Scouring the Media for "All The Good Things" Happening in Iraq

Recently the Bush Administration and other Republicans have been blaming the media for the waning support for the War in Iraq among the US public. They claim that if only the media would cover "all the good things" that are happening in Iraq, the American people would understand the value of this effort and agree that the sacrifice is worth the cost in American lives and American taxpayer dollars.

We here at Democratic Underground decided to take them up on their challenge, and instructed our small army of highly-trained research interns to scour the media looking for good news about Iraq. Here is what they found. I am sure you will agree that it provides the necessary balance that is sorely lacking in the liberal media today. It might even make you re-think your unrealistically negative view of the war.


Bread Thief Has Only One Hand Chopped Off
The Basrah Times-Picayune, March 12, 2006, p. A12

BASRAH, Iraq -- In a stunning break with tradition, the local Islamic Revolutionary Council decided to chop off only one hand from a man convicted of stealing a loaf of bread to feed his hungry family. According to local custom and conservative interpretation of Islamic law, the traditional punishment for stealing is to chop off both hands belonging to a convicted thief. The head of the Islamic Revolutionary Council felt it appropriate to hand down the unorthodox punishment after hearing a plea for mercy from his own third cousin, who happens to be the nephew of the bread thief.

Saeb Zerhouni, the man convicted of the crime, gave thanks to Allah, "I am so grateful to still have my left hand. While the loss of my right hand does make many tasks difficult, it shouldn't be long before I am able to use my left quite proficiently. Hopefully my prospects for finding work are not significantly diminished."


Most US Soldiers Not Dead
The Hoboken (N.J.) Advertiser, March 19, 2006, p. A5

WASHINGTON -- Contrary to widely-held belief, the vast majority of United States military personnel who are currently serving or have served in Iraq are not dead. High-ranking Pentagon officials have expressed concern that the constant drumbeat of media coverage of US soldiers killed or wounded in the Iraq War -- some of it cleverly disguised as efforts to "remember the fallen" -- may have led to the mistaken impression among the American people that most US soldiers deployed to Iraq are deceased. This is, emphatically, not the case.

"The Department of Defense recently ordered a thorough review of American casualties in Iraq compared to the total number of American troops deployed there," said Pentagon spokesman Lt. Colonel Ernest Smythe. "The findings are quite stunning. While most of the media attention has been paid to the two thousand or so military personnel who have been killed in Iraq, the real story is that well over one hundred thousand American men and women in uniform are not dead at all, and most likely will not become dead during the course of this war. Why isn't the media covering them?"


Aspiring Iraqi Hip-Hop Artist Thinks the United States is "the Shizzle"
CNN.com, January 15, 2006

BAGHDAD -- Move over, Eminem! M.C. "Shock-N-Awe" al Jumairi has a "bangin'" hip-hop sound that is "straight outta Baghdad," and he even spells "Shock-N-Awe" with a backwards "N" just like Eminem spells his name with a backwards "E". CNN correspondent Nic Robertson went searching for human interest stories in the impoverished neighborhoods just outside the heavily fortified "Green Zone" and found this charming 12-year-old "M.C." who was "busting rhymes" about his new-found freedom, and life in Iraq after the fall of hated dictator Saddam Hussein.

Through a translator, CNN asked al Jumairi if he thought that the United States was "the Shizzle," and he said that it was.


Key Iraqi Industries Show Big Gains in 2005
Investor's Business Daily, January 21, 2006, p B1

NEW YORK -- Wall Street is bullish on Iraq.

While most investors have shied away from the volatile stock offerings on the fledgling Baghdad Stock Exchange (BSE), a small group of savvy financiers is making a killing with a carefully selected portfolio of investments in high-growth Iraqi industries.

"I loaded up my portfolio with Iraqi stocks in the firearms, security services, fertilizer, and mortuary services sectors," said Carl Harriman, a fund manager at Merrill Lynch. "In 2005, I just sat back and watched it grow. Exhilarating!"

Bush Administration officials say that the experience of these forward-looking investors, and the explosive growth in certain Iraqi sectors, shows that the entire Iraqi economy is poised to take off sometime in the near future.


