Are the media under-reporting the good that's happening in Iraq?

[Bullshot]

Today, I talked with a cousin, whose grandson is stationed about 60 miles from Baghdad. She was complaining that the media are not giving the real picture of what's happening in Iraq, based on what her grandson is saying. She says her grandson, a U.S. Marine, has taken part in a successful rebuilding of the Iraqi infrastructure, including restoring electricity, building schools and seeing local people running the infrastructure. She said things in this region were considerably worse under Saddam.

Is this an isolated incident? Or, is she correct in saying that the media are only dwelling on the negatives coming from Iraq?

[alcuno]

1. I hate to be so cold but, who cares?

Seriously. If you go back to a year before the invasion, you would be hard-pressed to find any Americans concerning themselves with the plight of the Iraqis. We've heard this jibberish before. The media needs to report the good news in Iraq, blah, blah, blah.

Americans could not care less about the plight of the Iraqis and the majority were opposed to the 87 billion dollar appropriation when it was being discussed last year.

The US military is a fighting force and should not be used to rebuild a sovereign nation. I'd love to have seen a poll a year before the invasion asking people if the US military should be asked to rebuild schools and infrastructure in Iraq while under fire. Of course, because Bush did it, now it's a FABULOUS idea. Please....

[LibraLabSoldier]

2. I have heard about the good we are doing there.....

But that runs counter to what the media wants to show....

[alcuno]

7. The American military is trying to "put lipstick on a pig."

They should not have to clean up our government's disasterous foreign policy; their job is to defend the United States of America. Period.

Of course they are doing good. Americans are generous people, but to blame the media for not reporting it? I'll repeat. The American people don't care. Much of the military was sent into Iraq under false pretenses and believed that the people would be grateful and that the American people would thank them for saving them from Saddam. It didn't work out that way. That's not the fault of the media.

[LibraLabSoldier]

9. So the media is blaming most of the problems of the

BUsh government on the military. We do what we can with what we have.......And we are making life better for Iraqis. History will show that Bush was a chimp with an agenda, but the US military succeeded in helping rebuild Iraq. And as far as the military not being used for nation building...what about Japan and Germany after WWII?

[alcuno]

14. The media is barely blaming anyone at all, much less the military.

I'm not sure where you are coming up with the idea that they are placing blame with the military, although it certainly applies to civilians in the DoD. As for what history will show, the jury is still out. There seems to be general agreement that Iraq is currently a mess; what on earth was the CPA doing for an entire year?

Although I was not around, Germany and Japan surrendered after WWII after a long, protracted, and justifiable war. There was agreement on the part of the Allies to rebuild. The US military received its acclaim for the winning of the war, not for any assistance given in the rebuilding process; we didn't invade Germany in order to rebuild it. Our veterans, my uncles, do not take their pride from what came after the war but for their victory.

[tabasco]

23. In WWII ...

we were FORCED to fight a war for a just cause no less important than defending Western civilization as we know it.
In Iraq, we are waging an aggressive war and attempting to occupy the country and install a puppet government. Comparisons to WWII and post-WWII are ridiculous.

[Nordic]

21. exactly. how does this involve defending the United States?

Great. Some of our guys are imitating the Peace Corps.

How sweet.

You can see this soldiers' family is real happy about it:

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

35. The media doesn't

show squat so what's the difference? Besides, do we have to have military people killed to accomplish this? Why don't we help north Korea?

[Dangerman]

3. Well...

I just finishing watched "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch War on Journalism" and there was a section on "Happy Iraq" spinning on the successful rebuilding on Iraq.

I think those assholes at the media (ESPECIALLY FOX NEWS) wants to brainwashed their viewers that life in Iraq is better now than a few years back.

IMHO, Iraq is far WORSE than it WAS under Saddam.

Our troops are slaughtered, innocent Iraqis are murdered, all hell will break loose to the breaking point, and all those Bush-loving dickheads saying that Iraq is "worse under Saddam"?

Tell that cousin to surf the Internet at find the REAL truth about what's going on.

[Darranar]

4. If the "good" consists of slaughtered children...

and incompetence and brutality on the part of the occupation, then yes.

[progressivebydesign]

5. The Saddam part is a lie..

.. the countryside, near Baghdad especially, was quite modern and nice. They HAD universities, schools, carnivals, symphony orchestras, restaurants, nice buildings, parks, zoos.. etc. I'm certaint that it's being rebuilt, to some extent, BUT we are simply trying to restore basic services that we bombed into oblivion. The army is not there to rebuild.. that's the job of the billion dollar contractors.. we're just guarding them mostly. It's a republican talking point.

