Things you’ll never hear watching MSM…..
Apologies, dear readers. Due to a vacation and some minor side-adventures in America, your columnist has been AWOL from Strangeland.net ; I am happy to report back to duty, and will procede with haste to inflame as many tempers as possible. Today: The Monthly Topic: Iraq
Turn on your television and listen to the news, particularly that coming out of Iraq. 2,000th US fatality. Six police die in Baghdad bombing. George Bush pillaged a villiage and fed Dick Cheney a baby.
The MSM is obsessed with Iraq. Ten minutes cannot pass without the haphazard useage of terms like quagmire or stalemate, and an obligatory Vietnam reference. Yet, to watch the MSM, one would think that Iraq has regressed from its formerly idyllic state under the Ba’athist regieme of Saddam Huessein.
Tens of millions of Iraqis at the polls merit a day– or perhaps two of media coverage, half of which must be spent questioning the transparency and legitimacy of the ballot process. Ten suicide bombers yield a week of news.
We don’t hear about the restoration projects of the southern Iraqi marshlands from the environmentalist Left; we don’t hear about Iraqis casting dissenting votes for the first time in 30 years. We don’t hear about the rebuilding of schools, the liberation of the economy from Ba’athist cronyism, the return of the open air markets, the reform of Iraqi prisons, the systematic invocation of something unprecidented in Iraqi history– the right to trial. No, we don’t hear these things, for they would be dissonant to the message the Left wants to present on Iraq. Talk to Americans returning from Iraq. Talk to those who are going there for a second or third time. Their message is the one that we should listen to, and it is one of optimism.
On a bright note, during my 24 Hour unforseen detour in Atlanta-Hartsfield airport, I was fortunate enough to meet a large group [company-sized, I believe], in the International Terminal lobby/reception area, American soldiers returning from Germany following the successful completion of a tour of duty in Iraq. The spontaneous applause of those within the terminal was one of the happier things I have experienced in some time.