New York Times Does Not Care if Iraqis Tortured

Unless they are terrorists trying to kill people. Then they care.

The print edition of the New York Times has long carried the phrase "All the news that's fit to print" in the upper left corner.

That became a joke a long time ago. More like: "All the news that's fit to bash Bush and enable defeat."

Case in point?

When the news broke late last week that U.S. forces in Iraq had freed 42 captives, including a 14 year old boy, from an Al Queda prison where many were tortured using the gruesome methods described in the captured Al Queda torture manual many newspapers around the country ran the story.

A simple search on the headline "U.S. frees 42 Iraqi captives in raid" links to just about every major news organization. But not the New York Times.

The Times did report the story, buried deep within one of their daily reports about the ongoing bad news in Iraq.

Editors at the New York Times apparently did not think it newsworthy to run the story and the descriptions of Al Queda torturing their prisoners, some for as many as four months, in a more prominent position.

When the story was American abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq the New York Times ran front page stories 43 out of 47 days in a row. Here's a compilation of some of the hysterical headlines that the NY Times ran day after day after day when the story broke.

Bloggers like Indigo Red have pointed out the comparative dissonance between REAL torture which our enemies routinely use without remorse and the frat pranks at Abu Ghraib.

What's worse?
This?



Or this?



The Smoking Gun has the full report on Al Queda torture methods. None of these are used by U.S. forces in Iraq.

You would think that a "news"paper so concerned with human rights of terrorists that they would run story after story about the abuses at Abu Ghraib would want to expose the outright evil being committed by our enemy. But not the New York Times.

The question is why?

The answer is simple. The prevailing attitude at the New York Times, as it is with many Democrats, is that only bad news should be reported from Iraq. Outside of that, there is no reality. That's why you don't see many stories about heroic American actions saving the lives of our soldiers and innocent Iraqis. That's why you don't see more stories about the good work we are doing in Iraq.

And if you think I am making an assertion without a foundation consider this. David Carr, writing in the New York Times on the importance of publishing photographs of dead and wounded American soldiers cites the goal of James Glanz, a Baghdad correspondent who will become bureau chief for The New York Times next month:

"This tiny remaining corps of reporters becomes a greater and greater problem for the military brass because we are the only people preventing them from telling the story the way they want it told."

Apparently, gruesome images of dying and wounded Americans is "news." Iraqis rescued from REAL torture is not.

And just how are the American people supposed to understand our progress in this war when the "news" media charged with the important responsibility of reporting what is happening is deliberately preventing any telling of the facts that contradicts the defeatist party line that the New York Times and Democrats insist is the only valid reality?