Rand Simberg takes a look at how the media would have covered the Ardennes Forest 60 years ago. Sadly, it’s not too far off from the reporting coming out of Iraq.
The relentless negativity from the press shows how little anyone understands war these days — at least in the press. Every minor setback is hyped as the next great collapse in Iraq. We saw it with Moqtada al-Sadr’s failed insurgency, Fallujah was supposed to be a mass grave for US troops, and Iraq was supposed to fly apart into civil war. Yet the Iraqi people themselves are far more optimistic about their own situation than the press.
There are times that I wonder if the press wants us to lose this war — if their desire for a “humbled” America hasn’t overridden their common sense. The defeat or premature withdrawl of the coalition would leave 25 million Iraqis to the wolves and create Lebanon writ large — a failed state that serves as a petri dish for terrorism. Sadly, the media’s agenda doesn’t seem to consider or care about the Iraqi people except when they can be used as a political prop.
Thank God for the media! Now that the GOP controls every level of government, you guys are running out of scapegoats in justifications for your disastrous policy decisions. However, blaming an industry with no governing capacity for America’s problems will only take you guys so far. At some point, you’ll have to deal with the unpleasant consequences of your actions and rationalizing Iraq’s coming civil war or our soldiers’ increasingly mutinous behavior on the grounds of “media negativity” isn’t gonna cut it.
I never thought I’d say this, but you guys should really return to the “this is all Clinton’s fault!!!!!” excuse. As little role as Clinton plays in shaping current ruinous policies, he still plays a larger role than Bill Moyers and Peter Jennings.
The press may ignore some good news coming out, but if you think Iraq is going well, you have some serious ideological blinders on. You seem to ignore everything bad on this blog, and so I’m sure the current coverage does not give you much to go on. 🙂 But honestly, much of that is simply the facts on the ground, not a desire to see America lose.
It is human nature to want to be “proved right.” I believe most Democrats and the mainstream news media want the U.S. and democracy to fail in Iraq because that is what they have been predicting ever since the beginning of the war.