Profile in Courage: Injured Iraqi Schoolgirl an Inspiration to Others
The New York Times, March 20, 2006, p A1

MOSUL, Iraq -- It was a beautiful sunny day in the desert just outside the Iraqi city of Mosul, when suddenly Hanan Amraoui, 7, had her entire world torn apart by a stray mortar shell left behind by American soldiers. She was found, unconscious, two hours later by a group of coalition soldiers on a routine patrol of her neighborhood who took her to a local United States military clinic. Now, a year later, this charming little girl has no legs, one eye, and permanent burns on 60% of her body, but she hasn't lost her spunk.

"Both of her parents are dead and as far as we know she doesn't have any other family, so we kinda adopted her here at the clinic. We fitted her with some prosthetic legs and when she uses her crutches she's almost as fast and agile as a regular girl," said Dr. Kevin Brown, an American doctor at the clinic. "She has the most beautiful eyes -- I mean, eye -- and a smile like an angel. We just love her to pieces."

Others at the clinic agreed. "She's really an inspiration to all of us," said Private First Class Aaron Maxwell. "It almost makes you not feel so bad about accidentally leaving that mortar shell out where she could play with it."


Halliburton Employees Plant a Tree in Baghdad to Observe "Halliburton Plant-A-Tree in Baghdad Day"
Halliburton Press Release, February 27, 2006

HOUSTON, Texas -- Halliburton (NYSE: HAL) announced today that it will sponsor "Halliburton Plant-A-Tree in Baghdad Day" sometime in mid-August, 2006. Halliburton Plant-A-Tree in Baghdad Day is Halliburton's "groundbreaking" effort to teach Iraqis about the importance of the environment, and show the company's long-term commitment to the country and people of Iraq.

"In a sense, this is Halliburton's way of showing that we're 'putting down roots' in Iraq both literally and figuratively, just like the tree we're going to plant there," said Halliburton spokeswoman Cynthia Heath, speaking from her office in Houston. "This is a 'groundbreaking' effort to teach Iraqis about the importance of the environment, and show the company's long-term commitment to the country and people of Iraq."

All Halliburton employees in Baghdad are expected to participate in this exciting event, which will take place on a Saturday TBA, without pay. Balloons will be available to children of employees on a first-come, first-served basis.

:sarcasm:

What shining examples of 'the good things' that are going on in Iraq. Who couldn't feel that sense of elation, joy and hope after reading about these wondrous examples of life in today's Iraq?

So lets use the same on this.
We are at WAR, you can't expect the news to be good.

since the journals were started than you EVER did before. I never knew you were so clever in writing, just thought you were a smart dude! I am VERY impressed!

No wonder the main stream media isnt reporting the good news.

hole in the floor.. Turkish toilets are nice, they are flush with the floor , nice little foot pads that aim your butt at the hole. no toilet paper, just a rusty can half full of water teaming with amoeba and cholera.. you wipe your but with your left hand and rinse the shit off with the water in the can.. everybody eats collectively out of the same wide shallow pan spread with rice or millet, and the vegetables and meat are piled in the center..

if you got no right hand you are NOT gonna eat with anyone or shake hands and you might possibly die of some gOD awful contagious disease and suffer parasites for what life you might have left.

:rofl:

Don't know if you saw this, but the good news is that the Lincoln Group's propaganda program is legal!

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m21819&l=i&size=1&hd=0 :crazy:

<snip>

"An inquiry released today found that Lincoln Group, a US public relations firm, didn't violate military policy by paying Iraqi news outlets to print positive articles. Now, the Pentagon says they want to do a little tinkering to get their efforts out of the spotlight.

"I get the impression that Rumsfeld knows their Iraq propaganda program is going to explode in their faces if they don't cut the Lincoln group off, but I don't think for a moment that either the Pentagon or the White House is abandoning their plans to achieve what they envision as 'information superiority'.

