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“All Quiet On The Baghdad Front”

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Here’s a great dispatch in today’s Weekly Standard from Michael Yon, an embedded blogger/journalist in Iraq. Michael contrasts and compares the Iraqi elections in January and October.

All Quiet On The Baghdad Front – Weekly Standard

I WAS IN BAQUBA during Iraq’s January elections, having hitched a ride with the U.S. Army to a polling site. There were bombs exploding, mortars falling, and hot machine guns. The fact that the voting was going great despite the violence was something few people expected. Until that day, I’d been skeptical about Iraq.

The courage of the Iraqi people that January day planted a seed of confidence. These were not timid or cowering souls. There I was: an American alone in a dangerous Iraqi city, at the very polling site that soldiers were wagering would be bombed. One after another, Iraqis came and shook my hand, showing me their children, laughing, smiling, saying over and over, Thank you, thank you, thank you. I felt like an honored guest, and I felt a twinge of shame that I’d been less confident in the Iraqis than they were in themselves. The voice of the Iraqi people had risen above the clamor of insurgent violence.

Michael was on full “tour mode” on Referendum Day last week as well.

On the eve of the election, I wanted to be fully prepared for combat in the morning. Once we started out, we’d have no idea how long we might be away, so I headed as quickly as possible to my room, showered, and managed to fall asleep. While I slept, terrorists knocked out electricity to most of Baghdad. Iraqis pulled out their lanterns.

I walked through the morning darkness to meet the soldiers, who were laughing at the terrorists: Don’t those dumbasses know that the voting will happen during the daytime? When it comes to winning hearts and minds, cutting off the electricity didn’t win any support. I have been saying it for many months: The terrorists are losing. But today was litmus-day.

There had actually been somewhere between 300 and 350 total attacks on the January election day. And the army would later say that there were 89 total attacks during the voting last week. Who knows? I know that it was quiet from my perch, and that the guns had been silenced long enough that we could hear the Iraqi voice speak for a second time. The voice was louder, stronger, and prouder than it had been in January.

My biggest question is this: With the money, toil, and treasure of the American people on the line in Iraq, why didn’t doesn’t the Mainstream Media have more comprehensive reports like Michael’s on a daily basis?

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Comments

  1. It might be an easy answer: cause the press is biased, the press is lazy, etc.

    I fault Rummie & others for not taking “reporters” outside the Sunni triangle and trumpeting the military and non-military successes in Iraq. I fault the military PR operations for not holding press briefings outside newly built schools or restored electrical substations or central water pumping facilities and highlighting those successes –or even the 1000s of NGOs of a charitable nature not singing their successes back in America. I fault Condi Rice for her appearnance before the Sen ForRxCo last wk and not a single prop or picture to highlight the successes earned. Gheez! And she HAS KHughes in the State Dept shop. Come on, this is simple stuff to get your story out effectively and circumvent the MSM if an Administration wants to.

    I know, it would be bucking the “if it bleds, it leads” predicate of news.

    But at some point, the unbalanced reporting needs to be checked by those in power to MAKE press stories happen –and muscle it into the evening news. The Bush girls ought to be out mortaring up some bricks for a masque in Basrah, or a school for handicapped and maimed kids tortured by SHussein… someTHING. The Bush girls do that PR moment and even journalists like Katie Couric from Kansas will be out in force covering the story.

    I don’t mean CNN or ABC or CBS… I mean I don’t even see these stories on FOX.

  2. Yeah, cause that neoconservative Weekly Standard is so “fair and balanced.”

    That damn MSM and their headlines of “Iraq Insurgency Shows No Signs of Abating” and “Insurgents Step Up Attacks in Iraq.”Three car bombs rock downtown Baghdad (CNN),” “Insurgents Kill Dozens in Iraq (Fox News),” “Another Iraq war legacy: badly wounded US troops (ABC News),” “‘This Terrorism Must Stop’ – British troops in Basra face growing hostility (MSNBC),” “Enemy Body Counts Revived – U.S. military’s return to practice discredited during Vietnam is part of effort to show success in Iraq (Washington Post),” “At Least 17 Iraqis Killed in a Day of Scattered Bombings and Gunfire (NY Times).”

