No news is good news

Q:How do you know when things are going well in Iraq? \nA: You don’t.\nLast week, CNN’s Howard Kurtz reported that decreasing casualty figures in Iraq received scarce attention on CBS and NBC evening news programs. America’s leading newspapers also buried this good news on their inside pages rather than putting it on the front pages.\nGive credit where credit’s due: Kurtz, as a member of a major news network, at least pointed this out. He then proceeded to interview two correspondents from The Washington Post and CNN, who did their best to explain why the figures didn’t really merit any coverage. \nFewer deaths of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians isn’t newsworthy? Excuse me? \nIf I believed everything the mainstream media said about Iraq, I’d probably be against the war. They routinely misrepresent events, and those who don’t like being lied to should take the time to get the full story. \nMany Americans get their information on Iraq in three-minute sound bites on the evening news or from glancing at the day’s headlines. We’re updated every time a suicide bomber destroys a market. We hear of every abuse by American soldiers. We’re constantly reminded of the latest death toll. The reporting makes it seem as if our soldiers are just sitting ducks being slaughtered by a superior enemy. Many people don’t know that we’ve killed more insurgents so far this year than the total number of American troops lost in the entire war.\nAfter the Abu Ghraib Prison scandal, The New York Times ran front-page stories on the abuse for 32 days in a row. For weeks, we were given all the gory details of abuse by a handful of depraved individuals who broke our laws and disgraced our country. But did you know that when Iraqi forces took control of Abu Ghraib, the prisoners actually begged the Americans to take them with them? I’m not kidding. Khalid Alaani, a prisoner suspected of involvement in Sunni terrorism, said, “The Americans were better than the Iraqis. They treated us better. … We asked to move with them to Baghdad airport because we knew the treatment would be changed because we know what the Iraqis are.” Why can’t we acknowledge that even the worst among our military don’t treat prisoners as poorly as what is commonplace in some other societies?\nThe media had a field day last week when former Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez called Iraq “a nightmare with no end in sight.” But most of the reporting on his speech ignored the part where he told journalists, “You are perpetuating the partisan politics that is destroying our country and killing our service members who are at war. For some of you, just like some of our politicians, the truth is of little to no value if it does not fit your own preconceived notions, biases and agendas.”\nSo next time you notice you haven’t seen Iraq on the front page of The New York Times in a while, be glad. It’s a sure sign that things are going well.