Author Topic: How I Lost the War in Iraq  (Read 4542 times)

Offline Seagoon

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Good news is no news.
« Reply #150 on: November 29, 2005, 04:45:58 PM »
Hi Drediock,

Quote
Originally posted by DREDIOCK
How wrong has it gone?

One of the complaints I hear the troops have is all you see on the media is what has gone wrong but not the positives that are being done and they are doing.

Not surprising. How often does the media present good news as news?


Funny, I was just thinking about exactly that point today. Our local gas prices are back down to the $2.03 level with hardly a peep from the local media. On a hunch, I did an archive search on the local paper and found that they've run roughly seven "Gas Prices Higher" stories for every "Gas prices Dip" story, and the stories about the prices going higher were further up front and got far more lineage. Exactly the same is true for stories about the economy "possibly" tanking, vs. economic reports showing improvement. The recent numbers showing a sharp increase in spending and consumer confidence also got predictably little mention.

In conversations I've had with troops who've been to Afghanistan and Iraq, they are uniformly (no pun intended) sick of the media only reporting the wicked exploits of the Jihadists. If an IED blows up, we all get to hear about it and watch the Al Jazeera provided video. Any success in rebuilding infrastructure, introducing democracy, feeding children, or even eliminating terrorists is either ignored or given hardly any commentary. One soldier even commented that he'd asked a journalist if he was going to file a report on his unit providing an Afghan village with a medical clinic, water pump, and school, for the first time ever. The reporter commented that even if he did file it, it wouldn't run, so he wasn't even going to bother. He half-jokingly said that if and when the Taliban blew the clinic up and executed the teachers, that he'd mention that his unit had helped build these things.

I can't help but wonder Is it:

A)  that we have built a media culture that thrives on death, destruction, and pain, and which sees its job as to alarm, frighten, depress, or anger the public?

B) That we have a media so politically biased, that any story that might possibly be viewed as providing assistance or support, direct or indirect to the present administration, must be spiked on principle?

C) A & B

I'm trying to remember back to the 90s, was the reporting on Kosovo and Somalia also uniformly "All the bad news we can fit in print?" I seem to remember some occasional glimmers of light, but as far as I can tell, we seem to have created a media monstrously addicted to pain, self-loathing, victimhood, defeat, darkness, and cynicism. No wonder the mainstream media circulation is declining.

- SEAGOON
SEAGOON aka Pastor Andy Webb
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion... Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." - John Adams

Offline Flit

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How I Lost the War in Iraq
« Reply #151 on: November 29, 2005, 09:45:29 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by Skuzzy
Just a comment, but I do not see how anyone could trust the media anymore than they could trust the government.

Woo Hoo We Have a Winner !
:D
The only thing that could lose this war is the media.
 And they are trying as hard as they can.

Offline Gunslinger

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How I Lost the War in Iraq
« Reply #152 on: November 29, 2005, 10:46:43 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by Flit
Woo Hoo We Have a Winner !
:D
The only thing that could lose this war is the media.
 And they are trying as hard as they can.


I don't think it's entirely the medias fault.  I had a good thread that no one posted on a few days ago with a link about how the media get's their info in Iraq and how they tend to report it.  


Basically it summs down to this.  Enemy contact and significant events in Iraq a filtered to commands in SIGACTS or significant action messages.  A SIGACT will read like this.

1 Car bomb in Mosul
30 injured
10 dead
2 US servicemen KIA

This get sent almost instantainiously all over the world through out the US military as they are happening.  Military PAO offices then convert these little blurbs into readable sentences and feed them to the media in the green zone.  Speaking of green zone that his were most of the media are.  Except for big events like elections or the slightest chance that the US military harmed a hair on some family's favoirte goat, the media doesn't venture out of the green zone and doesn't get out and see for themselves all of the progress that takes place in Iraq.  Starting up new schools or taking down 4 terrorists that lead to the capture of 16 more and a 10 ton weapons cache doesn't get reported because the reporters usually arent there and it isn't cost effective for major news organizations to send them and their support crews all over a war zone.

