That’s fucking disgusting Richard. 1,000 US soldiers dead, har de har ha. How about a few amusing dead Russian baby photo-shops?

I’m shocked that you posted this. If it was anyone but you, I’d drop the site from my blog-roll. As it is, I can only as “what the fuck were you thinking.”

September 10, 2004 @ 3:56 am | Comment

No Conrad, it is SATIRE — the tragic loss of lives is a true tragedy. But the claims that we are there for a lofty democratic ideal while spilling so much blood and torturing so many innocents — that’s what this drives home. See the comments to the original post I link to for more reference.

September 10, 2004 @ 7:04 am | Comment

I’d have to agree with Richard on this one, sometimes you have to shock people to get their attention. If you doing it to raise awareness then it is different if your doing to get a laugh.

I read yesterday that the CIA deliberately hid a number of prisioners from the Red Cross so that they could ‘interigate’ them in secret, which means that the US has broken the Geniva convention and has no right to claim that this war is moral.

It’s little wonder that Iraqis are ‘getting upset’.

September 10, 2004 @ 8:10 pm | Comment

ACB those so-called “ghost” prisoners are a whole separate scandal, and another searing indictment of how frivolous we are being with the lives of people we went to liberate. How on earth could they possibly see us as liberators now? What are we hoping to accomplish at this point?

September 10, 2004 @ 8:42 pm | Comment

It’s not satire. It’s vile. You think Purple Heart band aids cross the line but this doesn’t?

Utterly vile.

Shame on you.

September 10, 2004 @ 9:44 pm | Comment

No Conrad, you are not seeing it as satire but taking it literally. It is tragic. And as you say, it is despicable — their deaths are truly despicable. The photo doesn’t mock their deaths, but underscores the tragedy. It’s an attempt to shock people to see what ‘s really going on, that we’re sending thousands of boys into the meat grinder, and convincing them there is something honorable and noble about the cause, something worth dying for. Bullshit.

September 10, 2004 @ 9:49 pm | Comment

What the Duck?!?

My left-of-center friend Richard has posted a photo-shop that I think is contemptable. Richard defends it as “satire”. Click on over and then tell me what do you think? What do you think of The Peking Duck’s post? Go Richard!…

September 10, 2004 @ 10:25 pm | Comment

I really cannot, without the risk of causing offense — tell you how strongly I disagree with you on this. Since I like you too much to want risk fighting with you, I’ll let it go.

All I can say is that I was both shocked and disappointed to find this on our site and if it was ANYONE but you, I’d have delinked the offender.

BTW, that doesn’t mean I can’t have a bit of fun with it. You’re now the subject of The Gweilo Diaries first readers’ poll.

September 10, 2004 @ 11:03 pm | Comment

I’m flattered to be featured in your poll, thanks.

I didn’t mean to offend anyone. It struck me as poignant, as sad, and as bitingly satirical. My heart really does go out to those men and women who’ve died in Iraq. Every night when I come home from work I watch the News Hour on PBS and they show the latest dead soldiers at the end, with their photos, and I feel so angry and so heartbroken. I was just using the age-old tool of irony to drive home a point. These kids believe they are dying for something noble, for making America safer, and that’s a lie. And deep inside, I know that you know that. Saddam was a beast and a murderer, but what we now have in his place is so uncontrollable and awful, and will keep on killing our young people until we finally decide the madness has to stop. And a little picture like this, just like the ultra-ironic war poems of the Great War, can move people to see it all in a different light. It can get them to think. That’s all.

September 10, 2004 @ 11:52 pm | Comment

Crude, but effective! I vote to keep it, and make sure others see the message.

September 11, 2004 @ 1:32 am | Comment

Effective at what? Infuriating those who don’t already believe Richard is right?

The “ultra-ironic war poems of the Great War” were moving because they were written by the men who fought it. Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon earned the right to ironize their deaths because they were the ones doing the dying. The wit pales a little when supplied by a stranger.

American soldiers are volunteers. They are men and women, not “kids”. They know the risks in defending the Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic. They accept those risks, and sometimes those risks kill them. If we would truly count their deaths meaningful, we would give them the monument of a free, peaceful, prosperous Iraq. That is the only acceptable memorial.

Photoshopping banners for jihadi assassins doesn’t quite cut it.