    Sounds absolutely peachy over there right now.

  3. Compared to what Iraq was under Saddam, it is absolutely peachy.

    You see, Bob, since liberal media outlets like CNN lied about what conditions were like under Saddam, the American public has no comparison point — and the liberal left, who doesn’t want the world to know that they covered up atrocities like Saddam’s practice of imprisoning the babies and toddler-age children of political dissidents in the name of “dealing peace”, has exploited that fact with howling headlines.

  4. Am I making a comparison here? Did I say it was better? I’m saying that the insurgency is not lessening and if anything is growing and there is more and more destabilization in the country. That is a fact, pure and simple. While bright spots shine in neoconservative reporting, those instances are the exception, not the rule.

    Posing that we should be behind the war effort because “it’s better than when it was under Hussein” is rhetorical nonsense. Sort of like saying sleep deprivation is better than water boarding cause at least it doesn’t muss the hair.

    When you bring up BS arguments of how it’s better now compared to how it was then, you automatically open yourself up to the argument of our lack of response to other similar human rights abuses and dictatorship in other areas of the world. It doesn’t wash. When do we invade Darfur? What about how the United States pressured Belgium to repeal it’s “Universal Jurisdiction” law that nearly let Hissene Habre, former dictator of Chad, walk away? Mengistu Haile Mariam? Any of this ring a bell?

    When you spin the situation as being positive, which it is not, you put the United States in a difficult position of confronting reality there and making informed choices about what should happen next. We do not want uninformed, puppet representation from congressional leaders who have been fed misrepresentations of what is going on. American citizens deserve the truth.

  5. DUH Cowboy Bob…… the insurgency is in it’s last throws, the mission was accomplished more than two years ago…. didn’t you watch the state of the union address last year and see all the congressmen with blood, I mean blue ink, on their hands? DUH!

  6. With all respect NDXXX, leaving aside GayCowBB’s on whether it’s sunny or storming in the Sunni Triangle –and taking the time to note the distinction of life within the triangle is not representational of most of Iraq— what the MSM or the UN or Clinton or others did when SHussein was in power versus NOW, doesn’t help address the key question in Bruce’s post… the reason there isn’t balanced reporting –let’s forget “fair” for now—is because the Administration, the military PR machine, the Iraqi political leadership and our allies haven’t been doing a very good job of telling the full story. But it falls to the Bush Administration to tell that story in places other than before SenateForRxCo or the House Committees.

    “Our” side, which is very different from the side represented by GayCowBB and Biden and Pelosi and Sheehan and Moore, hasn’t done an adequate job of telling that story. I don’t mean buying off “reporters” with payouts to advocate the truth without attribution, either. I mean getting our side into a PR damage control mindset and making some positive points for the WOT-Iraq and the US/Allies involvement there. When asked this past week to define some benchmarks for determining when the US could begin moving out, Rice was disinclined with good reason. When asked to provide benchmarks for success, she noted the past… with only a vision of the Dec elections… nothing like 50% electric restored, 65% oil production restored, deep ports opened, etc… damn, nothing concrete but willing to note that the “Army (sic) has those kinds of benchmarks in their plans….” -Rice

    GWBush in the Rose Garden doesn’t do it. Mortar and bricks in a school or hospital does. Rice before SenFOrRxCo doesn’t do it. Water purification systems built does. Rummie and all the military chiefs briefing reporters in the Pentagon doesn’t do it. Embedding reporters in the search for insurgents, might.

    For an Administration that’s viewed as media savvy, slick, planting stories, managing the news, etc… they failing at the biggest game in town.

