It’s almost as if the media wants more violence.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Eight in 10 Americans believe that recent sectarian violence in Iraq has made civil war likely, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released on Monday.
The civil war has been going on for two years from what I can tell. It’s a low intensity consequence of having removed the strongman which allowed a thousand year old larger conflict that affects the entire Muslim world to flare back up. Yes, there have been short sighted bad decisions made.
Nearly the entire body of reporting on the situation in Iraq by the mainstream media is also short-sighted. The way the pundits and the reporters frame this conflict is biased and slanted in favor of the insurgency.
Want examples? Here they are:
The surge in violence has killed more than 500 people since the destruction of a major Shi’ite shrine in Samarra on February 22.
Who caused the surge in violence? Radical fundamentalism Muslims who want to destroy Iraq. Why didn’t they add that? Seems kind of important to note who caused the violence. Besides, you said 500. What happened to the 1300 number that was just being reported a few days ago? Guess someone was counting wrong…
Headline: 8,000 desert since beginning of Iraq war
Only if you read past the headline do you discover this is actually a lower desertion rate that the military was experiencing prior to the start of the war. And if you read to the bottom of the article, you find that “Desertions in 2005 represent 0.24% of the 1.4 million U.S. forces.” Of course, the headline is very fair and completely unslanted. It’s just factual. No bias at all.
Then there’s the fact that if you try to search for Yahoo News about the war in Iraq, the second highest link displayed on the page is this:
- Full Coverage:
- • World > Antiwar Movement
- I guess those in favor of the war don’t rate a link at the top of the Iraq war news results.
- Today’s top ten results for Yahoo News are all negative stories about the war. Google offered similarly negative or nuetral search results.
- Shockingly, with a plethora of negative news coverage about Iraq, Americans answered polls about Iraq with negative answers.
- I know my audience is only about 200 readers a day, but here is a positive story about Iraq for you. And there are lots more if you’re willing to stop being spoon fed whatever the media wants to hand you. Try the Mudville Gazette. Real perspectives from real people.