September 11, 2004 @ 1:55 am | Comment

Got a great suggestion richard since you’re into satire.

Why don’t you post a photograph of the heaps of skeletal bodies piled up in Auschwitz along with a poster: “6 million done, only a few more million till the world’s free of Juden!”

Hell, the Palestinians would vote you in as Arafat’s replacement!

September 11, 2004 @ 4:08 am | Comment

CardinalXimenes:
“Effective at what? Infuriating those who don’t already believe Richard is right?”

I agree.

If you guys appreciate this, that’s fine, but I really think the intended audience is the anti-war crowd who already share this sentiment. There is no “argument” here, nothing to convince anyone of anything they don’t already believe.

September 11, 2004 @ 4:18 am | Comment

why is conrad really offended? because like many right wing americans he has chosen to ignore that horrible tally of 1000 dead

September 11, 2004 @ 7:32 am | Comment

Given that this is an important anniversary, why not photoshop the WTC burning? Put up a funny satirical banner between the two buildings to “articulate your sense of sorrow and dread that this war was becoming a meat grinder with an unending appetite?”

September 11, 2004 @ 9:20 am | Comment

Re: boo

Better yet, put up a photoshop of the Russian school that recently got 350 served. Many in small portions.

September 11, 2004 @ 10:11 am | Comment

I would never put up a photoshop image mocking anyone’s death. That would bedisgusting. The image above doesn’t mock any soldier — they are heroes. It underscores the lie of Iraq, the false promise of an easy victory and low casualties and blooming democracy. Why would I mock victims of Auschwitz and the WTC? Their deaths are truly tragic and I have written many long posts about these people on tis site.

September 11, 2004 @ 10:24 am | Comment

Toejam: “Hell, the Palestinians would vote you in as Arafat’s replacement!”

That would be interesting. I’d be the first Jewish head of the PLO.

September 11, 2004 @ 10:45 am | Comment

why is conrad really offended? because like many right wing americans he has chosen to ignore that horrible tally of 1000 dead -miss K

Who’s ignoring it?

I’m certainly not.

The difference between your pov and this ‘right wing american’ on the issue might have to do with me thinking that 1000 dead soldiers in Iraq not something that can be thought of without also considering the ~3000 dead civilians in NYC, my opinion that the US *is* fighting a real war, of which Iraq is a part, a general preference for fighting wars on the other side’s turf instead of ours, and a belief that if we do not reform the diseased and dysfunctional societies in the middle east, the alternative is either 1) accepting that every so often, thousands of civilians will die in one (or more) western cities every few years, or 2) killing a lot of people, compared to which the 1000 soldiers that died in Iraq and the ~3000 in NYC will seem a drop in the bucket.

You’re welcome to disagree with me on any of those points. Please do so with appeals to reason and logic, instead of emotions and insults.

But do not accuse me of ‘ignoring’ the deaths of our soldiers- all that does is insult me and demonstrate your ignorance.

September 11, 2004 @ 5:25 pm | Comment

Rosignol, I would embrace your point of view (and I mean it) if iraq posed a true danger to us in terms of terrorism. With neither weapons nor measurable involvement in terrorist activites — certainly nowhere near the level of Syria or Iran or Saudi Arabia — Iraq was literally the least of our worries. They were well contained and could certainly have waited until we finished our urgent business against the real threats. Had we done itthat way, we wouldn’t be bleeding on two fronts. The only one still saying Iraq posed a serious enough threat to merit a multi-trillion-dollar war that would, as a bonus, cost the lives on thousand of US servicepeople, not to mention tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis, is Dick Cheney. Nearly all the voices of sanity, even those to the right like John McLaughlin, David Brooks, George Will, William F. Buckley and countless others is that this war was a tragic and costly mistake, a needless endeavor that only took us of course from fighting the true perpetrators of terrorism. If you have any evidence indicating that our adventure in Iraq has helped to prevent the loss of American lives at home, I might change my opinion. For now, I see no benefit to anyone except the contractors, who are enjoying the windfall of the century. Meanwhile, the true breeding grounds for terrorism, like Saudi Arabia, have become even more radicalized and determined to destroy us.

September 11, 2004 @ 5:52 pm | Comment

if there really is a global war on terror, then why is America in iraq, and not indonesia or russia?