  7. When you bring up BS arguments of how it’s better now compared to how it was then, you automatically open yourself up to the argument of our lack of response to other similar human rights abuses and dictatorship in other areas of the world. It doesn’t wash. When do we invade Darfur? What about how the United States pressured Belgium to repeal it’s “Universal Jurisdiction” law that nearly let Hissene Habre, former dictator of Chad, walk away? Mengistu Haile Mariam? Any of this ring a bell?

    The key word in there, Bob, is “similar”. Darfur, for one, is NOT “similar” to Iraq, where the government completely and systematically tortured, mutilated, and imprisoned millions over a decade while the UN sat on its hands, extending them only to take bribes to look the other direction.

    Furthermore, Darfur has already been invaded; there’s a force of 6,000 African Union troops there and the UN, which is far more than can be said for anything that the UN ever did to manage Saddam.

    As for Belgium’s “universal jurisdiction” law, take criminals that you want to prosecute under international law to the Hague, where there IS an International Criminal Court.

  8. While bright spots shine in neoconservative reporting, those instances are the exception, not the rule.

    Yeah, Michael Yon…a real neocon. Why is everything always “neocon” this “religious right” that?

    And no, those instances are not the exeption. They are the rule. The insurgency is concentrated in only about 3 of the provinces. And the reports on another suicide bomber reminds me of how my cousins in Japan feared LA because they thought drive-by shootings and crime are the norm.

    If it weren’t for military bloggers and new media, I don’t know where we’d be…scared of our own shadow, I suppose.

  10. I suspect even the enemy has realized how lazy the MSM has become in Baghdad; they now have to “stage” their car-bomb suicide-raids right in front of the Palestine Hotel to get “air time”.

    Gives “guerrilla street-theater” a pathetic but gritty double-meaning.

  11. Our mandate and invasion was to remove Hussein from power and establish a democratic government (well at least it was after a host of other reasons were dismissed).

    Would you like to explain how restoring power and building schools have to do with those objectives? And would you then further explain how reconstructing conditions brought about by our invasion in the first place is something to celebrate for good PR?

  12. Now you’re just being silly, bob. What does restoring power and building schools have to do with establishing a democratic government? You’re a smart guy… can’t you think of any possibilities?

    We could start by looking at your own objections to any suggestion (at all!) that things are getting better… more stable… in Iraq. How do you suppose that happens? Power and schools and infrastructure, not just fixing what we broke, means that there is a measure of normalcy in the lives of individuals. This is why the “insurgents” slaughter teachers and blow stuff up… none of which hurts *us* in the least. How can *you* tell if the IED’s, some ineffective and some seriously deadly, are a sign of desperation or a sign of a growing insurgency? It could well be either, but it’s not. One interpretation is true and one is false.

    Of course the almost non-existant election day violence sort of counters your claim that things are worse there than ever.

    Yon’s reports are very good for perspective, if read without a chip on your shoulder. They are less “newsy” than regular news reports that list events and casualties. He talks about personalities, heroic and base. He doesn’t down play the dangers or consequences. His war isn’t tidied up and sanitary. This last report, primarily, is about his perception of the general “feel” of the Iraqi population. It includes boys pushing between US soldiers to get their pictures taken and other boys picking up rocks to throw when they think they won’t get caught.

    The most significant thing, I think, in the whole report was the Iraqi military officer joking that the person supervising the ballot box had required him to fold his ballot properly. He felt that this *lessening* of his personal import… someone of his rank being *corrected*… was a good thing.

    The difference between those over here who think that Iraq will succeed and those who think that Iraq will fail seems to be that one side believes that Iraqis can make this shift in perspective and the other believes that they can’t.

  16. We pay so much attention to Iraq these days as our own country crumbles just out of our sight. The government response (on all levels) to Katrina has proved that. Bush is now heading in the same direction his father did, albeit taking a longer time: too much time spent on foreign policy and not enough time spent on looking after domestic issues. In the end, that’s what Americans (conservative or liberal) really want from their president.

