The Negative Press

The liberal news media is still up to its old antics.

Remember how Donald Rumsfeld & company used to complain about how the press was only reporting one side of the story in Iraq? How it concentrated only on the negative and ignored the positive, feel good stories that were so deserving of our attention? How we never heard nearly enough about all the schools and hospitals being rebuilt?

Well, they're still at it.

It seems the press just insists in wallowing in a pit of negativism. Consider the current litany of despair coming out of Iraq. We've lately heard about how the insurgency is stronger and more sophisticated than ever. How the top Egyptian diplomat in Iraq was kidnapped and executed. How the top Algerian diplomat and an associate were kidnapped. How Sunnis helping to draft the Iraqi constitution were gunned down in a Baghdad street. How, because of the war, the U.S. Army isn't going to meet its recruiting goals.

And enough, already, with stories about how more than two years after "mission accomplished" the electrical power in Baghdad is only on for a few hours per day. What do they expect--perfection? And do we really need to hear about Baghdad's municipal water service being knocked out for several days?

And what is it, exactly, with all these bomb stories? You'd think there was nothing else to report. All we hear is how scores of Iraqis are being killed and maimed on a daily basis. A week ago it was ten suicide bombings in a single day, followed by a bomber south of Baghdad that killed 70 and injured 156. Do we really need all this gratuitous repetition?

If the stinking liberal press wants to lose this war for us, that's its business. But I'm getting pretty sick and tired of it. I say it's way past time to report something positive. And if they can't find anything positive to report, then they should make something up.

Copyright (C) 2005 James Michael Brennan, All Rights Reserved

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If you don't "get" this piece, apparently you are not alone. On September 17, I posted this clarification.

Incredible Carnage

Reports vary, but yesterday between six and ten suicide bombings occurred in Baghdad, Iraq. Dozens were killed; scores more were injured. The pace of bombings in Iraq has been ratcheting ever upward, culminating--so far--in Friday's incredible carnage.

On PBS's Washington Week program, ABC's Martha Raddatz pointed out that between 1980 and 2003 there were 315 suicide bombings worldwide. In the last year and a half, there have been 500 suicide bombings in Iraq alone. Raddatz also said that 800 Iraqis, including Iraqi police, are being killed each month.

We can only conclude that George W. Bush is right: Iraq is the central front in the war on terrorism. Bush has made it so. Bush's incursion has taken Iraq from being a country with minimal terrorist activity under Saddam Hussein to one of the most violent places on the planet today. As always, the Iraqi people are the principal victims.

By far most--perhaps all--of the suicide bombers are foreigners, who stream into Iraq in large numbers. The naive and simple minded view this as a good thing: "we" get to fight the terrorists "over there" instead of on American soil. Iraq is thus a messy but necessary killing field where America occupies and destroys the Islamic jihadists.

It is hard to fathom how any intelligent person could take this notion seriously. The supply of potential suicide bombers is essentially unlimited. Radical, militant Islam grows in size and scope with each affront. America's invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq has been one of the largest affronts imaginable, causing the worldwide metastasization of the Islamic terrorism cancer. Many, though certainly not all, analysts view the recent subway bombings in London as a direct consequence of the war. America's turn will also come.

At the inception of the war, common sense suggested, and terrorism experts predicted, that the invasion of Iraq would be a recruiting boon for al Qaeda, its friends, and its sympathizers. Can we view the Iraq suicide bombings as other than a spectacular confirmation of this prediction?

Copyright (C) 2005 James Michael Brennan, All Rights Reserved