The News Must Really Be Good
Posted by Lance on 04 Nov 2007 at 4:18 am | Tagged as: Notes on the war, Lance's Page, Foreign affairs
I could fill this page with links to news stories starting to recongize that we are making progress, though all too often they are buried deep in side the print editions of the papers. However, much as my surprise when during the summer Der Spiegel put out a positive story on Iraq, I find a report like this from The Guardian an indicator that the progress is pretty much past the point of denial, if not neglect:
The death toll for US combat troops in Iraq dropped sharply to 27 last month, the lowest monthly total since March last year.
The figure is part of a downward trend that appears to confirm Pentagon claims that its “surge” strategy is working.
The month’s last US fatalities were three soldiers killed on Tuesday when a bomb exploded as they patrolled southeast Baghdad.
The drop in US fatalities, mirrored by an apparent reduction in sectarian killings, is attributed by US commanders to the extra 30,000 US troops sent to Iraq this year to bring the total of US troops to 154,000.
Other factors cited include: the building of walls round Baghdad neighbourhoods that have restricted insurgents’ movements; the increasing use of local sheiks and their militias to fight insurgents; and measures such as introducing proper ID checks, including biometric testing.
Of course this is still a trend which might reverse, and the Graniad might even be a contra indicator, but obviously something more than a lull is afoot.
Hat tip: Drink-soaked Trotskyite Popinjays for War.
Update: Gateway notices that one of the more troublesome aspects of our invasion, the large number of displaced families, may be reversing as many are returning home.
3 Responses to “The News Must Really Be Good”
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There are honorable individuals who decry our intervention in Iraq. There is a decent case to be made that overthrowing Saddam was not worth the lives of our fighting men and women. What is dishonorable, however, is the manner in which many US politicians (mostly in the Democratic Party) have defamed our military (Dick Durbin comes to mind as a particularly reprehensible participant in this regard, although he is hardly the only one) and the manner in which the mainstream media have skewed their coverage of our Iraq intervention to emphasize turmoil and carnage over substantial progress the US military has made on working with Iraqis to stabilize the country. We will never know for sure if a peaceful transition from Saddam to a stable Iraq could have been made. Given what we know about Saddam’s exploitation of the oil for food program, it is doubtful that a peaceful transition could have been made. What is not in doubt, however, is that the alternative media of the blogs have provided a far more realistic account of the war (the good, the bad and the ugly) than Americans would have received if they had only the mainstream media to consult.
I agree. They both are better in combination with the other. Hopefully they will both improve over time, though I am doubtful.
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/262811.aspx
I share Lance’s view that the blogs and the mainstream media are better in combination with each other. A good example is provided in the link set forth above, in which a mainstream media individual interviews Michael Yon and treats him as an equal (even mentions Michael’s blog).