Political Crossfire Forums

[Chingu]

Wouldn't it be nice if the media were actually doing it's job in Iraq and elsewhere?

We see article after article from all manner of media that gives us glimps's and snapshots of the most sensational violence in and around Baghdad. I'd post a few through links - but we all see them every day in our papers, on the network news, on the cable channels and from AP and Rueters etc.

Wouldn't it be nice if there were a "State of Iraq" regular weekly report coming from the troops of journalists over there?

They could - if they were serious about reporting the news accurately, report on the state of affairs across the IRaqi nation rather than focusing entirely on IED's and Secular violence.

The following is an example of what I am talking about.

"Iraq, this week saw more violence in Sad'r City where shiite and Sunni militias were responsible for seven car bombs, two roadside IED blasts and three suicide bombings that took the lives of over two hundred Iraqis.

No American troops were reported killed in the weeks violent incidents.

Ten bodies were found in a sandy field outside Baghdad. They were the victems of assassination all found with single or double bullet wounds to the backs of their heads. Shiite militia loyal to Al Sadr are thought to be responsible.

Iraqi Police in Fallujah report that they have captured three Sunni radicals who they have charged with building improvised explosive devices.

In Takrit, Iraqi military units accompanied by a US Marine Contingent engaged a pocket of Al Qeada terrorists. A firefight erupted and twelve Al Qeada were killed, three captures. One Iraq Army Sargent was wounded. No Americans were wounded or killed in th brief skirmish.

Iraqi intelligence uncovered a weapons cache complete with a bomb building one room factory in a remote village in teh anbar province. The small deserted building had been in recent use. Apparently, the operators of the facility evacuated before the Iraqi military units moved in.

In Northern Baghdad, Iraq, seven new middle schools were completed in the ongoing reconstruction efforts. Iraqi Security forces were stationed in a perimeter to ward off possible sabotuers or Al Qeada who have been responsible for earlier killings in the area.

In Southern Iraq, children, ages five through seventeen are now going to school on a regular schedule in greater numbers than they had prior to the war in Iraq. There was no reported violence in the Iraqi region South from Baghdad to the borders.

The Kurdish region of Iraq continues to flourish without violence.

The ministry of Oil said wednesday that output from the recently reconstructed northern Tikriti oil fields has been ramped up to the highest level in over twenty years and that Security forces have encountered no threats from Al Qeada or other Saboturs as they had at other reconstructed and operation oil facilities in the north central region of Iraq known as teh Sunni Triangle."

And so forth and so on.

Wouldn't that be nice?

[Richard Owl Mirror]

Wouldn't it be nice if the media were actually able to leave the Green Zone without benefit of a military escort?

Wouldn't it be nice if the media were actually able to walk freely anywhere in Iraq without fear of being killed ?

Wouldn't it be nice if the media were actually able to go to these reconstruction sites you speak of?
One would think if that were possible, the US Military would provide them with the opportunity.

Wouldn't it be nice ?

Unfortunately, the media inside Iraq needs to be embedded with military personnel going out on patrol.
And so forth and so on...

[Charlie Man]

Do you think embedding is useful in getting the word out about what's actually happening in Iraq, chingu? I do.

Do you think that what's actually happening in Iraq would be proving or disproving current whitehouse doctrine? Well, people apparently think that they'd rather NOT have embedded reporters. For some sort of ulterior motive that I'd have to say does not make me think that the media is overly pessimistic.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003254981

It's not entirely the media's fault if there are problems with the news coming out of Iraq. I mean, it certainly would be nice if the news read "No car bombs exploded in Baghdad today. Nobody was hurt." But if that's not true, well...

[Omega1]

Quote: They could - if they were serious about reporting the news accurately, report on the state of affairs across the IRaqi nation rather than focusing entirely on IED's and Secular violence.

I already showed you some links. It isn't the picture you paint.

Quote: The report says worsening security and increasing poverty has caused "unparalleled" population movement. It estimates 100,000 people leave Iraq every month and more than 2 million people, about 8 percent of the population, have fled their homes since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The monthly emigration is equivalent to a million Americans going abroad and a loss to the U.S. economy of a city the size of Detroit every four weeks. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/COL231696.htm

Quote: The [Iraq] nation's health has deteriorated to a level not seen since the 1950s, said Joseph Chamie, former director of the U.N. Population Division and an Iraq specialist. "They were at the forefront", he said, referring to healthcare just before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. "Now they're looking more and more like a country in sub-Saharan Africa."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-health11nov11,1,7515074.story?coll=la-headlines-world&ctrack=1&cset=true

Quote: LONDON - Military victory is no longer possible in
Iraq, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in a television interview broadcast Sunday.