September 11, 2004 @ 6:49 pm | Comment

Because Indonesia and Russia never embarrassed shrub’s dad. Iraq is a war of revenge. It has nothing to do with terror.

September 11, 2004 @ 6:54 pm | Comment

Rosignol, I would embrace your point of view (and I mean it) if iraq posed a true danger to us in terms of terrorism.

IMO, to say Iraq wasn’t a threat ignores some pretty basic facts. It is accurate to say that Iraq’s connection to _al Qaeda_ was limited to communications, not coordination or cooperation, but Iraq’s connections to other terrorist groups were real. Furthermore, I don’t think anyone here is naive enough to think that even if Saddam’s WMD programs were suspended while the sanctions were in effect, he wouldn’t have just started them right back up once the sanctions were lifted, and a nuclear arms race in the part of the world that provides most of the energy that industrialized economies use is a very dangerous thing on a strategic level.

I don’t like the way Bush tried to convince people deposing Saddam was a good thing (IMO, there were better reasons, but the UN wouldn’t have agreed they were a legal basis for action), but I do agree that it was in the US’s interests to do so, and I think that in the long run, the world will (eventually) be a better place for everyone, not just Americans, because of it.

With neither weapons nor measurable involvement in terrorist activites –

That is provably false. From granting sanctuary to Abu Nidal to paying the families of palestinian suicide bombers, the list of Iraqi involvement with terrorists is long, significant, and not disputed by anyone who has educated themselves about the matter.

– certainly nowhere near the level of Syria or Iran or Saudi Arabia –

…which are also on the list of ‘things to do’. Unfortunately, their respective leaders weren’t stupid enough to give the US a pretext to justify regime change. Don’t be surprised, you already know it was a pretext, you just made the error of thinking the real motive was a personal one.

It’s good that you agree Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia need to be dealt with, though. We have some common ground after all.

– Iraq was literally the least of our worries.

That is entirely dependent on what you think ‘our worries’ are, and on what your plan to deal with them is.

Have you somehow missed the fact that Iraq is geographically ideal as a staging ground for dealing with Iran, Syria, and (if necessary) Saudi Arabia?

They were well contained and could certainly have waited until we finished our urgent business against the real threats.

IMO, middle eastern governments that are trying to acquire nukes *are* a real threat. A$$holes flying airplanes into skyscrapers pale in comparison to the damage Islamic fundamentalists with nukes could do, and the US’s likely response to that pales in comparison to anything that has ever happened in human history.

Is it worth the lives of thousands of soldiers to keep that from happening? I think it is.

Had we done itthat way, we wouldn’t be bleeding on two fronts.

Done *what* ‘that way’?

That’s my biggest problem with the lefties on this issue- their utter failure to present a credible alternative to what Bush is doing. Packing up and going home IS NOT AN OPTION. Bringing in the UN followed by packing up and going home IS NOT AN OPTION. Hell, bringing in NATO followed by packing up and going home IS NOT AN OPTION.

Basic fact: the diplomatic impasses with Iraq were not going to be resolved without the use of force- and it needed to be resolved, if only to clear the way for dealing with other threats.

Now that force has been used, it is the US’s responsibility to do it’s best to provide the protection a democratic Iraqi government needs to establish itself. That is being done, but it’s not going to be finished in six months or a year. And we can’t hand the mess off to the UN because their track record in this situation sucks, to put it mildly- look at the balkan mess for an example, and keep in mind Iraq is about an order of magnitude bigger, and we can’t hand it off to NATO because they don’t have the logistics to deploy enough forces to do the job that far outside of Europe.

There is a job to be done, and the US is the only country with the capability to even try to do it. That job, BTW, is the reform of arab culture- and I don’t know that even the US can do it successfully. I do know that I want to try it before trying the alternatives.

The only one still saying Iraq posed a serious enough threat to merit a multi-trillion-dollar war

$200 billion, last I heard. Please rein in the hyperbole, it doesn’t help your credibility at all.

that would, as a bonus, cost the lives on thousand of US servicepeople,

Y’know what?

Everyone wearing the uniform volunteered to put it on.

Everyone wearing the uniform knows that they may die in it.

I am not foolish enough to think a war can be fought without casualties, and I don’t think anyone wearing the uniform is, either.

And there *is* a war going on.

not to mention tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis, is Dick Cheney.