This guy does an excelent job of explaining it:

http://michaelyon.blogspot.com/2005/05/and-now-for-rest-of-story.html

Offline Flit

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How I Lost the War in Iraq
« Reply #153 on: November 29, 2005, 10:56:19 PM »
Yon is great(I highly recommend everyone read his blog to find out what is really going on, Gates of Fire is Pulitzer stuff), but it does'nt change the fact that the majority of media puts out mostly a very negative outlook on whats happening over there.
 We are winning this war in everyway but the media
« Last Edit: November 29, 2005, 11:03:11 PM by Flit »

Offline Gunslinger

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How I Lost the War in Iraq
« Reply #154 on: November 29, 2005, 11:53:04 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by Flit
Yon is great(I highly recommend everyone read his blog to find out what is really going on, Gates of Fire is Pulitzer stuff), but it does'nt change the fact that the majority of media puts out mostly a very negative outlook on whats happening over there.
 We are winning this war in everyway but the media


While I don't disagree with that, but yon does a great job of explaining why we only hear what we hear.  I've read about half of his blog this weekend and just the blog alone reads like a great book.  It's one thing to hear it from somone that knows a little and an entirly other to hear it from somone that "walks the line".  He doesnt suger coat it, and he definatly doesn't go into the political aspects of it wich is great.  It's definetly opened my eyes up.

Offline Flit

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How I Lost the War in Iraq
« Reply #155 on: November 30, 2005, 12:20:34 AM »
Rgr That

Offline Eagler

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his party is gonna hate him ...
« Reply #156 on: November 30, 2005, 07:20:18 AM »
Lieberman Expresses Confidence in Iraq After Thanksgiving Visit

Lieberman said he hopes President Bush's speech Tuesday night will give a clearer picture to the American public of the progress being made in the war.

"It's time for some details," said Lieberman. "He's gotta describe some of the progress that I saw there. It's gotta be realistic."
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Offline DREDIOCK

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Re: Good news is no news.
« Reply #157 on: November 30, 2005, 07:21:40 AM »
Quote
Originally posted by Seagoon
Hi Drediock,

=I can't help but wonder Is it:

A)  that we have built a media culture that thrives on death, destruction, and pain, and which sees its job as to alarm, frighten, depress, or anger the public?

B) That we have a media so politically biased, that any story that might possibly be viewed as providing assistance or support, direct or indirect to the present administration, must be spiked on principle?

C) A & B

- SEAGOON


Hiya Seagoon.

I've come to the conclusion that the media isnt in the news buisness. Its in the misery buisness.

Its no wonder why so many people are being treated for depression or anxiety disorders. Whats the new too much and youstart to think what is there to be happy about?
 Im thinking that over an extended period of time watching the news would have the same effect on some people as being told "your mother died" one day, "Your father died" the next day, and "your being fired" the day after that.
Cept instead of hearing personally to you very bad news over a short period of time. Your hearing impersonal bad news over an extended peroid of time.

Hmmmm.
Know any good lawyers?
Might make for an interesting lawsuit and news story itself.
Get whole groups of people suffering from depression and anxiety disorders and bring a lawsuit against all the major media outlets for pain and suffering and mental cuelty.

Now THAT would be news.
And certainly no less absurd then alot of the other lawsuits brought these days.

Hmmmmm
I like this idea.
I like this idea ALOT
Death is no easy answer
For those who wish to know
Ask those who have been before you
What fate the future holds
It ain't pretty

Offline Gunslinger

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How I Lost the War in Iraq
« Reply #158 on: November 30, 2005, 09:46:08 AM »
Like they say, Airplanes land every day safely at JFK......the Media only reports on the ones that don't.

Offline moot

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How I Lost the War in Iraq
« Reply #159 on: November 30, 2005, 10:20:38 AM »
You know you have no life when the news' happy coefficient is the deciding factor for your own happiness (or whatever it's called).
Hello ant
running very fast
I squish you

Offline DREDIOCK

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How I Lost the War in Iraq
« Reply #160 on: November 30, 2005, 08:44:38 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by Gunslinger
Like they say, Airplanes land every day safely at JFK......the Media only reports on the ones that don't.


true but that would be because airpane crashes are not part of the every day norm.

