Posted on 01/25/2005 11:29:11 PM PST by kattracks
The Western media in pre-election Iraq, Peter Jennings for example, are doing all they can to aid and abet Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's call for the Iraqi people to stay away from the polls on Sunday. Fortunately for Iraq and the world, there's not much either of them can do.Jennings, after all, is hardly a household word in Baghdad, and Zarqawi's latest rhetorical rant has placed him in clear opposition not just to the American occupation of Iraq, but the Iraqi people as well.
After all, the quickest and surest way to get the Americans out of the country is for an elected government to take over. We don't even care much if it is a particularly pro-American government, just as long as it takes the country out of the Axis of Evil.
Jennings, et al, are using long faces and pretending to much sorrow as they discuss how unlikely it is that very many Iraqis will bother to vote. Given a choice between interviewing a man-in-the-souk who has been terrorized into staying home on Sunday and one who is ready to defy the dangers, they'll choose the first every time.
This is taking Bush-hatred to new extremes. It's one thing to cook the journalistic books before the (US) elections in an attempt to influence the outcome. We're used to that. But to try to throw a wet blanket on the Iraqi elections is to explicitly side with the beheaders, the car-bombers, and those who, like Zarqawi, will stop at nothing to destroy the "evil principle" of democracy. That is the clear subtext of what is coming out over the airwaves from Iraq.
The media did this in Vietnam too, but there was a difference. Leftist reporters (that is, most reporters) actually believed to some degree in Ho Chi Minh, actually thought Vietnam would be better off under his leadership than that of the South Vietnam leaders on our side. No such ideological commitment motivates the bias in reporting from Iraq today. It's an arguable point, I guess, but to me, that's worse, because I've got more respect for someone who's for something, even something I despise, than I do someone who is simply out to destroy things I treasure, no matter what horror ensues.
It would be nice to believe that once Sunday has come and gone, and a new government has been elected, the media will begin covering it fairly and honestly, but they won't. Count on this: most of what you read about the new government in the coming months will fall into one of two categories. The first will highlight its failures. The second will highlight those aspects of its policy that are most anti-American.
What percentage of Iraqis will vote? I have no idea. Will voters be deterred by the terrorists? Some surely will. But others will not. In Sierra Leone a few years ago, the local terrorists threatened to sever one or more limbs from those who showed up at the polls, and, sickeningly, made their threats good before, during and after election day. But the people voted anyway, and chose a committed democrat (and a Muslim) to be their president. Are Sierra Leoneans braver than Iraqis? I have no reason to believe they are.
An antiwar group called Iraq Body Count has done what it's name implies, and has put together a more-or-less day-by-day record of deaths due to, as they put it, "the war and occupation." I went to their database and added up all the reported deaths for calendar year 2004. With reasonable allowances for two entries that covered periods stretching back into 2003, and using their "high" estimates, I came up with a total of 5,914, of which almost half occurred during the Fallujah battle. In the seven months from June to December, I count 2,548, which averages 379 a month. The number appears to include both Iraqis and foreigners, by the way, although it's somewhat difficult to be sure given the cryptic nature of the entries. One thing I'd be willing to bet on is that the actual number is lower, not higher.
Three hundred and seventy-nine per month is just a little more than ten percent of the number of traffic fatalities in the US each month, and Iraq has about ten percent of the US population. So, on any given day, the likelihood that an Iraqi will be killed by a terrorist is about the same as the likelihood that you will be killed on the highway.
If you think I am trivializing the danger of being in Iraq, I beg to differ, and so would my friends and clients at AAA, who work day after day to prevent deaths just as tragic and often as gruesome as the worst the terrorists have to offer.
The point is, either you should have been a lot more terrified to drive to the polls last November, or Iraqi voters should, on Sunday, be a lot less terrified to vote than the media would have you believe they are.
Veteran GOP media consultant Jay Bryant's regular columns are available at www.theoptimate.com, and his commentaries may be heard on NPR's 'All Things Considered.'
I want them to eat crow, big time.
I doubt we'll see that.
Rule #1 The MSM is always right
Rule #2 In the unlikely event that the MSM is wrong..see rule #1.
.
For all to see.
BTTT.
BUMP
ping.
What in the world are you talking about?
But, boy, you ought to see the security around here in advance of that election. I haven't seen anything like this in the 13 months I've been here.
I believe it's going to be a success and I'm very excited at such a prospect.
Stay safe, and please report in this weekend on what you see!
"What percentage of Iraqis will vote? I have no idea. Will voters be deterred by the terrorists? Some surely will. But others will not."
