The "truth" about the situation in Iraq?

all i have to say... (altho i could say more), is...

why the fuck do people think the mainstream news is liberal? im sorry but the news is NOT liberal. it's actually quite conservative.

 

You have to be pretty far left to think that the news is conservative. Mainstream news is biased toward the left, although it's generally not so far left as to be considered "liberal." There are plenty of liberal news sources (more so than conservative news sources), but enough "centrist" ones as well to balance out the far left ones.

 

no news bias is more way more conservative... look we could argue this all day.

 

[
I agree with MaxPower, Iraq probably is reaping some kind of benefit from our unfortunate occupation, and the ones listed are certainly feaseable for us to accomplish. But what I am afraid of is, what happens when we fix all of this stuff and turn power back over to Iraq? We could end up a Hussein-wannabe in power with a country that is fully operational and functioning twice as well as it did before we occupied it. Any thoughts?[/QUOTE] That is what worries me as well, the US has a bad track record when it comes to 'aiding" these nations that end up hating us 10 or 20 years later; for instance aiding Iraq with trade credits and intelligence during its war with Iran, and giving weapons to anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan, one of the most prominent being Osama bin-Laden..

 

Heh yea no kidding. So basically if you're far left enough (like me) you'll regard the media as conservative-leaning, if you're far right enough you'll say it's all liberal, and if you're in between you'll say certain news networks are liberal and others aren't. It's all relative man.

 

I agree we could go back and forth on this. A lot of everyone's local media's bias depends on where you live and what the majority of political views in your area are. A liberal paper in a conservative town isn't going to sell, and vice versa. Location, location, location!

My point was, whether liberal or conservative, news should not be tainted by the reporters opinions or political views. News is fact, and we are supposed to make judgments based on the facts we see. It isn't their job to make Bush a saint or a sinner, it is to tell us what he is up to and let us decide how we feel about it. The art of journalism has been tainted by those who abuse it's power (after all, the pen is mightier than the sword), and now that has become the standard. It's depressing that there is no truly unbiased source for news.

What else would you like to share, interval_illusion? Please don't let anyone limit what you would like to say. We are all sharing opinions here, just please be mindful to be respectful of others (i.e. please don't ask me "why the fuck" I think anything... These are just my opinions based on my observations, my education, and my upbringing, just as your opinions are based on yours). Remember, I said we are "sharing" our opinions, and sharing shouldn't be done in anger.

Yes, we do have a bad track record with the countries we aid, don't we? Whether they want to admit it or not, French still have their noses out of joint with us over Vietnam, another war we had no business sticking our noses in, and we lost a lot of people in the process of earning their disdain.
And I agree, this has the potential to be a major embarrassment.

 

BBC is perhaps the closest to an unbiased news source. But, I think that it's practically impossible to not have any bias in the news. Even if you aim to be completely objective, there will still always be some level of slant, coming from the sources you cover, the diction used, the topic... it's just because we're human. That being said, I agree with you that journalism has often been twisted, most often by sensationalism.

This is relevant to me because journalism is turning out to be my chosen college major and future career field. I'm currently split between straight, newspaper journalism (objective, concise, simple) and creative non-fiction (subjective, often very detailed, and more complex). I probably will just start out as a straight journalist as it's the more defined career path (and I really want to become financially independent) I actually see a place for both objective and subjective journalism in the media, I kind of admire both extremes. There should definitely be news sources that strive to be integral and as objective as possible, so the public can get the facts as straight as it can. That's a pretty basic concept. I also admire some of the extremely subjective journalists, e.g. the "Gonzo" journalism of H.S. Thompson and the "New" Journalists like Tom Wolfe, these guys tend to carve out their little niches and have their own followings, and only really sharp writers can pull their genre off. The latter kind of journalism is what got me interested in writing in the first place. So there's a place for both kinds of journalism, in my view.

 

Wow. Did you read it? Verified, sourced facts contextualising and interrogating many of the unsourced assertions of that chain email. In fact it's pretty balanced, it often says what beneficial occurrences actually have taken place and compares these to the email's claims. If you think that article was propaganda where the original email wasn't then you're seriously lacking in the skills required in analysis of information sources.

OrwellianTimes.com article

 

LOL! Don't worry about it! Thank you for sharing that article, that pretty much breaks it down and analyzes the whole letter, using some superb investigative journalism (damn, that person is GOOD!). Anyone who didn't actually READ the article and chalked it up to bullshit propaganda should probably actually READ the article, because it pretty much breaks it down into what is probably true, and what is probably not.

LuciferSam, I'm a mass communications major also! I'm going for print journalism, starting with straight news, but my dream is to go into the commentary/editorial side of it. *GRIN* Where are you studying? Anyway, I have to disagree with you on the point of no one being able to present news without bias (at least in print journalism, which is hopefully going to be my career field). It depends on using neutral language, but that's all a matter of opinion. I'm not sure if it's possible in broadcast, because I at least know me, if I would be on camera talking about Bush, I would probably seem pretty condecending, just from the look on my face and the contempt in my voice... LOL!

