I gotta give it up for the headline writers at the New York Times. Yesterday, the Askariya Shrine in Samarra, one of the holiest in Shi’a Islam, was bombed again. The Times reports on the response: Several Mosques Attacked, but Iraq Is Mostly Calm. Right. Take a look at this.
In Baghdad today, more than a dozen mortar rounds struck the Green Zone, where the Iraqi parliament and the United States embassy are located, causing some casualties, Reuters reported, citing the police.
The mortar shells fell while Deputy Secretary of State John [sic] Nogroponte was in a nearby building urging Iraqi officials to make rapid progress to help restore stability, according to Reuters.
I’m sorry but we’ve entered Wonderland when our Deputy Secretary of State has to dodge mortar attacks and it’s called ‘mostly calm’. And that is setting aside the multiple mosque bombings in response to the attack on the shrine.
The simple truth is that the Green Zone is under constant mortar attack and we can’t do a damn thing to stop it. I want you to think about that. What if the Washington Mall was under constant mortar attack and we couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it? Would we call this ‘mostly calm’. How far down the rabbit hole do you have to crawl before that makes sense?
Here are some better headlines:
Failure to halt Iraqi violence revealed by Pentagon report, UK Independent.
Three Sunni mosques attacked in Iraq, Daily Times, Pakistan.
US: Iraq violence undiminished, Chicago Tribune.
Violence in Iraq spikes despite crackdown, Albuquerque Times.
You get the idea. But things are better than expected…so says the New York Times. Keep sleeping people. It’s more soothing than being awake.
Repeat.
Well you can add to the Iraq FUBAR, the next phase Ismerica is about to implement in the Isr-Pal conflict now that it is truely in final blow up mode.
It’s going to be a hot time in the ME.
When the final phase of that plan is installed then all the circular policies will come to fruition and we will be, not in WWIII, but a war of Isr-Merica against the Arab world.
We will finally have suceeded in “uniting” ALL the pesky infighting Arab fractions…against us. Imagine..the Sunni,the Shai,AQ..all cooperating for the first time since the 1500’s…to kill us instead of killing each other. Quell success! Who would have thought.
No allies this time, no international support, bought, bribed or otherwise..just us and them.
Russia for sure and maybe China will happily slip the terriers (to us) freedom fighters (to them) whatever they need to even out the fight.
I would consider moving to some nice ocean front in Costa Rica but I heard the Saudi Royals already have dibs on all of it for their own hidde hole.
The approach of using headlines to fight a war is as old as the media. The Headline is outrageous. However, even a correction if it is offered, is a waste of time.The goal of the headline is to manipulate the mind of the reader who represents the average dialy reader.If anyone was to have read the following paragraphs of the times article, they would have come across a rather large compilation of voilent actions that are 180 degrees opposite the claim of the headline. I recommend to anyone the daily reading of the blog- Informed Comment. This an almosy daily posting of just how calm Iraq has been during the past 24 hours. Well worth the time. Or, Reuters- another site that appears to offer a rather non-biased posting of straight information.
The US media has simply chosen to support the administrations pollitically correct positions and unless the public decides to stop reading or listening to them, there will be no change at all.
Mostly Calm? Is that like Mostly Dead? Should we hire Billy Crystal to do headline writing now?
You know, that’s f-ed up. It’s f-ed up because despite a lot of shitty reporting in the run-up to the war, and despite a few dicks like Michael Gordon, the Times has actually been sorta-kinda OK wrt the current Iraq situation. Certainly reporters like john Burns, Dexter Filkins, and Edward Wong (i hope I got his name right) have done some pretty good reporting.
But man oh man, what a turd that “Iraq is Calm” article is: how surprised is the majority of America going to be when the Green Zone is overrun? I mean, most people think the war’s a failure, but I don’t know fi they actually understand exactly how lousy it can get.
Gilliard did a great piece last year about the Green Zone and how hard it’s going to be to get out. He also wrote, presciently, about the strategy of blowing up bridges, which of course is underway as I type…
Well and truly FUBAR.