War on Terror

The blackout on good news from iraq

August 2008

American and Iraqi casualties are down. iraqi oil is being sold on the open market. and al-Qaeda is being kicked out of iraq by american and iraqi military forces. why is the american mainstream media covering it up?

By Andrew Peterson
For CoverUps.com

The shameful conduct of the American mainstream media becomes all the more striking when it becomes a news story in a major overseas news organization like the London Sunday Times. The International Business Daily editorial board offers commentary on the matter:

What would happen if the U.S. won a war but the media didn't tell the American public? Apparently, we have to rely on a British newspaper for the news that we've defeated the last remnants of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

London's Sunday Times called it "the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror." A terrorist force that once numbered more than 12,000, with strongholds in the west and central regions of Iraq, has over two years been reduced to a mere 1,200 fighters, backed against the wall in the northern city of Mosul.

Can you imagine this on the front page of The New York Times? Neither can we.

The destruction of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is one of the most unlikely and unforeseen events in the long history of American warfare. We can thank President Bush's surge strategy, in which he bucked both Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington by increasing our forces there instead of surrendering.

For conservative readers, words of praise for President Bush must come as either like a drink of cool water after a trek through the desert, or as a sign of delirium.

Who would have thought, in the dark days of January, 2007, when President Bush first revealed his plan for the surge, that it would bring us to where we stand today – victorious, vindicated, and in a complete press blackout.

... where are the headlines and the front-page stories about all this good news? As the Media Research Center pointed out last week, "the CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 were silent Tuesday night about the benchmarks" that signaled political progress.

The war in Iraq has been turned around 180 degrees both militarily and politically because the president stuck to his guns. Yet apart from IBD, Fox News Channel and parts of the foreign press, the media don't seem to consider this historic event a big story.

Our Take

The American press enjoys freedoms and constitutional protections unique in all the world. They are also held in contempt by much of the public, and as an industry they are melting wicked-witch style into puddles of red ink. What lessons are we to take from this strange spectacle? That constitutional protections, important though they are, cannot save an institution like the press from irrelevance, if that institution doesn't know or care what its responsibilities are.

It's responsibility, so far as the American people are concerned, is to tell us what is happening in the world. Don't tell us your opinion about it. Don't tell us how you think we should change the world. Just tell us what is actually happening. If we are winning against the terrorists in Iraq, we would like to know about it. It doesn't matter, Mr. Journalist, if you don't think America should be winning. Just tell us if we are or not. And be honest about it.

Link to article.