Mm, a thinly-veiled ‘Halliburton’ reference.

Two points:

1) as a profit-making venture, cutting a deal with Saddam would have been immensely more profitable than invading the country and seizing the oil- just ask the French and the Russians.

2) the US has not seized the oil, even after invading the country.

Can we please dispense with the ‘Oiiiiiiil’ crap now?

Nearly all the voices of sanity, even those to the right like John McLaughlin, David Brooks, George Will, William F. Buckley and countless others is that this war was a tragic and costly mistake, a needless endeavor that only took us of course from fighting the true perpetrators of terrorism.

So what? I am not impressed by argument from authority. Lay out the *reasons* those people disagree with the current course of action and I’ll consider them, but invoking Buckley & company isn’t going to score any points with me in this debate, and I don’t think that invoking Christopher Hitchens would score any points with you.

If you have any evidence indicating that our adventure in Iraq has helped to prevent the loss of American lives at home, I might change my opinion.

All I have to do is prove a negative that may occur at some point in the future, i.e, after Saddam built nukes? Very funny, but I’m afraid my What-If-Future-Predictor went on the fritz when I tried to use it on the state lottery, and I doubt you’d accept it’s output as definitive anyways.

For now, I see no benefit to anyone except the contractors, who are enjoying the windfall of the century. Meanwhile, the true breeding grounds for terrorism, like Saudi Arabia, have become even more radicalized and determined to destroy us.

…which isn’t what has actually happened. Y’see, when the US forces in the most holy arabian peninsula were moved to Iraq, the Saudi government moved to the top of Al Qaeda’s list of ‘things to get rid of in Arabia’, and the result of that is the Saudi government doing more to combat terrorism than it ever has in the past.

Which isn’t nearly enough, but it may buy the US enough time to deal with Iran before the $hit hits the fan.

September 11, 2004 @ 8:53 pm | Comment

A thousand funerals and not one of Bush’s cabal have even attended one of them.

September 11, 2004 @ 9:02 pm | Comment

Yup, it would be pretty funny satire…if you didn’t know any of those people and actually thought of them as people you knew who wanted to put themselves there, who knew and placed themselves at risk. It might be a chuckle if you were so blinded by ShruBusHitler hate that you didn’t think of them as people.

In my job, we have gallows humor, and it’s easy to dehumanize the enemy. Some of the younger or less mature guys might make jokes like this about the guys they were fighting (you want f’in served, we can serve).

The less mature who do so get reminded of the gravity of the reality behind the joke.

I know enough of my comrades at arms who died there. We’ll go back and continue to do our work, despite the danger, until it’s done.

Despite your scorn, and your clearly fake “concern for the troops”.

September 11, 2004 @ 9:21 pm | Comment

One more example that ‘support the troops but….’

Is just an exploitive lie…

You want the hard math? Iraq falling cowed Qaddafi into rolling on his WMD’s which in turn exposed the existing nuclear proliferation program run by AQKhan of Pakistan which in turn let us know that American tax payer funded appeasement of North Korea helped them build 5 nukes and prevented the sale of a ready nuke to Saddam…

Nuclear proliferation was postponed and maybe 100,000 lives saved…

Saddam gone means 30,000/year not dumped in ditches…

Was it worth it?

September 11, 2004 @ 10:08 pm | Comment

Chap, my scorn is only for our leaders, never for our troops. You have some nerve, saying my concern for them is fake.

I was as enthusiastic a supporter of our invasion of Afghanistan as anyone else. It had to be done. And that mission has since faltered and perhaps failed altogether, because of our diversion in Iraq.. A diversion we can’t get out of for years to come.

Rosignol, even if Saddam may, some day in the future, have been able to produce nukes, it was no excuse for grinding the real war on terror to a halt. Pakistan has nukes and has been supporting terrorism for decades. Saudia Arabia has too. If you don’t see our failure to prioritize, there’s nothing I can do.

Meanwhile, even if I accept your thesis that the threat from iraq was so imminent it demanded war, let’s look at the result: Iraq is in a state of civil war, all of our goals, across the board, have failed. Many key sections of the country, huge swathes of territory, are now under the control of the insurgents. What have we to show for those 1,000+ American lives lost? Saddam is in prison — good. But we are detested, shot and and bombed — a far cry from the promise of flowers and chocolates. And we are stuck in a quagmire that the nation’s top general have described as a catastrophe. Face it — we’ve lost. We cannot prevail now; Abu Ghraib and other atrocities destroyed that possibility. As in Vietnam, all we can hope for is to crawl out with as much dignity as possible. And as with Vietnam, we’ll weep when we see all those names etched into a shiny wall, knowing they died for nothing.