"Rumsfeld spoke recently on the need to control information surrounding their expansive wars. "U.S. military public affairs officers must learn to anticipate news and respond faster, and good public affairs officers should be rewarded with promotions," he said.

"'The Pentagon's propaganda machine still operates mostly eight hours a day, five days a week while the challenges it faces occur 24 hours a day, seven days a week." he lamented. He then complained that the "vast media attention about U.S. abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq outweighed that given to the discovery of "Saddam Hussein's mass graves.'"

<snip>

Skinner, you're one sick MF. In a good way though.

Yes, it's sick. First you laugh, and then you get that lump in the bottom of your throat.

I've been very disturbed that the liberal media was telling only the bad things. I heard on NPR last evening there is also growth in a new business: sales of Terrorist Insurance. If killed the victims' family can collect some money.

Bruce Willis's movie will so much positive material to draw from.

not all the soldiers in Iraq are dead...yet. Give Bush time and that will be another "mission accomplished".:sarcasm:

This is a LTTE in my local paper today. Anyone want to help me put together reasons why the media is not covering the 'good news' in Iraq?
http://www.startribune.com/563/story/324398.html

Other pictures to run

The Star Tribune marks the third anniversary of the start of the Iraq war with the photo of a bombed truck.

Instead of all negatives, why not some positives?

Pictures we'd rather see:
• Iraqi children studying in new schools.
• New hospitals.
• Civilians thanking U.S. troops.
• Women allowed to hold jobs.
• Iraqis exercising new voting privileges and freedoms.

Let's support our troops by acknowledging their sacrifice. It's the least we can do.

DORIS CRAIG, MINNEAPOLIS

-------------------------------
What I have so far. It's not being reported because:

1) The list is a fabrication.
a) Even if schools were being built, it is too dangerous to send your children out into a war zone.
b) What jobs? Unemployment is at 60-80%
2) The media is embedded and only reports what the military gives them. Even the military can't find these examples of 'good news.' If they could, wouldn't they be plastered all over Fox News and WaPo?
3) It is too dangerous to venture out and interview/photograph people outside the Green Zone.

schools http://www.unicef.org/media/media_23630.html

UNICEF-Supported Survey Finds Enrolment Is Up But Facilities Not Keeping Pace; One-Quarter of Schools Need Major Repairs

AMMAN / GENEVA, 15 October 2004 – The first comprehensive study on the condition of schools in post-conflict Iraq has confirmed that thousands of school facilities lack the basics necessary to provide children with a decent education.

The school survey, released this week by the Iraq Ministry of Education, shows that one-third of all primary schools in Iraq lack any water supply and almost half are without any sanitation facilities.

hospitals http://electroniciraq.net/news/2015.shtml

Although the Iraq Ministry of Health claims its independence and has received promises of over $1 billion of US funding, hospitals in Iraq continue to face ongoing medicine, equipment, and staffing shortages
under the US-led occupation.

During the 1990s, medical supplies and equipment were constantly in short supply because of the sanctions against Iraq. And while war and occupation have brought promises of relief, hospitals have had little chance to recover and re-supply: the occupation, since its inception, has closely resembled a lowgrade war, and the allocation of resources by occupation authorities has reflected this reality. Thus, throughout Baghdad there are ongoing shortages of medicine of even the most basic items such as analgesics, antibiotics, anesthetics, and insulin. Surgical items are running out, as well as basic supplies like rubber gloves, gauze, and medical tape.

In April 2004, an International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) report stated that hospitals in Iraq are overwhelmed with new patients, short of medicine and supplies and lack both adequate electricity and water, with ongoing bloodshed stretching the hospitals’ already meager resources to the limit.1

Ample testimony from medical practitioners in the interim in fact confirms this crisis. A general practitioner at the prosthetics workshop at Al-Kena Hospital in Baghdad, Dr. Thamiz Aziz Abul Rahman, said, "Eleven months ago we submitted an emergency order for prosthetic materials to the Ministry of Health, and still we have nothing," said Dr. Rahman. After a pause he added, "This is worse than even during the sanctions."2


women http://www.thenation.com/doc/20031229/sandler

None of these women leave this home, even so many months after the war came to its so-called end. And Raba, a usually spunky twentysomething, is afraid even to stand in her own doorway. "Before the war we were out until 2 o'clock in the morning all the time," she says. "Now I don't even bother to put on my shoes."

