Not the News
The elite media’s coverage of Iraq is a fiasco.

By Clifford D. May

Mark Twain famously said “if you don’t read the newspapers you are uninformed — if you do read the newspapers you are misinformed.” Today, those who rely on the elite media for news of Iraq suffer from both disabilities.

Start with lack of information: The average news consumer probably has no clue that Gen. David Petreaus’ new strategy has crippled al Qaeda in Iraq, that Americans and Iraqis are now fighting side-by-side against both Sunni and Shia extremists, and that the elimination of terrorist safe havens and weapons caches has improved security for average Iraqis in parts of the country that a few months ago were snake pits.

As for misinformation, how many people still believe that guards in Guantanamo flushed Korans down the toilet, that U.S. Marines committed a massacre at Haditha, and that American soldiers ridicule women disfigured by bombs, run over puppies for sport and desecrate graves for a laugh? All of this was reported in such mainstream publications as Newsweek and The New Republic. None of it is true.

Meanwhile, the barbarous violence committed by al Qaeda and the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq is scarcely noted. For example, here’s a story you probably have neither read nor heard: On Oct. 28 in a village ten miles southwest of Baqubah, U.S. infantrymen came upon a prison run by al Qaeda. In it, according to military spokesmen, they found a hostage, bruised, battered, dehydrated, and tied to the ceiling, his arms injured because of the way they were twisted behind his back.

for the rest of this story: http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=YjlkMzA1YWY0ZGUxMmVmNmZiNGU4ZWRjOWI3NTU5MjM=

hko notes- American GI casualties are at a two year low- where is the story? Accusations against Americans are given front page coverage and then proven false. Horrendous actions from Al Qaeda are ignored. If our media was intending to mislead they could not be any more effective.

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