  17. For a little historical perspective, Active Duty Death-Rates. This is active duty and not all Reserves, and the 1900+ theater-deaths include many outright plain-accidents and self-inflicted deaths, plus not a few homocides. Our troops have been in combat operations for a year-and-a-half and still have not doubled the death-rate due to accidents, illnesses, training and suicide.

    2003 1410 deaths, of which 344 hostile and 560 accidents, 197 self-inflicted
    2004 1887 deaths, of which 737 hostile and 565 accidents, 126 self-inflicted

    As compared with;
    1994 1075 deaths, of which 0 hostile and 544 accidents, 236 self-inflicted.
    1989 1636 deaths, of which 23 hostile and 1000 accidents, 236 self-inflicted.
    1984 1999 deaths, of which 1 hostile and 1293 accidents, 225 self-inflicted.

    And compared to the Island Campaign in Pacific, or to Normandy or the Bulge?……..

    And how many Americans died on our highways due to drunk drivers? Or died needlessly as the result of medical malpractice in the last 18-months?….

    Not saying the analysis is perfect or symetryical…just asking for some perspective both historical and statistical.

  18. “Not saying the analysis is perfect or symmetrical…just asking for some perspective both historical and statistical. ”

    It’s not the numbers. Far more gay men died of AIDS. I know, I was there. I saw them die. The same thing that was wrong then is wrong now. If the media doesn’t report the death toll in Iraq, it gets criticized for ignoring the war. If it does report the deaths it gets criticized as supporting terrorists and anti-war activists. Now thats an imperfect analysis.

    The reason it’s different is that I support the war. I believe in what they are trying to accomplish over there is the right thing to do. So as such, I feel to a certain extent responsible for them being put into harms way. It’s as every American should feel, whether pro or against the war. So I pay attention to the body counts. In a real way, its my war. My gripes have more to do with the failures of the miltary’s civilian leadership, which have been tactical and moral, as well as legion in number.

    As when I survived the worst of the AIDS crisis (so far) I found myself in a new community landscape, where the majority of gay men I knew in my teens and twenties were dead by the time I reached forty. When I hear the casualty counts, I think about the impact on those tight-knit military communities and the impact the absence of those individuals has on those left behind. The losses of father, brother, son, daughter, lover, etc. And while watching people slowly die from AIDS is excruciating, it isn’t like seeing your best friend blown into pieces in front of you. I also wonder about the gay and lesbian partners left behind. Unlike their straight brethren, they do not have access to the support of the military community. Does the gay community do it’s best to step in and fill the gap? Sometimes.

  19. #17 Thanks for the link.

    1985 is interesting… no hostile deaths (terrorist is a separate category) yet it seems to have been more dangerous to be in the military then than it is now.

    Accidental deaths have taken a nose dive in the last 20 years, so I suppose all those pre-holiday required lectures about driving safely have paid off… or maybe those count as “self-inflicted” and the “accident” category is for training accidents?

    Very interesting chart in any case.

  20. #4

    When you spin the situation that as being totally negative, which it is not, you take after the Neosocialists and their willing accomplices in the MSM that painted the Tet Offensive as a complete disaster. When you post BS like #11, you prove either that you don’t get it and never will or you do get it, but acknowledging that would undermine the liberal mandate of their hatred for Bush.

    Since when have we measured victory or defeat by the number killed? Why didn’t we use the same measure from 1999-2000? Hmmmmmmm.

    #18
    Who on earth has ever accused the media of ignoring the war or reporting the body count?
    I wish just once that a liberal would explain how reporting on death and failures instead of their successes supports the military.

    And would somebody please fashion a tinfoil hat for Kevin?

  21. #16
    Isn’t it interesting how folks ignore the states, namely Mississippi, with competetent leaders were able to grab their balls and get stuff done rather than sit in the mud and whine about the federal government? Isn’t it interesting how Mississippi and Alabama far more damage done, but fewer “poor blacks” to exploit by liberals and they’re willing accomplices in the MSM?
    Isn’t it also interesting how liberals still blame the war on terror for the hurricane even though the majority of our military is right here in the U.S.?

