Wednesday, October 01, 2003

Why so much bad press from Iraq?

I'll let someone who was actually there explain it. As usual, eyes on the ground are better than the talking heads back home.

"If we hadn't been to Iraq, we'd be really depressed right now. I came back, saw the news and thought, `Are they talking about the same Iraq?'" Is this, I wonder, because the media can only deal with Arabs as victims or terrorists? The IPO members don't think so. Rather, Yasser says, there are several reasons why the reporting from Iraq is stressing the negative over the positive. "First, buildings being bombed is a much better story than the formation of the Baghdad city council to clear up the rubbish and sort out the sewers. Angry Iraqis make a better story than hopeful Iraqis."

"Second, a lot of the media was openly anti-war, so now that there are hundreds of thousands of mass graves being opened up and all the evidence shows that the Iraqis supported [the war], the media are latching on to the few things, like the looting and, of course, the weapons issue - that was always a red herring - that seem to vindicate their position. And third - I know this sounds like a petty point, but it's very important - a lot of journalists are using the same guides and translators that they used before the war, because they know them. They don't seem to realise that those people were carefully selected by the regime because of their loyalty to Saddam's line. So most journalists are getting a totally distorted picture."


Yet another article that needs to be read, found through USS Clueless. Also found through USS Clueless is this site, featuring a question I have wanted to scream for a while now, but couldn't find the words.

While these people talk out of one side of their mouths about how important the UN is, they ignore the fact that this particular tyrant, unlike the others they seem to be so much more concerned about, had accrued seventeen UN Security Council resolutions against himself in the last twelve years, with UNSC Resolution 1441 giving Iraq "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations under relevant resolutions of the Council". If the UN is so important to these people, its words and judgements so sacred and lofty, why don't they think those judgements should be enforced? Why does the fact that Iraq failed to "cooperate immediately, unconditionally, and actively" with UNSC Resolution 1441, as said resolution demanded, not matter to these people?

Indeed! Which is it, Lefties? Is the UN important enough to enforce it's own resolutions, or does the UN carry so little weight that it's resolutions can and should be discarded and/or ignored?

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