Drip Drip Drip

It seems like everyday something bad happened in Iraq and made the front page. I never see good news, at least not as a headline. Last week some prominent Sunnis indicated that they want to stop fighting and join the government. That was a major story on MSNBC for about an hour then it was removed and appended at the end of a story about the most recent bombing.

I know that several operations have been conducted against insurgents but none of them has been covered since the original one a year ago. Here are accounts of a few recent operations.

The road to the Bagdad airport is finally safe. It made the news constantly when it was dangerous but no one has bothered to report that it is now safe. It gets mentioned in passing. This gem is in the middle of a Fareed Zakaria piece about Iraq in general:

To understand the change, look at the airport road to Baghdad. For two years, when reporters would ask how it was possible that the mightiest military in history could not secure a five-kilometer stretch of road, the military responded with long, jargon-filled lectures on the inherent weakness of long supply lines and the complex nature of Baghdad's urban topography. Then one day this summer the military was ordered to secure the road and use more troops if necessary. Presto. Using Iraqi forces, the road was secured. Similar strategies have made cities like Najaf, Mosul, Tall Afar and even Fallujah much safer today than they were a year ago.

No wonder public opinion keeps turning against the war.

I don't think that the MSM is specifically trying to turn the nation against the war. I think that they are trying to be fair in a very warped way.

When the war first began everyone had embedded reporters who fed back enthusiastic stories about their experiences with the military. Then came the backlash. The stories were true but they were not the whole story. Critics of the war complained that stories of military success do not address larger questions about the validity of the war.

So the reporting we are seeing now is a reaction to that critisism. The MSM does not want to be seen as cheering for the Bush administration so positive stories are ignored or buried at the end of negative stories. Every death, be it American or Iraqi, is front page news.

It is a constant drip of one bad thing after another. With no good news, the idea of a quagmire seems more and more likely.

Other reporting is being slanted. When I heard the first reports about Murtha's call to cut and run I was given the impression that he had been for the war and had switched position. In fact, he was never for the war. His miltary history and general conservative voting pattern was given but his positions on the war were glossed over. In fact, he was always against it. The only new part was his call to bring the troops home immediately.

Strangely, Bush's plan all along has been to build a stable, democratic government in Iraq and to bring home American troops as Iraqis can replace them. Suddenly this is being seen as a compromise.

A little honest reporting would be nice.