As I mentioned before this like gas prices dropping like a stone by in some cases more then a third should have drawn a hell of alot more attention then they have. or at least as much attention as they grabbed going up.

Communities and states continuing to rally to still help provide releif efforts to katrina victims should be grabbing some news in light of how the news covered the debacle over how it was handled during and in the immediate aftermath.

And schools being built, and systems being restored in areas that untill very recently were battlefeilds in the truest sence of the word should grab some news. Hell as far as Im concered that IS news
Death is no easy answer
For those who wish to know
Ask those who have been before you
What fate the future holds
It ain't pretty

Offline Gunslinger

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How I Lost the War in Iraq
« Reply #161 on: November 30, 2005, 08:55:43 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by DREDIOCK
true but that would be because airpane crashes are not part of the every day norm.

As I mentioned before this like gas prices dropping like a stone by in some cases more then a third should have drawn a hell of alot more attention then they have. or at least as much attention as they grabbed going up.

Communities and states continuing to rally to still help provide releif efforts to katrina victims should be grabbing some news in light of how the news covered the debacle over how it was handled during and in the immediate aftermath.

And schools being built, and systems being restored in areas that untill very recently were battlefeilds in the truest sence of the word should grab some news. Hell as far as Im concered that IS news


Like I said earlier, I've been reading Michael Yon's blog as of late and he does a great job of explaining.  The Main Stream Media (MSM) is not out in force in the fields of Iraq.  It is not really cost efficient for them to do so  They sit in the Green Zone and feed off of what the military PAO and what ever scandel might rock the world at that second.  They usually only go out in the field for major events like elections.  It's really sad.  Yon did a whole series of posts from northern Iraq and it made that half of the country sound like anywere else.  No terrorists, no car bombs, nothing.  He even shopped around a city for an entire day without security, just an interpreter.  I'm not saying there's no bias in the media when it comes to Iraq, I firmly beleive there's alot of journalists out there that think "how can I spin this to hurt Bush" before they write their stories.  I just don't think they are interested in the lable of a "fox type news" or being "Right minded" if they report out of the norm on anything good in Iraq.

Offline DREDIOCK

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How I Lost the War in Iraq
« Reply #162 on: November 30, 2005, 08:58:06 PM »
On another note. Was talking to a friend of the family who has a brother over in Iraq now and she asked him flat out how he felt about being over there.
Now I've met this guy but cant really say I "know" him.
Meaning I know him to see him and for us to say hello but he isnt ayone I know well enough to call friend or say we've hung out other then breifly at some gatherings

His responce I found rather interesting. I found it interesting because it came from a woman whom I personally know who is against the war
But she told it liek he told her. it wasnt presented or slanted or spun by any news media

He said he doesnt like being over there. nor does he particularly want to be over there. BUT that is the job he signed up for and as such thats what he is going ot do.
And after being over there he feels we should be over there and are doing the right thing by being over there.
in closing he said and I quote "You go over there and look at the faces of these people and THEN try to say we shouldnt be there".

What I found intereting was the complexity of his statement.
It is one that makes perfect sence to me but I'd be willing ot bet that if the media took this statemtn it would probably read somethign like
"Soldier states he doesnt want to be in Iraq"

And while that may technically be accurate it hardly would tell the whole story
Death is no easy answer
For those who wish to know
Ask those who have been before you
What fate the future holds
It ain't pretty

Offline DREDIOCK

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How I Lost the War in Iraq
« Reply #163 on: November 30, 2005, 09:00:05 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by Gunslinger
Like I said earlier, I've been reading Michael Yon's blog as of late .


Read your post on it earlier and breifly checked the site out.
I have it bookmarked and want to check it out farther.
Looked very interesting
Death is no easy answer
For those who wish to know
Ask those who have been before you
What fate the future holds
It ain't pretty

Offline Gunslinger

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How I Lost the War in Iraq
« Reply #164 on: November 30, 2005, 09:12:03 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by DREDIOCK
Read your post on it earlier and breifly checked the site out.
I have it bookmarked and want to check it out farther.
Looked very interesting


read the first post (the very bottom one) to the last.  It is EXCELLENT!