Millions of women have found themselves living under such de facto house arrest since the coalition forces claimed Baghdad in April. They have been forced into this situation by a menacing triple threat that has emerged since the war: First, Saddam Hussein threw open the doors to his prisons in October 2002, releasing criminals onto Iraq's tightly policed streets. Then came the fall of the regime and the concomitant crumbling of law enforcement. And now, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) is treating a growing human rights crisis for women as an extracurricular issue at best, leaving women at the mercy of thugs on the streets and the religious parties that have rushed into the political vacuum. Upwards of 400 women have been kidnapped in this city alone, according to various women's groups, and each horror story ripples with alacrity throughout each neighborhood. Raba's story is one of them. As she leans forward to fuss over a tiny niece, her auburn curls part to show a jagged line of black stitches that vertically bisect her scalp. "My wound from the war," she says with a sardonic laugh.

Raba and her fiancé were driving late one summer evening in his Toyota RAV 4 when they were attacked by a band of men engaged in a popular and profitable postoccupation occupation: carjacking. As they were violently booting the fiancé from the car, one of the men decided that Raba would make a nice addition to the evening's spoils. But as he was attempting to rape her in the back seat, the intrepid--more furious than afraid, she says--Raba pulled open the door handle and flung herself from the speeding car. The next day, her fiancé and her brother went to the police station to report the stolen car. They didn't file anything regarding the attempted rape, since, as she says, neither they nor the cops were interested.

employment http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/19/AR2005061900729.html


Down the hall, an instructor was teaching jobless men basic word processing on computers fresh from shrink-wrapped packaging. And in another cramped room, teenage and adult students were chatting before their class in basic literacy.

The new job-training center in Baghdad's impoverished borough of Sadr City, run by the Iraqi government, is on the front lines of efforts to address one of the most pressing challenges to the country's stalled economy: unemployment.

Numbering in the millions, Iraq's unemployed have found little refuge in an economy derailed by two years of relentless insurgent attacks. Many have not had steady jobs since the United States dissolved the Iraqi army after the 2003 invasion. And U.S. and Iraqi officials acknowledge that every young man without work is a potential recruit for insurgents who pay as little as $50 to people who plant explosives on a highway or shoot a policeman.

"The longer this goes on, we are asking for trouble because we are breeding more and more insurgents," said Muhammed Uthman, an Iraqi businessman and former oil ministry official who serves on a panel that advises the government on reconstruction. "Unemployment is exactly what the terrorists want."

A report published last month by the government and the United Nations put the unemployment rate at 27 percent. But many experts here say the actual number is probably closer to 50 percent or more because the survey was not conducted in some of the least stable parts of the country and because many Iraqis work unreliable part-time jobs.

:rofl:

The thing about good news now is that it would have been the normal type of mundane things that Iraqis were doing under Saddam before the invasion. Once the U.S. invaded egotist seeing America as the great savior of the world want to have us believe that the invasion must be good. By the way news is the report on the topical and unusual not the expected. Building bridges, going to school, fresh water maybe news to a war nut, but to me my state's youth getting killed in under-armed Hummers in a war started on a lie IS news. Get use to it war monger.

Great stuff. :rofl:

I love the "Halliburton Plant-A-Tree in Baghdad Day" - Did you know that each tree only cost American Tax payers $535,000.00? I know the "angry liberal media" will harp on the fact that apple trees don't grow in the desert, but that's not the point! The point is that these poor people have never had the pleasure seeing a apple tree before. *snif*

As it was pointed out by a caller on the Big Ed show several days ago, if there was and REAL GOOD NEWS coming from the war zone it would be on FOX NEWS 24/7. It would be crawling across the bottom probably as many times as *TERROR ALERT RAISED* swims past.

