July 31, 2007 - 15:26 ET by JayTeeChina knows that American News is Bullshitsky...it's propaghanda...It's baloney, and China knows the US military is strong, and China is Scared of Smart Bombs, and an Army that Performs at the very low combat fatality of the US Military....It's so good it's Scary.
What good is a Free Press, if it is a False Press ? David Foote GoE
Don't knock Odierno --
July 31, 2007 - 12:21 ET by dervishI don't think the general is being overly pessimistic, he's playing smart with reporters. If he comes out with a glowing assessment of how well the surge is working, then the bad guys reorganize and drive the casualty rate back up for a while, he's going to have to go before Congress and explain how that doesn't mean that the mission has failed.
We, on the other hand, have no such reason to hold out, so I say hoo-ah. And I would point out that the casualties are lower even with increased operations against the enemy, so it's doubly better.
the one fact that the MSM doesn't want average americans knowing
July 31, 2007 - 12:59 ET by pmohbuck... more american service men and women die from non-hostile action every year than from combat in iraq. plain and simple, the media has such a disdain for the military that it acknowledges only dead soldiers/marines as they relate to an anti-war position ... any other form of death for a military man/woman appears to be "insignificant" to the point in which they aren't even worth acknowledging ... ever.
If we get a handle on the
July 31, 2007 - 13:34 ET by usinkoreaIf we get a handle on the terroristic bombings and so on, is what we are left with not something that might approach a comparison with South Korea?
There wasn't a formative "political reconciliation" in Korea until roughly 1993.....(Pres. Bush would have been on the air craft carrier saying the main war days were over in Korea in 1953)......1953 to 1993 is a long time...
During that time, a fair number of South Koreans died at the hands of authoritarian governments and armed clashes and even terroristic strikes. There was a fairly bloodless coup in 1960, another strongman (Park Chung Hee) taking over in 1963, unrest in the late 1960s, again in the early 1970s (when the government became even more autoritarian), that strongman was assassinated during political turmoil in the late 1970s, there was violent upheaval after that and a massacre in Kwangju 1980, and there was massive unrest in the mid to late 1980s....
South Korea after the ceasefire that ended the Korean War was not like the semi-war zone we see in Iraq today. It was also not an ethnically divided society. But, it was highly ideologically divided, and it did go through 40 years of discord that did claim a fair number of lives...
During that time, some in the US called for us to pull out (for a variety of reasons).
I know people ridiculed Pres. Bush for making a comparison between Korea and Iraq, but there are points worth considering....
Failure at "nation building" in South Korea was predicted as late as the 1980s.......We have also constantly stood nervously watching the gang up in North Korea....(who sent operatives south to faciliate much of the unrest (sometimes violent) that frequently shook South Korea).......
When people base their opinions on Iraq on how long it has taken to get that nation and society on its feet ---- what were they expecting beforehand?
If you were against the war from the beginning, fine. If you expected a micro-wave TV dinner conflict to be over by the time the summer reruns came to an end that first year.....what nation building exercise in history conditioned you for that expectation????
If you were against the war
July 31, 2007 - 14:38 ET by dscottIf you were against the war from the beginning, fine. If you expected a micro-wave TV dinner conflict to be over by the time the summer reruns came to an end that first year.....what nation building exercise in history conditioned you for that expectation????
The one they learned from public school that taught everything was hunky dory after the Revolution was over in 1781 with Cornwallis' surrender at the battle of Yorktown . As soon as George Washington became president (1789), everyone sung Kumbaya until the war of 1812 when those Brits tried to take the colonies back. That's American History in a nutshell from the public schools, little discussion of the Whiskey Rebellion (1790) 9 years after the Revolution and all the other issues such as what to do with those pesky Tories who sided with the Crown, the debates over the Constitution to it's ratification in 1787 (you know the Federalists and Anti-Federalists) etc... Nope, all the issues were settled, there were no disputes of consequence, the debate was over, there was consensus...
“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane"
No News is GOOD news
July 31, 2007 - 15:04 ET by JayTeeWhen ALL the News coming from Iraq is GOOD...there will be a shut down of MSM networks..
Those Guys can't function without an Audience, and they have lost the American Audience.....little 'ole ladies and housewives are the only ones watching nowadays. Everyone else in American is online or (as the Ratings show) watching FOX.
We know MSM lies and has an Agenda....the jigs up...Adios Amigos...MSM journalism killed itself, and we're watching the slow death happen.
AND I might add.......The American Public WILL NOTICE the disappearance of the constant IED, Suicide attacks....when it stops...we will notice the absence as the Vacuum forms around (in) the Talking heads.
What good is a Free Press, if it is a False Press ? David Foote GoE