« Friday's | Main | Weekend »

June 10, 2006

Confused Americans for Truth - Blind Spots in the Analysis of the Post-Zarqawi Era

by Ferdinand T Cat

I have noticed that the news analysis of Zarqawi's death seems to be decidedly ambiguous. A typical article is this one-- Zarqawi's many roles in the Iraqi tragedy suggest his demise may have side effects that are very difficult to predict. This is very different from the news analysis of Haditha-- How the Haditha killings could haunt the GOP in the midterm elections.

I appreciate that journalists need to be careful in the Information Age, because your predictions remain visible long after they cease to be a remote possibility. If they had been as careful about predicting the 2004 election as they are about predicting the consequences of Zarqawi's death, maybe we wouldn't have so many people stuck on the idea that the 2004 election was stolen.

The interesting thing is that Iraqi civilians were much less ambiguous in their reaction to the news of Zarqawi's death. This is probably because Zarqawi spent a lot of his time killing Iraqis. It is this latter fact that has caused some reporters to express hope that Zarqawi's successor will be a nicer sort of terrorist that only hits military targets.

It bothers me a little bit that we have journalists trying to figure out what would be best for the terrorists and not what would be best for the people of Iraq. Although Iraq is still considered a war zone, the fact is that the U.S. military has been hard at work restoring Iraq and rebuilding its infrastructure. If we're going to ask for a new direction by the terrorists, then it seems to me the best choice would be to have them go out and help build the schools and irrigate the farms. The sooner these projects get completed, the sooner the infidels will be able to go home. Plus, a new school is much less likely to kill innocent civilians than an improvised explosive device.

Part of the problem may be that journalists only cover the fighting, not the building. It's easier to remain balanced when talking about fighting because it's all about winning and losing. When you're building, you only have winners, and if the building is being supervised by the United States military, you run a very real risk of looking like some sort of shill for the Bush administration instead of a tough, independent journalist.

I understand that problem. But I think the journalists need to recognize that this cuts both ways. If they keep this up, there's an even bigger risk they'll look like shills for the terrorists.

Respectfully submitted,

Ferdinand T. Cat


# At Sat 2:40 AM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (0) | More Confused Americans for Truth | Tags:

Trackback Pings

» SEPARATION OF PERVERSION & NORMALCY from Freedom Watch
Cannibalism was a norm in some societies hundreds and thousands of years ago, and still today in some remote parts of Africa. But just because the minority engaged in cannibalism that does not nor did it ever make it right--morally or socially. Canni... [Read More]

Tracked on June 10, 2006 2:21 PM

» Last Laughs (Special Zarqawi Edition) from The Bullwinkle Blog
The news of Al Zarqawi’s death has really brought out the best in the blogosphere, so we’re celebrating the creativity that has been displayed on this special occasion. As always, videos first, starting with the Zarqawi-related ones: Hot Ai... [Read More]

Tracked on June 11, 2006 3:03 PM

» Murtha's Audience reduced by FBI from Planck's Constant
The traitorous coward and defeatist appeaser Murtha says U.S. poses top threat to world peace. I suppose if we had not gone to Iraq then Israel and Hamas would have signed a peace accord by now, al Qaeda would have peacefully disbanded without Iraq's... [Read More]

Tracked on June 26, 2006 1:47 PM

Comments

HTML is not allowed in comments; however, if you put in a raw URL (http://www.somewhere.com/page.html) it will automatically be converted to a link.. Also, it is likely your comment will not appear unless you refresh the page manually after posting it.

Post a comment