Even FOX, the GOP and Bush Administration domestic propaganda arm, can't seem to find those rebuilt school openings, factories gearing up, Iraqi oil revenues pouring in. Or, do they, like the rest of the tainted, liberal, Bush-hating networks, just find body and maiming juicier stuff?

For me, I'd say that the networks and magazines have actually been holding back on the news. As "bad" as it seems to those who drink the kool aid, it is much, much worse and the news chiefs are reluctant to show the true bloody, dismembered, body images of children, women and Iraqi police (not to mention the camo-suited, dismembered legs in what was once a boot on the ground). Not because they worry about the Administration criticism, but because they don't believe it would be in good taste and the American people shouldn't have to see that sort of stuff.

What the zombies don't realize (and this includes Laura Ingrahm (sp)) is that things ARE MUCH WORSE than has been reported.

Chaz

Is that maybe the chemical agent that I heard Mike Malloy say is being by us against insurgents?

Anyone know?

but it does seem more liquid.

If that were WP the boy would not be sitting there holding his arms out to the side. He would be behaving as though his whole body were on fire, with flames that can not be extinguished.

that the media is supposed to be showing us?

it is good to see you here, have missed your name for a time. how is your son doing? and how are you holding up?

news--STOP bitching about No Good News, neocons...you could Create it/Report it/Spin it as you wish in Iraq and PAY to get it on air/net/print-stop yr whinning!

just 2 days ago.

They want
News: Almost everybody made it home tonight. (they don't want to hear about corruption, thefts, murders, fires, accidents, traffic, etc. UNLESS IT AFFECTS THEM)

Weather: Today was nice, someplace (they don't want to hear about natural disasters, loss of life or property from wind, water, snow, etc. UNLESS IT AFFECTS THEM)

Sports: And the winners were... (they don't want to even hear if the team they like loses - angers them and why be angry all the time?)



Good News Only would be no news at all!

Quote:



I'm sure he's the type of bastard that can go to bed at night and don't be bothered by any thoughts of where his blood money is coming from. This never thought of how many children had to die so his portfolio gains a few percentages.

I personally find this type of person at the same moral level as the Abu Grahib torturers.

Funny how the couldn't catch their kidnappers though. What are the chances of that?
:tinfoilhat: :wtf:

At least there is no civil war in the U.S. yet.

why do the GOPers ALL, shy away from serving in them? Are they Anti-American? Do they all HATE America? Are they COWARDS? Are they LAZY? ARE THEY ALL OF THE ABOVE? If they don't love their country enough to fight for it in the wars they stir up, they ought to GET THE HELL OUT!

Who served in the military?

http://www.awolbush.com/whoserved.html

If the media had any real guts they'd talk about the cowards in the GOP.

EDIT TO ADD...

George W. Bush - AWOL from Supporting our Troops

Between tax cuts for the rich, war profits for Halliburton, or support for our troops - which does the Bush Administration choose, time and time again? See the answers here...

http://www.awolbush.com/

At least the Mullahs wouldn't need to stone them, because I think they always arrive pre-stoned. Maybe the piece corps of Jazebels-R-Us?

You probably aren't too far off from the future stories I expect from Fox News.

With a recent poll I saw that asked whether the media was "giving the real story in Iraq" showing an alarming 56%-44% result, I wont be surprised when Fox delivers an endless parade of these bogus "human interest" stories from the war zone.

I imagine the DoD will be happy to afford air travel here for "volunteers" to tell their "inspirational" story.

Is Bush under the impression that it is the media's responsibility to bolster public opinion about the war in Iraq? Funny, if he thinks that, he's the first president in history to seriously consider the idea that the press is the Papal Megaphone. All of his immediate predecessors back to Nixon and before have come to know the media as more of an annoying pest or major pain, not as "close personal friend".

I suppose the press is supposed to be the CEO Administration's Marketing Department.

