There’s an old saying that success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. Well, when it comes to reporting on Al Qaeda, the MSM seems only interested in their successes, and not their failures.
But isn’t that the way any good propagandist works?
And what isn’t news?
And what isn’t news?
And what isn’t news?
…in Iraq:
So far this year, many more parts of central Iraq have been cleared of terrorists, and the remaining ones know they have to maintain their visibility to survive. Setting off several bombs a day keeps the terrorists in the news, even if the explosions take place in a smaller and smaller area of Iraq. The terrorists play more to the international media, than they do to anyone inside Iraq. The terrorists are already hated and feared throughout the country, even in Sunni Arab areas. There, the terrorists must increasingly divert resources to terrorize Sunni Arabs, and keep them in line. They are aided by Islamic conservatives, who see all the unrest as an opportunity to impose Taliban like rules on the population. If the terrorists accomplish nothing else, they will have shown how to manipulate the mass media, and divert attention from the true origins of the terrorists, and their objectives. It’s been a masterful job which, of course, the mass media will have no interest in examining anytime soon. In a generation or so, there will be books and articles about it, but the subject will never get a lot of media attention.
…Pro-Iranian Shia groups are having second thoughts. Several years of having a Shia majority running the country has instilled a confidence in the Shia community that has not been felt in generations. The thought of Iran pulling the strings in a Shia run Iraq was never very palatable. Iraqi Shia know that the Iranians despise Arabs, especially Iraqi Arabs. The Iranians try to hide this, but the Iraqis know, and now the thinking is “we can do this.” No one will know for sure until the Americans leave, and the security forces either stay united, or fragment to join the dozens of tribal, religious and political militias.
Whitehouse.org, whitehouse.gov, it’s all good.
Good thing we have a “Department of Homeland Security.” Otherwise, things like this might be going on…
Good thing we have a “Department of Homeland Security.” Otherwise, things like this might be going on…
Good thing we have a “Department of Homeland Security.” Otherwise, things like this might be going on…
And what is not news?
This is almost like a laboratory experiment, isn’t it? A handful of veterans (including three out of something like 7,000 retired generals) oppose the war: News. Thousands of active duty personnel urge Congress to support the war effort: Not news. That pretty well sums up the journalistic standard that has been applied to the conflict in Iraq.
If soldiers support the war, I’d think that was news, given that they’re bearing the brunt of it. But that’s just me. One of many reasons I’ll never be an editor at a major news publication…