Good news out of Iraq

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I thought that maybe, after all the doom, gloom, and conspiracy theories tossed about here, some might like to read about the progress that is being made in Iraq.

Probably not, as it is much more fun to gnash our teeth and wring our hands, but just in case:

A roundup of the past two weeks' good news from Iraq.

[ May 23, 2005, 21:49: Message edited by: Darkwolf ]

 

Uh, is that idiot still doing this webpage? I first read it about a year and a half-ago iirc and I last read it three months ago iirc, and all the time, things were going splendid

Maybe the Pentagon generals should put aside their defaitist reports and read his site more often, to learn how well it's all going.

 

I didn't read once where he said things are going splendid. All I read was an account of the progress that was made in the last two weeks.

Funny, I point out the fact that there is actual verifiable progress being made, something that is never reported because it doesn't sell copy, and the first response is the typical gloom and doom, disjointed, pieced together, taken out of context editorial that doesn't actually contradict anything that my link stated.

I wonder when the post that states that Chrenkoff is just a hack for the Bush Administration will show up.

 

Even though he originally claimed otherwise, Arthur "Good News!" Chrenkoff get's paid for his work for OpinionJournal.com - that in itself isn't special - journalists don't work for free, very rarely so, even when Chrenkoff claims he merely maintains a 'blog'.

Funny enough, even though working for a site titled OpinionJournal (sic!) he comments that he "doesn't do any commentary". Instead he says, "I just save people the effort and present in a convenient form the other side of the story"

His talk that he merely tries to "redress the balance" is palpable nonsense.

The simple fact of presenting a highly edited selection of media and US government stories on Iraq under the heading of "Good news from Iraq" is itself a form of commentary. The idea that leaving out the "bad news"--part of the reality of what is happening--is merely "redressing the balance" is a joke. There is a difference between journalism and trawling the internet in search of good news with a dragnet.

One example: What Chrenkoff and his eager readers seem to lack is a sense of what is important, and often go to absurd lengths to find positive news; summarizing a depressing CSIS report as simply "Iraqi Optimism Endures but It Is Fragile" is a beautyful example of the latter problem.

While CSIS itself notes that "although Iraq’s governing institutions lack adequate capacity and negative trends dominate security, jobs, and services like electricity and sewage, Iraqis themselves remain optimistic" Chrenkoff argues that "whereas the fragility of Iraqi optimism is a function of continuing violence and reconstruction pains, the American optimism is under the constant assault from the negative media coverage."

If these negative trends ("continuing violence and reconstruction pains") do in fact exist--an element of the report that Chrenkoff does not dispute--then the media is reporting appropriately, and Americans are merely reacting naturally to the bad news.

If that is so, where is the need for 'the other side of the story'?

Spin anyone?

His blog is a transparent project of propaganda posing as a site of unbiased information, while he is not neccessary a 'Bush hack', I don't know enough about him to say that, he is undeniably a rightwing spinmeister out to sell that war. On behalf of whom I don't know, and I know enough to not care. It doesn't matter.

[ May 24, 2005, 09:45: Message edited by: Ragusa ]