[lottie244]

8. You are so right. It was only "worse under Saddam" because the US was

bombing the bejeezus out of them and sanctioning most economic activity, including medicine, school supplies etc. The women of Iraq were among the highest educated in the ME and played major roles in the government of Iraq. First we tear up a country, then we pat ourselves on the back after killing the people and rebuilding what we tore up in the first place.

[Kool Kitty]

19. You don't know the half of it, if

Naomi Klein is to be believed. Pick up a copy of this month's "Harper's" magazine and read her article entitled, "Baghdad Year Zero". Almost nothing is being rebuilt. One of the pictures that accompanies the story shows raw sewage running down the middle of a street in Baghdad. This is not the military's fault, it is the fault of the occupying coalition people, Brenner and company. The supposed "new Iraqi government" is basically a sham, and they were all put in place by our government anyway. She explains what al-Sadr is about, too. Another good article is in the current "Nation" magazine, written by Christian Parenti. The mainstream media has failed, yet again, to show any of this.

[leftchick]

25. I have that issue.....

It is mind blowing what the US has done to the Iraqis. The "good news" stories on Faux and friends is nothing more than "lipstick on a pig" stories for bush* lovers. The reality of what the US has done and continues to do to that country will never be seen in the mainstream press.

[FloridaPat]

6. 70% of the population is unemployed. How good can it be?

The US wants to sell the oil wells and everything else it can get their hands on. So the Iraqis know that if it gets sold, there is now reason to stay in Iraq. The have a government that is worse that Sadam.

[madfloridian]

10. Talking point of the RNC... not kidding, it really is.

Go to google, or ask jeeves, or yahoo search. Search the articles. Save them or print them. Compare, think, rationalize.

I think the most accurate count of Iraqis dead now is over 20,000, but then we don't count dead Iraqis.

Our dead soldier count is just under 1000 officially, but it changes. It hit 1000 a month ago and then dropped back.

The military personnel who are wounded are never counted as war dead if they die later. What was that figure of wounded, I have heard from 1800 to 18,000. Only God and Rumsfeld know.

Oh, and I don't believe our country ever invaded a mosque in the name of freedom before. Oh, yes, things will go really well after that.

AND then go buy or rent Outfoxed!

[FloridaPat]

11. The number killed dropped to 600 today! Are our soldiers rising

from the dead? Isn't there some kind of Biblical prophecy about that? Rapture time you think???

[Vickers]

12. PFC Lazarus

:spank:

[madfloridian]

13. You have to be kidding. Rapture or a type of resurrection.

My mind is getting fuller and fuller with all the spin. I am going to implode. Or is that explode. and which is better.

:crazy:

[jdj]

16. this is what I have

Military Fatalities: By Time Period News (read down)

Period US UK Other* Total Avg Days
3 104 5 8 117 2.17 54
2 715 27 58 800 1.89 424
1 139 33 0 172 4 43
Total 958 65 66 1089 2.09 521

(from icasualties.org)

also how in the hell does grandma know what Bagdhad was like before Saddam??? and

"taken part in a successful rebuilding of the Iraqi infrastructure, including restoring electricity, building schools and seeing local people running the infrastructure. She said things in this region were considerably worse under Saddam."

do normal people talk like this???

What a load of crap.

[madfloridian]

18. My grandma never talked that way.

Sound a big Rush to me. :evilgrin:

[Lerkfish]

15. and....what happened that destroyed that infrastructure????

oh, yeah...that "preemptive invasion" thingy.

so your cousin is impressed that the marines are rebuilding what they destroyed? mmmmkay.

seriously, I agree any good that is done there is a good thing, but this is like cutting off a man's hand and then applying a tourniquet. Does the tourniquet make you a hero?

for the record, I'm not picking on the troops but the idiots at the helm, here.

[madfloridian]

17. Just a little friendly shock and awe, you know.

Like a few daisy-cutters here and there.

[Nordic]

20. If grandson comes back in a flag-draped casket,

will he be happy his casket is hidden?

will he feel his death was worthwhile?

How does grandson feel about the 943 colleagues of his who have come back dead?

Will he be glad he died defending ..... what exactly?

[southernleftylady]

24. exactly! nt

[durutti]

22. How could anyone possibly know?

Even people who have actually been there are still going by their limited experiences and the preconceptions they bring with them. The improvement (or lack thereof) can't be quantified.

That said, no amount of rebuilding or material wealth is a substitute for basic democratic rights.

[thebigidea]

26. I for one want to hear less about Najaf and more about new textbooks

because that's what's really important - fuck people dying of preventable illnessess or things that blow up... I WANNA HEAR ABOUT THE SCHOOLS! And the textbooks!

Oh, the glorious textbooks! With diagrams! And pictures - not of bleeding, battered children... but of happy, smiling citizens walking arm in arm with John Negroponte to a warm future, free of tainted drinking water, free of carjackings, free of cluster bombs...

