Does the Media Want the U.S. to WIN?

The American news media was all in a lather last week with the news that the U.S. military had PAID for positive stories to be printed in Iraqi newspapers. But you may well ask what is the big deal? After all, about the only way we could get positive stories about Iraq printed in American newspapers is if we PAID to run them as advertisements!

Day after day after day we're treated to endless stories about how badly things are going in Iraq. The sad news that Americans were killed in one of the four predominately Sunni provinces gets on the front page. We might be lucky to find one small story tucked in the back about the progress being made in the vast majority of Iraq's provinces where no attacks occur.

CongressmanJack Murtha (D-PA) also grabs the front page when he suggests an immediate withdrawal and that our military is "broken, worn out." Murtha is a veteran we are told, so we must not criticize him. But what about the troops who are actually over in Iraq, doing the fighting and the dying? If anyone has earned the right to be heard, it should be their voice. Sure, we get the interview from General so and so from time to time, but unless you read the military blogs, you're not likely to know what the guys and gals on the ground are thinking.

Murtha also said that 80% of Iraqis wanted the U.S. outta their and double pronto! A shocking statistic, widely reported, but backed up by what? Did the same media who reported that bombshell also run the comments of Senator Joe Lieberman who, unlike Murtha, had recently returned from Iraq and announced just the opposite?

Last year the media spent weeks and weeks running scream stories about the horror of Abu Ghraib under American leadership. How many stories did they run about the real horror of Abu Ghraib when Saddam was in charge? Running photos of prisoners in a fraternity style prank seems more important than Saddam's prisoners killed in acid baths, or fed feet first into wood chippers.

And how many stories did we see about the uncovering of mass graves in Iraq? Upwards of 400,000 sets of remains have been unearthed in this nightmare that makes the Asian Tsunami from last year look like a pool party gone bad. Where are the front page stories on that holocaust? Yet,we have seen plenty of stories about protestors with crosses bemoaning the loss of life in Iraq after the American invasion.

Whose Side is the Media On?

In the World War II the news media could be counted on to boost the morale of the public and our troops. They were no rubber stamp for the nation's elected leadership, but you certainly knew whose side they are on.

Ever since Vietnam, that distinction has become less clear.

Rush Limbaugh reminded his listeners last week just how much things have changed. Shortly after the September 11th attacks, a cadre of media types refused to wear American flag lapel pins. They didn't want to "choose sides."

It goes deeper than that of course. Eason Jordan was CNN's chief news executive until he admitted here that CNN had deliberately not reported the bad news about Saddam's regime, even the fact that their own Iraqi cameraman was abducted (you mean that happened before we invaded) and tortured with electric shock (WHAT?).

What did CNN report? Five months before the 2003 American invasion of Iraq, CNN ran Nic Roberts report that Iraqis were in a "festive mood" during the election referendum on Saddam Hussein's leadership. You may remember that "vote" where 100% cast their ballots in favor of Saddam remaining as President. Even Jimmy Carter might have found that "democratic election" hard to swallow.

Here's a highlight from Roberts Report:

Iraqi reverence for President Saddam Hussein is rarely more expressive than when their leader calls a referendum. To paint for the president for this special day is important, explains artist Abdul. It shows our love to him. Amid even bolder demonstrations of devotion to the Iraqi leader, students at Baghdad's fine arts school, too young to vote in the last referendum in 1995, appear eager now. It is my time to challenge the United States' threats against Iraq, says Samir. So I will say yes, yes, yes to President Saddam Hussein.

Yes, yes, yes, the catch phrase on referendum posters throughout the city. This vote, it seems, timed to send a message of Iraqi solidarity to the United States.

So CNN deliberately covered up the bad news about Hussein and sugar coated the rest. Eason Jordan was fired for participating in that fraud, but has the behavior of CNN, or any of the rest of the lamestream media been any different?

Imagine how much quicker this war would be over, how many more lives of our troops and innocent civilians would be saved if we had a news media that supported the troops AND their mission?