From Atlanta area paper:
Local Iraqis travel to cast their vote
By Ed Brock
For Sardar Sheikha there is no distance too great to travel for the opportunity to cast his vote in Iraq's first free election since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
On Saturday Sheikha, an Iraqi Kurd now living in Morrow, his wife Naema and two of their children joined another Kurdish family from Jonesboro to drive to Nashville, Tenn., to register for the elections scheduled for this weekend. Nashville is the closest of five cities in the United States where the International Organization for Migration is operating polling places for Iraqis living in this country.
"We saw people from Missouri," Naema Sheikha said.
"I saw my cousin (also living in Missouri)," Sardar Sheikha said. "I haven't seen him for eight years."
On this coming Saturday they will return to Nashville for the election in which they will chose from over 100 "political entities" on the ballot for Iraq's Transitional National Assembly. The Assembly will be responsible for drafting Iraq's permanent constitution, electing a president and two deputy presidents and to legislate and exercise oversight over the executive authority.
The "political entities" are groups and individuals.
"We're voting Kurdish," Naema Sheikha said.
Having lived under Hussein's rule, the Sheikha's experienced first hand the tyranny of the old dictatorship. Since coming to America in 1997 they have made a good life with some help from friends like L.C. Thomas of Morrow and the congregation at First Baptist Church of Morrow.
"When they came here they had only the clothes on their backs," Thomas said.
Now Sardar Sheikha works for Clayton County (he prefers not to publicize the specifics of his job) and they recently moved into a larger house. Their youngest son, 4-year-old Shaho, was born here and is therefore an American citizen.
"Our whole church family is proud of them. I'm especially proud of them for going to vote," Thomas said.
Having the opportunity to participate in his homeland's new democracy is cause for celebration, Sheikha said, and well worth the 8-hour round trip to Nashville.
"We need our country to be free. We need to clean our country of bad people and terrorists," Sheikha said. "It doesn't matter how far we go."
Naema Sheikha also said that attitude was shared by all who made the trip last weekend.
Sardar Sheikha estimated that 99 percent of the Iraqi people in the Atlanta area made the trip to register for the election. The Sheikhas and their traveling companions kept in touch with them during the trip via cell phones.
When they arrived they found their wait to get through the process was only about 15 minutes, thanks to the IOM's organization. But they also expect the crowds to be heavier during the actual vote, which will be held in three days starting Friday.
Registration for the election ended Tuesday at the 75 facilities in 14 countries in which IOM is holding elections for expatriate Iraqis. On the eighth and final day of the registration 17,694 expatriate Iraqis registered at the center, bringing the worldwide total to 255,611.
While pre-election violence continued to rage in Iraq itself, the Sheikhas said they weren't worried about anything happening in Nashville.
"They had good security," Sardar Sheikha said. "They checked at two different places."
"If that (metal detector) made a noise they wouldn't let you through," Naema Sheikha said.
More information on the election is available at www.iraqocv.org or by calling the help line, 1-800-916-8292.
http://www.news-daily.com/articles/2005/01/26/news/news2.txt
I can only hope, but not expect, that you will accept my apology. Sometimes my own idiocy shocks me, and I'm not really that type of person, except on very rare occasions.
I can only hope and pray for the best for you and yours.
Sincerely, Concentrate.
My goodness, Concentrate, what ever brought this on? I am sure we must have argued about something at some point in time, but, for the life of me, I have NO idea what you're talking about.
I cannot imagine anything you could have said to me that would cause you to think it was the "meanest thing" you've ever said to anyone in your life.
Look, this is a heated forum; I readily admit that I "give" just as much as I "get" and I am fully aware of it, but, again, I don't feel you owe me an apology for anything; I cannot tell from this thread what was deleted; was it addressed to me?
If so, I think in all fairness that I should tell you that the post I made at the beginning of this thread was the last post I made before I left on a trip for four days, arriving home only late last night; I get hundreds of pings a day, so whatever you may have posted to me has been lost in the pings on my comments page.
So, basically, I didn't read it......LOL....and you have no reason to beat yourself up about it, friend. I, too, have had second thoughts about things I have posted and have had to come back and apologize (admittedly not very often....LOL), so please don't give it a second thought!
I know I can be VERY irritating, so, again, please don't beat yourself up for something like this; heck, I may have even deserved what you said at the time -- I just can't remember either...LOL)
Come on, friend, it's just the internet -- and in the long haul, we're all in the same battle.
Me.
In the unlikely event that the msm is wrong, whatever they're wrong about goes down the memory hole, i.e., never happened.
I suspect the spin is going to be a) this isn't that big a deal, and b) the whole thing was invalid in the first place because the sunni didn't like it.
F'em. The Amurrikin pipple know the truth about this one.
Thank you for your gracious response. Nonetheless I will, as promised, to make it up to you, or to someone else in your stead. Thanks for your kindness.
It's not kindness, Concentrate; it's just plain realizing that we ALL make mistakes all the time; nobody here is perfect.
And thank you for your apology -- whatever it was you said......LOL.
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