Lets hear it for bullshit right wing talking points! Hip hip HOORAY!

[0007]

27. Most Iraqis would argue vehemently about the successful rebuilding

of Iraqi's infrastructure. There may a little truth in what your cousin is saying, but not much!!


Let's talk about those 14 military installations being build, and why they're being build.

[Ms. Clio]

28. Well, I guess the cousin didn't really know very much, after all

Funny how we suddenly seem to have a real plague of happy Iraqi propagandists these days.

Curious that they never have links to back up anything they say, just hearsay and secondhand reports-but, of course, that's because the stubborn liberal media just refuses to cover the happy Iraqi story.

[rumguy]

29. The reconstruction effort is a joke

What about the missing eight billion?

I'm sure there are real stories about individual schools, etc...and we do hear some of that.

But what we need is some real investigation into this boondogle of a reconstruction.

[Ms. Clio]

30. Here's a real story about a school

For Iraqis, a Symbol of Unkept Promises
By Nicholas Riccardi
Times Staff Writer

June 1, 2004

BAGHDAD — Past the charred remains of a U.S. military truck, down a pitted road lined with rubble sits Shura Primary School.

Outside, the squat schoolhouse glistens with fresh lime-green paint, courtesy of the renovation spree launched by the U.S.-led coalition. Inside, the floors are buckled, the blackboards are scarred, and the bathrooms are little more than open-air sewage pits. There is one working water fountain for 1,125 students, who must pick their way through a parking lot strewn with mounds of trash to get to the school's front doors.

"They promised to make it a paradise," said Hana Abbood, an Arabic-language teacher at Shura. "But all they've changed is the paint."


Unfortunately, my link to this page is dead

[UdoKier]

31. No, they're underreporting the nightmare unfolding in the US.

Not near enough coverage of the millions of people whose good jobs have been offshored, or how the labor movement has been destroyed.

If we rebuilt a school in Iraq, good. Damn better be doing SOMETHING with the BIL:LIONS we've given to Halliburton. Mention to your cousin that Iraqi companies could've don everything Halliburton is doing for a tiny fraction of the cost, but then Cheney's pals couldn't pocket a third of the gross...

[Skittles]

32. honestly Bullshot, who gives a shit????

THE ENDS DO NOT JUSTIFY THE MEANS

[Warren DeMontague]

33. If by "the good" you mean...

the systematic torture, sodomization, etc. of children in places like Abu Ghraib, for which there is apparently documentary evidence that someone- the pentagon, the media- who knows? Is sitting on in utter, willful disregard of the public's right to know what has been done in our name, well, then, yes, the media is under-reporting that. Hell yeah.

[ReallyTired]

34. Only Judith Miller and Chalabi Baba know the true answer to your question.

[htuttle]

36. If someone robs your house and kills your wife and children...

...do you really care if they sweep the floor before they leave?

:eyes:

[kskiska]

37. Looking for good stuff in Iraq is kinda like asking,

"Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"

[PATRICK]

38. According to the budget outlays

so far that have not ended up in Halliburton warehouses only a fraction of the money for reconstruction has even been spent and that not on pressing necessities. Any Tom Dooleys out there are to be commended but the overall picture is the rule, the nice things are the exception and not needed by Iraq along with tens of thousands of armed troops who have more on their hands than community projects.

The real nice story is that Oil for Bush is pouring down the pipelines in Iraq once more. Hallelujah.

[treepig]

39. of course they are - the damn freaking libral media's thrives on

negativity.

heck, just before school got out in the spring, four kids got shot at the local high school. they spent a good 25 minutes talking about that on the local newscast. at the same time there wasn't a single mention of the 38 metro area high schools where no one was shot that day. go figure.

on edit - how about another example? iirc, on or about 9/11/2001 a few buildings were destroyed in nyc. that was all over the news while at the same time the millions of buildings left unharmed all over america - but they were not mentioned at all. tsk, tsk, the focus on the bad just goes on and on.

[jmowreader]

40. The Window Analogy

Your neighbor's kid is playing baseball with his friends, and he's using your house as a backstop. Woops! There goes a foul tip right through your picture window!

That night, your neighbor is measuring the hole for the replacement window. Three weeks later, the new window arrives. It's a nice angle bay, probably a $1500 window, and they've installed it for you.

Your sister just came for a visit. Do you:

a) Brag about how wonderful your new angle bay window is?

- or -

b) Point out that your old window was perfectly good until the neighbor's shit kid put a baseball through it because they were playing sandlot baseball on your front lawn without even asking first?

[ComerPerro]

41. We are rebuilding the infrastructure because we destroyed it

The reich wing tries to make it out like Iraqis didn't have electricity or running water, let alone things like schools or hospitals. But its all bullshit.