September 11, 2004 @ 10:17 pm | Comment

Richard, where are you getting your news on what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan?

September 11, 2004 @ 10:20 pm | Comment

Dangerus, one of the worst lies bush has made is that Qadaffi caved because of Iraq. If you really knew your history, you’d know Qadaffi had been making overtures starting in the mid-90s, indicating he wanted to restore normal relations and disarm. Please don’t fall for the propaganda. Iraq had absolutely nothing, ZERO to do with Qadaffi’s extending the olive branch. That was in process for years, and as usual, bush seized on it as a justification for an unjustifiable action. (When was the last time Qadaffi threatened anyone?)

But hold on. Let’s say your thesis was true, and that our pressure on Iraq caused Qadaffi to cave. Would that have been worth the lives of 1,000 US service people and 10-30,000 innocent Iraqis, just to have an old, weary leader (Qadaffi) who had threatened no one since the 1980s, hold out his hand? Would it be worth the billions of dollars and all the beheadings and the civil war? Maybe. But to make that point, you’ll have to demonstrate exactly what threat it was that Qadaffi posed. To the best of my knowledge, he’s been a doddering old despot, detestable for sure but harming no one, for the past 15 years.

September 11, 2004 @ 10:25 pm | Comment

Ros., most of my information is from the good old mainstream media, , NY Times, Washington Post, AP, BBC and the many, many pundits, blogs and news sites I visit constantly.

September 11, 2004 @ 10:28 pm | Comment

I think at one purpose of satire is to confront people into thinking and that is exactly what has happened. You guys post for so long in the echo chamber that is the blog community you tend to forget that for the most part, no one really cares that much about any issues. Anything we can do to get people out of their bubbles and respond is meaningful. If it takes something shocking, so be it. In other words, crude, but effective.

September 12, 2004 @ 8:25 am | Comment

I just posted this comment on Conrad’s site and wanted to get it down here as well.
————————————————-

I don’t think I’ll make much progress arguing my point of view here, but that’s alright. Anyone who reads my site knows I take up the causes of lots of people I feel deserve our compassion, be they sufferers of AIDS, repressed Chinese peasants, innocent Iraqis arrested and tortured, US citizens kidnapped and beheaded, Chinese dissidents arrested for writing about democracy on the Internet, the victims of Tiananmen Square, the victims of the 911 attacks, the victims of Saddam Hussein (I was a somewhat outspoken proponent of the invasion, as Conrad knows), the Beslan schoolchildren and, yes, our soldiers who have given their lives in Iraq who were told they were dying for the fight against global terror. While painting me as some sort of heartless monster probably isn’t fair, it’s not surprising, sadly. It just underscores how crazed and divided we have all become in regard to Iraq, myself included. Conrad and I have been sharing emails and linking to one another for years now, but some of you are questioning how he could be friends with me, considering my gleeful mockery of the deaths of US soldiers (never mind that I never mocked dead US soldiers, only the war that seems beyond anyone’s control). No, I didn’t really expect a balanced hearing over here, not becuase anyone here is “bad” or “wrong,” but because we are so racked with partisanship there is harldy any room for critical thinking that transcends our emotional triggers. I now hate Conrad’s view of the war and our president, but I don’t hate Conrad and probably never will (though there have certainly been moments). And I hope he can say the same for me. What we all need to do (and again, that includes me) is keep our perspective and realize there are many, many shades of gray when it comes to the war in Iraq, and precious little black and white. (Saddam was a monster — that’s one of the few B&W facts.) Maybe I shouldn’t have put up the photograph — it took a very B&W stance — but it made a statement that resonated with me: too many people are dying in Iraq with no victory in sight, while Iraqis who were once on our side are becoming radicalized Moslems, the very last thing we want. I don’t want to argue that point, as we will never agree; I am just trying to tell you why I put up the picture. If it offended anyone, I apologize, but I don’t apologize for my viewpoints, which are not based on airhead bleeding-heart sentimentalities but on a lot of reading and exploring and some very painful changes of heart along the way. Best regards.