Kissinger presented a bleak vision of Iraq, saying the U.S. government must enter into dialogue with Iraq's regional neighbors — including
Iran — if progress is to be made in the region.

"If you mean by 'military victory' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible," he told the British Broadcasting Corp.

But Kissinger, an architect of the Vietnam war who has advised
President Bush about Iraq, warned against a rapid withdrawal of coalition troops, saying it could destabilize Iraq's neighbors and cause a long-lasting conflict.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061120/ap_on_re_mi_ea/britain_iraq_kissin ger_7

Quote: Perle goes so far as to say that, if he had his time over, he would not have advocated an invasion of Iraq: "I think if I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, 'Should we go into Iraq?,' I think now I probably would have said, 'No, let's consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.' … I don't say that because I no longer believe that Saddam had the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction, or that he was not in contact with terrorists. I believe those two premises were both correct. Could we have managed that threat by means other than a direct military intervention? Well, maybe we could have."
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/12/neocons200612

Quote: "The conventional wisdom is the U.S. mistake in Iraq was not enough troops," said Thomas Blanton, the archive's director. "But the Desert Crossing war game in 1999 suggests we would have ended up with a failed state even with 400,000 troops on the ground."
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/11/04/war.games.ap/index.html

Quote: A FRESH attempt by President Bush to redefine success in Iraq was undermined within hours by the American military and Iraqi officials.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-2413011,00.html#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=World

[Lumina]

Richard Owl Mirror wrote: Wouldn't it be nice if the media were actually able to leave the Green Zone without benefit of a military escort?

Wouldn't it be nice if the media were actually able to walk freely anywhere in Iraq without fear of being killed ?

Journalists themselves being in mortal danger to get the story is part of war coverage. They're covering a war. Bullets, mortars, bombs, dead bodies...you know, just like in the movies, but smellier and scarier.

[quote="Richard Owl Mirror"]Wouldn't it be nice if the media were actually able to go to these reconstruction sites you speak of?
One would think if that were possible, the US Military would provide them with the opportunity.

Wouldn't it be nice ?

So you think that the the U.S. military should focus on p.r. tours?

Richard Owl Mirror wrote: Unfortunately, the media inside Iraq needs to be embedded with military personnel going out on patrol.
And so forth and so on...

The term "embedded" may be new, but the concept is not. Ever heard of Ernie Pyle, who was killed by a Japanese machine-gunner during WWII?

http://ehistory.osu.edu/world/articles/ArticleView.cfm?AID=3

http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=27695

[/b]

[Ozzone]

Richard Owl Mirror wrote: Wouldn't it be nice if the media were actually able to leave the Green Zone without benefit of a military escort?

Wouldn't it be nice if the media were actually able to walk freely anywhere in Iraq without fear of being killed ?

Wouldn't it be nice if the media were actually able to go to these reconstruction sites you speak of?
One would think if that were possible, the US Military would provide them with the opportunity.

Wouldn't it be nice ?

Unfortunately, the media inside Iraq needs to be embedded with military personnel going out on patrol.
And so forth and so on...

Wouldn't it be nice if the factions in Iraq would stop fighting each other and killing/wounding the media that wants to get in the middle?

[Revenant]

Ozzone wrote: Richard Owl Mirror wrote: Wouldn't it be nice if the media were actually able to leave the Green Zone without benefit of a military escort?

Wouldn't it be nice if the media were actually able to walk freely anywhere in Iraq without fear of being killed ?

Wouldn't it be nice if the media were actually able to go to these reconstruction sites you speak of?
One would think if that were possible, the US Military would provide them with the opportunity.

Wouldn't it be nice ?

Unfortunately, the media inside Iraq needs to be embedded with military personnel going out on patrol.
And so forth and so on...

Wouldn't it be nice if the factions in Iraq would stop fighting each other and killing/wounding the media that wants to get in the middle?

Agreed.

[thefranzkafkafront]

Whats its job exaclty?

[Revenant]

thefranzkafkafront wrote: Whats its job exaclty?

Make money.

[sLiPpY]

Well if you hadn't noticed Chingu, the streets are currently clear of all traffic in Bagdhad. People are busy hiding in their homes, so perhaps you do have a point in that it might be a good opportunity to find folks to interview as CNN had this weekend.