    Libs swear that if there were all rich white people in New Orleans, they would have gotten help sooner. I can guarandamntee you that if there were all rich white people in New Orleans, the liberals wouldn’t have given a royal damn about the issue.
    I’m sure if there were a high enough concentration of “poor blacks” in Naples, the Revernnnnnd Jacksonnnnnn would be there right now exploiting them and Oprah would be rolling tape telling us how we should all feel guilty.

  22. Dear Cherry Lube (gayconserve),
    Don’t fret about New Orleans, because when it rebuilds, it WILL BE all rich white people buying up those demolished properties. With the change in on-land gambling, it will turn into the Las Vegas of the South.

  25. “I suspect even the enemy has realized how lazy the MSM has become in Baghdad;”

    Lazy? I have an army friend assigned to the press in Baghdad. For the most part, the U.S. Government won’t let reporters travel outside the Green Zone because it is too dangerous. When they do travel outside the zone (which is rare these days), the results aren’t always good.

    More reporters have died in this conflict in Iraq than in Vietnam. Lazy? No.

  28. GCB #26-

    From your poll article: “ 44 percent of those polled said the situation for US troops in Iraq was getting worse, compared to 19 percent who thought it was improving.”

    This reminds me of the polls showing strong support for the war several years ago, bolstered by the substantial minority of Americans who believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attack.

    Can we have the same discussion now that we had then? Why on Earth would 44% of Americans have such a distorted (one might even say delusional) view of the military situation in Iraq?

    Any thoughts at all?

  29. As I said above, Clint, it’s all about perspective.

    One of the most amazing things that should have come out of Iraq once the repressive information shield that surrounded it during Saddam’s reign was a detailed accounting of the horrors of the previous regime. It isn’t hard to find; Iraq is literally pockmarked with mass graves and prisons drenched in blood and filled with people missing eyes, limbs, or other who lost them to Saddam.

    The reason they don’t is simple; the media doesn’t want to be reminded of their complicity in covering up Saddam’s brutality in exchange for “access”, and liberals don’t want exposed how completely ineffective “containment” was in stopping Saddam’s horrific actions and how much they hid in the name of “dealing peace”. As a result, after the war must be painted in the most grim light possible in order to make their claims that the Iraqis are worse off look even remotely plausible.

    When Slobodan Milosevic, whom Saddam makes look like a Boy Scout in comparison, was tried, the media ran lurid stories of his abuses, regularly showing horrific and gory shots of what had happened under his orders. Where is the same for Saddam Hussein?

  30. #26

    I’m entirely content to be in the minority.

    What is it with these polls lately? Not the ones like Harris that ask people what they think, but the ones that I see sometimes on the news (!) where numbers are given to call in and “vote” on an issue that isn’t even subjective to begin with. As if the fact can be changed because a majority of people believe that something is so. I think I’ve even seen polls to vote if people on trial are guilty. Isn’t the job of journalists to find out what the truth actually *is* and then reveal that?

    As for public opinion that things are getting worse in Iraq… does the poll measure the facts of the situation in Iraq or the facts of the situation of public opinion *here*… and if it’s public opinion here that is measured, what is the source of those public perceptions other than the media?

    And then the media reports on public perception as if that means something. If news consumers believe it means something, then it reenforces itself without the need for any pesky factual imput from the field. It’s all about what we *feel* is true.

    What about my *feelings* matters? I’m magic, I know… I just think things and the fabric of reality rearranges itself to accomodate me.

    It’s a handy talent.

  32. Curious: What am I copping out of?

    You did realize I was being sarcastic, yes?

    What do you think of those news program polls? “Is Scott Peterson Guilty?” Does the fact that they exist say anything about our ideas about fact and fiction?