September 12, 2004 @ 11:52 am | Comment

I think I see the problem. I gave up on the NYT and WaPo a long time ago. To put it bluntly, it looked like a lot of them were pulling old stories out of the archive and just replacing ‘south-east asia’ with ‘south-west asia’.

As you put it: “As in Vietnam, all we can hope for is to crawl out with as much dignity as possible. And as with Vietnam, we’ll weep when we see all those names etched into a shiny wall, knowing they died for nothing.”

That is the recurring narritive in the NYT, WaPo, and (especially) BBC reporting from Iraq, and when contrasted with what the soldiers and Iraqis were saying on their blogs, it did more to destroy their credibility in my eyes than you can imagine. After the media got it so very wrong in Afghanistan (months of ‘brutal afghan winter’, ‘mass famine’, ‘bombing ineffective’, ‘graveyard of empires’, and the ever favorite ‘quagmire’), followed by a sudden and nearly total collapse of the Taliban, I was already questioning if they knew what they were talking about. Then the pattern was repeated in Iraq (‘brutal Iraqi summer’, ‘anarchy’, ‘civil war’, ‘elite special republican guard’, and, of course, ‘quagmire’), only now I had access to primary sources- the blogs of Iraqis and soldiers in Iraq, which presented an utterly different impression of what was going on.

Given a choice between information from primary sources and sources that had already been spectacularly wrong on similar matters in the very recent past, I chose to put stock in the primary sources… and now ‘Memogate’ is just confirming that my decision was the correct one.

Why do you still take the MSM seriously when their track record on these matters is horrible? Please answer honestly: do you truly think there is a factual basis for what they are saying, is it because they are telling you what you want to hear, or is there some other reason?

September 12, 2004 @ 2:54 pm | Comment

I stil believe the MSM does a pretty good job, all things considered. Look at Iraq. They exaggerated the problems at the begininng of the 2003 invasion, but that was understandable. After all, there really was more resitance than many initially expected. But very soon afterward, we beat it all back, and from then on the praise was glowing. At this point, it really was “a piece of cake,” and we did splendidly, and the president and Rumsfeld received incredible praise from the MSM — bush’s popularity soared, and the high point was the unfortunate landing on the aircraft carrier. That’s when the party ended. Look at it objectively. Just as in Afghanistan, the media reported what was happening, and at first it looked absolutely splended. But then pockets of resistance developed; car bombs struck; convoys were ambushed. And just as with the great victories, the newspapers reported these less happy stories. Things rapidly deteriorated, and the MSM reported it as it happened, even the most objective reporters who had been far more inclined to praise our efforts, like the NYT’s John Burns. Najaf and Falluja and today’s horrifying battles in Baghdad are not lies, they are not fantasies. Just as the reporting of our victories were essentially fair, so too, I believe, is coverage of what’s happened since. Remember how glowing the reports from Afghanistan were from these same MSM reporters who are now being damned for giving us the bad news that followed? Remember the women removing their burkas, and the joy of liberation? It was a time of incredible promise. And I felt that way fater we succeeded in Baghdad — and those same MSM writers who made us so joyous then are the same ones making us so fearful now; becuase they are doing their job and generally doing what reports should do, i.e., tell the people what happened. There are many cases of bad journalism (and there always have been) but with so many reporters from so many international journals covering iraq and Afghanistan, a clear picture emerges.

Sorry, got to go for a while. But I want you to be assured I’m no dupe of Big Media (as a former journalist myself, I know better than to take what they say verbatim.) But I would like to know where you think we can get truly objective coverage? (And I hope you don’t say Little Green Footballs or the Weekly Standard.)

September 12, 2004 @ 3:42 pm | Comment

I stil believe the MSM does a pretty good job, all things considered. Look at Iraq. They exaggerated the problems at the begininng of the 2003 invasion, but that was understandable.

…if you’re starting from the position that the MSM is utterly ignorant of just about everything related to the military, inclined to skepticism and mistrust where the Pentagon is concerned [which is justified…], unbelievably credulous of the pronouncements of the side the Pentagon isn’t on […so long as they treat both sides that way], and willing to cut deals to suppress news that makes the side the Pentagon isn’t on look bad in exchange for continued access, yes, it’s understandable.