 

Wonderful article. And I agree, this is not propaganda. It is pretty much a statement of facts, with all sources listed. I don't see any opinion in the article either.


Good reading, i suggest everyone check it out, to see how propaganda can work.

 

Awesome hope we all can keep the integrity of future journalism going. At my college, the Journalism major is a concentration in English Writing, as is Creative Non-Fiction, so that's what my major is. I'm also going for at least a minor in Studio Arts, I may try to tack a Communications minor on as well. I'm going into journalism writing as a career, if all goes well I'll either be writing newspaper or magazine news stories, or write columns, and I'd like to do political cartooning (sometime maybe I'll try and upload some here). Part of why I'm drawn towards Creative Non-fiction as well is because at my college, the Journalism major pretty much means by-the-books, straight, newspaper journalism, and nothing else, and I think I might learn more about writing from Creative Non-fiction. My dream (in the journalism field) is to be either an influential editor, an investigative journalist like Seymour Hersh, or maybe some eccentric hybrid of journalist and novelist a la Tom Wolfe.

I think bias in the news can be minimized enough that it can be overlooked, as the BBC does fairly well. But I think bias will always be there, objective news does its job when it makes that bias negligible. And I agree with you that print journalism can do that much easier. Television journalism nowadays is so dominated by the imagery and the demeanor of the newscasters. The idea of pure objectivity being unattainable was what was behind the "new journalist" philosophy of Wolfe and his peers, they figured they might as well go the whole hog, chuck any pretensions of objectivity out the window, and employ writing skills normally seen in fiction to depict their stories through their eyes. What's lost in objectivity, they reason, is made up for by the vivid descriptions and imagery often conveyed... when done well it conveys a "feel" of the story as well as the facts. I don't think this should be how regular journalism works, but I think it's a fun niche. Ah, but I'm rambling now.

 

Me too! It's time to get out the crowbars and pry people's heads out of their a**es.

Propaganda, not propaganda, whatever... If there is a shred of truth to this e-mail (which there seems to be from the analysis), does that change the way anyone feels about us being there? I must admit, I have some mixed emotions nowadays, because I'm glad that the Iraqi's quality of life has been given the potential to improve, but was it our place to go in there? I would love to claim that we've given them back some their human rights, but then there's that scandal in the Abu Ghraib detention facility, where living, breathing human beings were tortured and humiliated by our military.

 

Kevin Keenan; He is a high school friend of mine who joined the Army ROTC and now flies a Blackhawk. He spent nearly a year in Iraq. I received emails from him from time to time, but even better was when he was shipped back to the USA and had some time off. He came home and he tolerated some of my questions about what was happening in Iraq.

He confirmed much of what I already believed:
The Iraqi people are grateful that Saddam is gone. They do not need to worry about torture chambers, mass murders, or being killed for disagreeing with the government.
The people who hate the idea of democracy in Iraq are very few.
The conditions in Iraq improve on a daily basis; More clean water, reliable electricity, food, medical care, all that good stuff.

Does he believe that going to Iraq was the right thing to do? Yes he does.

He also mentioned that the American media's portrayal of what is happening makes him very angry. They distort the facts and only report the bad things that happen. In his own words, "They won't hesitate to crucify one of us for looking at them [the Iraqi natives] the wrong way, but they'll ignore us when we will risk our lives to save a kid [caught in the middle of a firefight]."

That's right; Save a kid caught in the middle of a firefight. In Mosul there was shooting near a bridge, and Kevin's helicopter was there as a troop carrier and fire support (He also says that he's thankful that these people have bad aim). There was a young boy on the bridge, out in the open, who was wounded. Sure, the Americans could have left him there, but instead one of the soldiers ran out there, getting shot at the whole time, grabbed the kid and managed to make it back to cover before he lost his head.

Why doesn't that make it onto the news? I know at least part of the answer, but I don't need to tell you. I'm sure you can figure it out.

Kevin is staying in the US for a few more months before he is sent back to Iraq (Should the new Iraqi government want us to stay); I wish him well. When he's done with his six year olbigation (ROTC is normally five, but pilots have to stay for six, if I remember correctly) he wants to start his own company. He's not sure what kind yet, though.

 

The new Iraq government wont have the power to decide wether we stay or leave.

 

Actually, they will. If they want us to leave, then the US will do so. However, everyone knows that it's not in their best interests for us to do so. They do not have the equipment, money, or training to take care of all the problems over there on their own.

Not yet.

It took us many, many years to rebuild Japan after we bombed it in World War II. I do not understand why people think that rebuilding a country as large as Iraq will take only a weekend.