  33. GayCowBB, help answer this one since you seem to avoid questions from others… why does the LibLeft continue to screetch about polls when this President has repeatedly stated HE doesn’t live by the polls, the polls don’t DIRECT his policy making, nor should they. How are they germane to the big questions since this President, thank God, doesn’t move at warp speed to get in front of polls?

    Now, I know, ol’ President Clinton and his team were fond of saying the same thing but we now know back then it was pure and utter fiction –they were poll-frentic, poll-centric –and I don’t mean just the one in the President’s shorts.

    Like David Gergen and others offer: polls provide a snapshot of what the pollster (or client) wants to portray at one moment in time. It’s rarely an informed opinion being projected by those polled. It ought not to guide reasoned public policy on difficult issues. That’s why we have leaders; to LEAD.

    Like Jefferson, Jackson, Roosevelt, and Kennedy –this President is moving forward and making decisions based on what HE thinks the voters elected him to do… nothing less, nothing more. Election day is the poll that matters for serious leaders, not wanna-be-presidents trying to appear presidential by triangulating on issues or groups.

    Why are poll results about a troubling, difficult war with American deaths so compelling to you and your ilk? Does it bolster the “Impeach Bush” radicals spawning in HowieDean’s DNC? Is that what’s important?

  35. Like Jefferson, Jackson, Roosevelt, and Kennedy –this President is moving forward and making decisions based on what HE thinks the voters elected him to do…

    You’re really not serious are you? His incompetence, polls or not, has made him he Jimmy Carter of your party.

  36. Why on Earth would 44% of Americans have such a distorted (one might even say delusional) view of the military situation in Iraq?

    Any thoughts at all?

    Yeah, namely that it’s not a distortion at all, and now that people are clued in to exactly what is and isn’t going on, and maybe more importantly why it’s going on in the first place, they’re fed up. From a perspective of leadership, financial responsibility, sound use of military resources, a concern that the conflict is overshadowing domestic issues, and that we are being sucked down by it while ignoring other more potentially deadly situations elsewhere. People see through the propped up PR and flag waving and realize what a mess it is.

  38. And by the way, now only one in ten people believe there was no wrongdoing in the Plame case. Must be all the crony cabal of GayPatriot.

    http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/10/25/cia.leak/index.html

    And Matt, I think I answered very honestly and straightforwardly. This “war” is a mess. It was proposed and begun dishonestly or non-honestly at best. It has been mismanaged and misrepresented throughout and now, with shaky confidence about the staying ability of a constitution and democracy without long-term US military occupation, people are demanding a change in policy.

    They get what it was supposed to be about, and now they want to know when the hell we’re getting out of it. The American public is not interested in colonizing the world especially when they recognize the focus on the invasion is overshadowing so many long-term domestic issues that are just as important – the deficit, economic stability and growth, the response to national disaster…

    If our government were like the apprentice, President Bush would have been out of the board room after Tora Bora.

    And that’s the administration’s biggest problem. We all know they don’t lead by public opinion. A lot of people wonder if they even recognize at all that they’re there to represent the public. It seems the administration simply don’t really care about the public except in how to most easily lead us around for their desired agenda. The Iraq invasion is a perfect example. It was in the works a long time before 9/11 happened. It was convenient timing and the perfect opportunity to mush a few facts around to allow us to invade without significant international opposition. Could you imagine it happening without 9/11? What an even bigger mess that would be.

    So yes, I think polls are very important in that they should represent the conscience of the government. I don’t believe that one should lead by them but good government is about the will of the people, not the will of the administration.

  39. Actually, Bob, as I said above, one can only call the war a mess if one lives in complete denial of what Iraq was like pre-war.

    How well do you think the American people would tolerate your mantra of “unnecessary and unjustified” if they saw the miles of mass graves that pepper Iraq?

    How long do you think your whining about torture would go on if they saw the videos of the torture that took place under Saddam?

    As I pointed out above, Slobodan Milosevic’s crimes were broadcast in lurid detail throughout the world. Where is the same for Saddam?