Unfortunately, it also makes them worthless as a source of accurate information and analysis in my opinion.

After all, there really was more resitance than many initially expected.

Um, nonsense. Even the Pentagon expected the Iraqi military to stand and fight, and planned accordingly. What happened is that an amazing proportion of the Iraqi military just went home, and the fighting was largely done by insurgent forces that regular US army units aren’t well-suited to deal with. The force that led the way was largely armor, expecting to deal with Iraqi tanks, but you need infantry to deal with insurgents.

But very soon afterward, we beat it all back, and from then on the praise was glowing. At this point, it really was “a piece of cake,” and we did splendidly, and the president and Rumsfeld received incredible praise from the MSM — bush’s popularity soared, and the high point was the unfortunate landing on the aircraft carrier.

…where the aircraft carrier crew put up a banner proudly proclaiming that they had accomplished the mission they had been assigned, and the MSM lept to the assumption that the President had put them up to it, and was saying that Iraq had been transformed into a modern democratic nation? Nonsense.

Your recollection of the last two years is radically different from my own.

That’s when the party ended.

No, that’s when the MSM, bitter and embarassed about being so utterly wrong about damn near everything, went nuts and gave incredible prominence to anything it could find to convince people they were right, and buried the evidence to the contrary.

Look at it objectively. Just as in Afghanistan, the media reported what was happening, and at first it looked absolutely splended.

The media reported that the bombing was having no effect, that the bombing was indiscriminately killing civilians, and that a humanitarian disaster was looming as a result of the Pentagon’s misguided strategy. Then the Northern Alliance took Mazar-e-Sharif, and a few weeks later Kabul, and it became clear to everyone that the Taliban was in full retreat, the ‘ineffective’ bombing wasn’t, and that the MSM was full of it.

But then pockets of resistance developed; car bombs struck; convoys were ambushed. And just as with the great victories, the newspapers reported these less happy stories. Things rapidly deteriorated, and the MSM reported it as it happened, even the most objective reporters who had been far more inclined to praise our efforts, like the NYT’s John Burns. Najaf and Falluja and today’s horrifying battles in Baghdad are not lies, they are not fantasies.

Not fantasies, no, but they’re not the only things going on in Iraq, either. It looks to me like the media has bought into the “If it bleeds, it leads” mindset, and is ignoring more important developments in favor of covering bloodshed.

IMO, it is disgusting.

Just as the reporting of our victories were essentially fair, so too, I believe, is coverage of what’s happened since. Remember how glowing the reports from Afghanistan were from these same MSM reporters who are now being damned for giving us the bad news that followed?

I don’t recall ‘glowing’ reports. I remember a lot of doomsaying that turned out to be wrong, and a lot of armchair analysis about quagmires.

Remember the women removing their burkas, and the joy of liberation? It was a time of incredible promise. And I felt that way fater we succeeded in Baghdad — and those same MSM writers who made us so joyous then are the same ones making us so fearful now; becuase they are doing their job and generally doing what reports should do, i.e., tell the people what happened. There are many cases of bad journalism (and there always have been) but with so many reporters from so many international journals covering iraq and Afghanistan, a clear picture emerges.

Yeah. During the fall of baghdad, we got maybe a day of ‘liberation’ stories before the criticism of the US military for not stopping looting became _the_ story. The US military had just taken a hell of a large city with almost no casualties, without flattening the place, and without killing tens of thousands of civilians, without turning it into a ‘Stalingrad’ scenario, in a military achievement that will be studied for decades, and what does the press report on?

Looting. The US military turns out to be full of soldiers, not policemen. Who knew?

Sorry, got to go for a while. But I want you to be assured I’m no dupe of Big Media (as a former journalist myself, I know better than to take what they say verbatim.) But I would like to know where you think we can get truly objective coverage? (And I hope you don’t say Little Green Footballs or the Weekly Standard.)

I haven’t found an objective source, but the next best thing is sources that are honest about their bias, instead of pretending to be objective, with my assessment of their reliability based on their track record of getting the facts right, correcting errors, and accuracy of predictions. The MSM is ranked very low on all counts.

September 12, 2004 @ 5:54 pm | Comment

..where the aircraft carrier crew put up a banner proudly proclaiming that they had accomplished the mission they had been assigned, and the MSM lept to the assumption that the President had put them up to it, and was saying that Iraq had been transformed into a modern democratic nation? Nonsense.