Here are just a few I checked that have English translations, along with other sites dedicated to news out of Iraq:

http://www.childrenofiraq.org/

http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage

http://electroniciraq.net/news/

http://iwpr.net/?p=icr&s=p&o=-&apc_state=henh

http://www.iraqfoundation.org/

http://www.memri.org/iraq.html

http://www.kurdmedia.com/

http://www.peyamner.com/index.php?lang=english

http://www.puk.org/

http://www.baghdadbulletin.com/

http://www.militaryspot.com/iraq.htm

http://www.newswealth.com/Countries_News/Middle_East/Iraq/iraq.html

Not much there that can be called "good news".

Skinner - if you can dig up this news from Washington why can't the MSM journalists who are right there in Iraq find wonderful stories like these?

Just goes to show that the lieberal press is out to get my hero GW.

(Sarcasm smiley intentionally left off.)

I feel so much better now.:evilgrin:

The climate of giving is just oozing with good will.

WE WON’T STOP UNTIL YOU LISTEN!


To compensate for major mistakes the Bush/Rove political Machine thinks they can combat it by excessive propaganda. The media was scolded by Bush for reporting only bad news, they reacted with outrage. BUT have you noticed a sudden effort to appease the complaint and again, push talking points. That and every time we turn around there is that smirking face of Bush making yet another speech and Rumsfeld is getting a sunburn from the stage lights from all the Pentagon Briefings

Skinner for Pres!!

Or at least write a book, guy - this is extremely potent stuff. :yourock:

70% of Iraq is desert!

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/05/20050524-3.html

See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.

http://www.santarosa.edu/~dpeterso/permanenthtml/propaganda/prop_repetition.htm

Repetition: The technique of bombarding the target audience over and over with a simple message until resistance to the message fades away.

Hitler, among others, emphasized the need for repetition in propaganda. "Now the purpose of propaganda is not continually to produce interesting changes for the few blasé little masters, but to convince; that is, to convince the masses. The masses, however, with their inertia, always need a certain time before they are ready even to notice a thing, and they will lend their memories only to the thousand fold repetition of the most simple ideas." (Hitler, A. Mein Kampf. New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1939, p. 239)



In the Cleveland Ohio speech on Monday March 20, the word terror or terrorist was used 53 times.

Thank you, Skinner, for pointing out all of these positive events in Iraq.

That was good news. You'd never know it by reading the right-wingnut sites. Over at "The Autonomist" - www.antiprotester.com - they're trashing the three rescued peace activists. This sick story has to be seen to be believed. Trash them back.

They are like Bush and his bosses. They want the war to last FOREVER! They really don't want any kind of happy ending, because WAR is good stuff, for a "WAR PRESIDENT" and his wimpy daddy, who makes weapons for the bloody "NOBLE" causes that his son creates with his lies.

Recently on another forum my credibility has been called into question. I posted
Bread Thief Has Only One Hand Chopped Off
The Basrah Times-Picayune, March 12, 2006, p. A12
piece with a link to your site. I was told that this story is most likely a fabrication. any help would be appreciated on this matter. Is there by chance a link to the story or was it translated from the paper ? I feel these stories need to get out. I enjoy reading your forums. Thanx for all your help..



http://www.dailybuzz.tv/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1126
the name of the topic is "Good news from Iraq ! "


Here are a few of my other topics if your interested. I live in the heart of texas. I really enjoy discussing politics.
http://www.dailybuzz.tv/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1024
"George Bush worst president in history."
http://www.dailybuzz.tv/forums/viewtopic.php?t=970
"Why do Republicans hate Jesus?"
There are many more but these are good for a chuckle or two. :)~

In other words: I made all of it up. I kinda thought that was self-evident.

This makes me sad. Guess I will have to be much more careful. I wondered why I could find the Original myself. If you wouldn't mind please delete my posts.

OH, except for that school teacher beheaded in fron of the class..but hey, once in a while everyone has a bad day.

How many people WERN'T beheaded today? Now that's "feel-good" kind of news!

After reading that, I thought "hey maybe there really IS something to Bush's talk of making headway in Iraq"..
um..well ok, maybe not for the guy without one anymore, but geez ..This must be how Bush sees things..one of those, glass half-full guys..ya think?
How 'bout a little more of that "cheer" ok George?

I think its starting to werk!