The latest reports from Akmhed Iraq? What's on their minds?

They're tired of the local secretarian politics instigating violence, they're tired of the organized militias that are available to players within the current Iraqi government.

They readily point out that this is a new problem, something they didn't have to contend with under Saddam.

They also like to point out that even though the streets are clear and there's a curfew, the violence and the killing hasn't stopped. It's just moved off the streets and into more private settings.

It's so unsafe there that President Bush chose to meet the Iraqi Prime Minister in Jordan vs. flying into Bagdhad.

If Bushius isn't willing to risk his neck flying in, exactly how inaccurate do you believe the current reporting is?

Did you notice that after the November election, the reporting got to be more "realistic" vs. contrived. aka The reports are now less encumbered with propaganda.

[mr.snruB]

...if we were older?
Then we wouldn't have
to wait so long!

[Dookiestix]

Wouldn't it be nice to just cut the "good news" bullsh!t and figure out how we're gonna get our troops home?

It's gonna be hard to enjoy the fruits of all that "reconstruction" good news when Baghdad is currently under a curfew because the slaughtering has gotten so much worse.

[gavnook]

Revenant wrote: Ozzone wrote: Wouldn't it be nice if the factions in Iraq would stop fighting each other and killing/wounding the media that wants to get in the middle?

Agreed.

You two are disgusting.

[Chymical]

Some of us can take reality

So no, it wouldn't be nice. Thanks though.

[Revenant]

gavnook wrote: Revenant wrote: Ozzone wrote: Wouldn't it be nice if the factions in Iraq would stop fighting each other and killing/wounding the media that wants to get in the middle?

Agreed.

You two are disgusting.

So you like the fact that reporters/Iraqis are dying or no?

[gavnook]

Revenant wrote: gavnook wrote: Revenant wrote: Ozzone wrote: Wouldn't it be nice if the factions in Iraq would stop fighting each other and killing/wounding the media that wants to get in the middle?

Agreed.

You two are disgusting.

So you like the fact that reporters/Iraqis are dying or no?

No. Perhaps I misunderstood.

[mr.snruB]

gavnook wrote: Revenant wrote: Ozzone wrote: Wouldn't it be nice if the factions in Iraq would stop fighting each other and killing/wounding the media that wants to get in the middle?

Agreed.

You two are disgusting.

Ohhh, I don't know. I wouldn't mind seeing some FoxNews journalists get a real taste of the "progress" being made in Iraq

[Revenant]

gavnook wrote: Revenant wrote: gavnook wrote: Revenant wrote: Ozzone wrote: Wouldn't it be nice if the factions in Iraq would stop fighting each other and killing/wounding the media that wants to get in the middle?

Agreed.

You two are disgusting.

So you like the fact that reporters/Iraqis are dying or no?

No. Perhaps I misunderstood.

It is slightly confusing. To be honest I can't say I agree with the post in its entirety. However it is lamentable that two major Iraqi factions are killing each other and reporters whose job it is to enter the fray and get info. Suffice it to say I agreed with most of the post.

[Chymical]

Revenant wrote: gavnook wrote: Revenant wrote: Ozzone wrote: Wouldn't it be nice if the factions in Iraq would stop fighting each other and killing/wounding the media that wants to get in the middle?

Agreed.

You two are disgusting.

So you like the fact that reporters/Iraqis are dying or no?

they are dying cause when they go independant, bad things happen, I wonder why!

Embedded reporting is a joke, this thread is a joke, Iraq is a joke, a tragic bloody mess. Talking about the media and how to regulate or 'focus' it's reportage is blatent Neo-con rubbish that no serious conservative would enter into. There are a million better things to discuss, like my tasty tasty toe-jam for instance. :shock:

[Revenant]

Chymical wrote: Revenant wrote: gavnook wrote: Revenant wrote: Ozzone wrote: Wouldn't it be nice if the factions in Iraq would stop fighting each other and killing/wounding the media that wants to get in the middle?

Agreed.

You two are disgusting.

So you like the fact that reporters/Iraqis are dying or no?

they are dying cause when they go independant, bad things happen, I wonder why!

Embedded reporting is a joke, this thread is a joke, Iraq is a joke, a tragic bloody mess. Talking about the media and how to regulate or 'focus' it's reportage is blatent Neo-con rubbish that no serious conservative would enter into. There are a million better things to discuss, like my tasty tasty toe-jam for instance. :shock:

They are dying because they are in an unstable nation trying to get footage for the people back home.