Your recollection of the last two years is radically different from my own.

Please look at what I wrote, and then at your interpretation and tell me if you think you are being fair or putting words in my mouth. You tell what you believe happened, and then tell me I am wrong, even though I never said it, you did.

As for the rest, I do remember it very differently. What can you do? I also remember the Mission Accomplished banner being put up by the bush people, not the ship’s people — there was a lot of BS back and forth about this, but as usual with bush, it was evaded. First they said the ship asked for the banner, then they changed their story a couple of times. Do you honestly believe in you heart of hearts if we had known then what was going to transpire in Iraq they still would have used that banner? Of course not. It was a typical publicity stunt that sent a very strong signal to the world, that things were under control and we had won. You can parse it by saying, well they just meant major combat was a victory, not the actual war. But that’s more evading and running away from the fact that our optimism and triumphalism was way, way, way, way, way divorced from reality.

Anyway, the MSM is the best we have. I spend tons of time here criticizing them, but in the history of the planet, I’d say they’re all in all one of the best, although many reporters aren’t nearly as historically knowledgeable as with the good European journals.

September 12, 2004 @ 6:06 pm | Comment

Please look at what I wrote, and then at your interpretation and tell me if you think you are being fair or putting words in my mouth. You tell what you believe happened, and then tell me I am wrong, even though I never said it, you did.

I should have been clearer. You referred to the CVN landing as ‘unfortunate’, and I related my impression of how the MSM portrayed the event. I did not mean *you* were saying it, and I regret the misunderstanding.

IMO, the landing on the carrier and the banner is a good example of how the MSM has become so wrapped up in trivialities that it is ignoring matters of substance. The banner is just one example of this, the famous ‘plastic turkey’ would be another, and I can dig up more if you want. But the significant thing is what the media coverage of those events has in common- a fixation on insignificant details, and a determination to present those details in a way that reflects poorly on Bush- and just to be absolutely clear, I think that is the position of the MSM, not you.

September 12, 2004 @ 7:13 pm | Comment

As for the rest, I do remember it very differently. What can you do? I also remember the Mission Accomplished banner being put up by the bush people, not the ship’s people — there was a lot of BS back and forth about this, but as usual with bush, it was evaded. First they said the ship asked for the banner, then they changed their story a couple of times. Do you honestly believe in you heart of hearts if we had known then what was going to transpire in Iraq they still would have used that banner? Of course not.

It depends on why you mean by ‘they’.

If it was the CVN’s crew, why not? They were given a mission, and accomplished it’s objectives.

If it was Bush’s advance people, probably not- because the mission hadn’t been accomplished yet, even if a few of the more important objectives had been.

It was a typical publicity stunt that sent a very strong signal to the world, that things were under control and we had won. You can parse it by saying, well they just meant major combat was a victory, not the actual war. But that’s more evading and running away from the fact that our optimism and triumphalism was way, way, way, way, way divorced from reality.

We have fundamentally different opinions on this. IMO, the reality is that things are as under control as they could be expected to be, given the circumstances, and that the US did in fact win. The complications are, IMO, due to Iran and Syria supporting the insurgents in Iraq, not because the Bush administration is somehow detached from reality. The situation is that Iraq has to be stabilized before we can deal with Iran and Syria, the Iranian and Syrian governments know this, and they are trying to keep us from stabilizing Iraq so that we never get around to dealing with them- or at least delay things until Iran builds a working nuke, at which point they think they will have North Korea’s ‘untouchable’ status.

If you want to talk about evasions and running away from facts, I think the left’s refusal to propose a strategy for dealing with the situation is an excellent example.

Anyway, the MSM is the best we have. I spend tons of time here criticizing them, but in the history of the planet, I’d say they’re all in all one of the best, although many reporters aren’t nearly as historically knowledgeable as with the good European journals.

My experience has been that even the good European journals have blind spots. They’re just different ones from what we’re used to.

September 12, 2004 @ 9:37 pm | Comment

Glenn Reynolds has just made a very timely post related to trusting sources that sums up my attitude on these things far better than I did. Worth reading.

http://instapundit.com/archives/017785.php

September 13, 2004 @ 1:11 pm | Comment