It's going to take a long time. Things are going to get really bad in the next few weeks as well; With the Iraqi government being given full power over their own country (Yay!), the psychos who like to murder innocent people are going to do everything they can to scare people in an attempt to stop democracy. These crazy people of a small minority don't want a democracy, they want a theocracy.

 

Neither do they have any legitimacy with the Iraqi people being comprised of installed "friends of the Bush admin" exiles who have lived outside Iraq since the 1950's (when the king was toppled and well before Saddam).

Fact is this handover is another in the long history of our foreign regime manipulations dressed up to look like democracy. We did it in Vietnam and history is merely repeating itself.

Faith that this is anything other than window dressing for the consolidation of our corporately control of Iraq for the foreseeable future (with our grand new embassy so poignantly housed in Saddam's "palace" and overseen by one of the chief architects and expediters of the Reagan admin's criminal Latin American activities in the 80's - Negroponte) is naive.

 

I'm sorry you feel that way LickHERish. I'd be curious to know how you know so much about how the majority of Iraqis feel, considering that you live in Brussels. I know you are a political analyst, but have you gone to Iraq and taken a poll about how the average Iraqi feels about these events? Do you think that perhaps you could possibly have been influenced by a biased media?
Just wondering...

KermodeBear, I pray for your friend's safe return... And the more info I receive from our servicemen, the more I am inclined to believe that there truly are good things being accomplished. My cousin has said the same thing... That the majority of people want us there. They are human beings, and they probably really do want the rights that we freely enjoy in other countries. I don't think that's so hard to believe.

 

Considering that Brussels, like Washington, is a crossroads of foreign policy making and review and that I spend a significant amount of time attending ministerial meetings and deal with international delegations on a regular basis I have a fairly broad range of sources to choose from in assessing information coming out of Iraq.

Added to that the history of long exposed wartime fabrications, bogus claims and political spin put forth by the Pentagon and the given administration of the day, it is quite legitimate for those who care to view events in historic context to hold the glowing claims of the current administration as suspect (especially as each new revelation of falsehood sees the central cabal continuing to grasp desperately to the same worn out ideological claims about majority support for continued occupation).

I however do take heart, from time to time, that the corporate-owned press can pull its head out of the administration's ass long enough to show to the far too constantly misinformed public the far more plausible realities of a nation besieged, bombed and occupied without any viable prior threat.

Recent poll as posted in another thread

 

I am curious as to why you are citing an article from the USA Today when you have access to much better, possibly more reliable sources. The USA Today is viewed by anyone in this country who is interested in preserving journalistic integrity as a rag of yellow journalism, merely one step up from a tabloid. I am sorry to say this, as I see how a person could assume (esp. if they are from another country) that this is a trusted source of info. For goodness sakes, it is entitled "USA Today"! It should be accurate!
As for me, I will trust my people in the service before I would trust such a piece of trash. Certainly I do not support the administration's bold move of waging war on a country that we have no evidence of connecting to 9/11. But I also know that we would not destroy something without helping to rebuild it... As evident in Afghanistan. And with so many conflicting reports as to what public opinion is, all we can do is speculate on how the general public feels. I guess we will have to agree to disagree

 

I agree that USA today is a rag, but if you want a place to begin your own examination of the more realistic picture of public sentiment, one that can be quickly provided online, there it is. I can hardly provide you written reports from observer missions to Iraq in an online post.

Suffice to say you are free to dismiss this piece and any contradictory picture to that which this administration would have you believe, but if you think this admin has any greater credibility at this point after numerous exposed lies and reversals over the past three years (and for some in the administration as far back as the Reagan Iran Contra scandal, for others even back to the Nixon admin and its lies and coverups) then id have to question your own intellectual honesty.

That poll by the way was, as you can see from the header of the article, jointly run by USA Today/CNN/and Gallup (the latter of the two which enjoy at least some modicum of legitimacy).

Oh and for the friggin record (i wish people would bother reading so one does not have to repeat himself ad infinitum) I AM AN AMERICAN EX-PAT, not a citizen of another country. There are over 3 million Americans residing outside the US in case you were unaware.

I suggest you do some real research and stop relying on the word of your service buddies (who, need you be reminded, are held to operational secrecy or at best a policy of providing misinformation to civilians which is standard US military practice during times of war. If you doubt this then again, go learn about OPSEC and how it is drilled into the heads of our troops.)

Afghanistan is a prime example of the utter untruth of administration PR. apart from the island which Kabul has become, Afghanistan has not progressed in any of the areas so glowingly reported by admin officials. The rest of the country remains the stronghold of the various factions (including the resurgent Taliban) none of whom have any devotion to ideals of democracy again repeatedly trumpeted by Rummy and Wolfowitz. Outside Kabul things are as they have always been and all the guns and bombs we bring to bear wont inspire them to move any closer to such societal changes.

http://www.meib.org/articles/0401_afg1.htm

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney02202004.html

http://www.afgha.com/?af=article&sid=43049

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=25774
(a host of articles contained here)