HA HA
Posted on 10/16/2005 11:21:05 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The cognitive dissonance on display whenever the media attempts to cover an election gone right is truly a sight to see. Watching the vote progress in Iraq throughout the day on Saturday, one was left with the unfortunate impression that there would have been a lot less squirming in the anchor chairs if there had been mass bloodshed in the streets of Baghdad rather than a marked decrease in violence since the last election or if five percent of Sunnis had come out to vote instead of 65 percent.
Even in the absence of tragedy, some reporters were unwilling to dwell too long on the positive and instead used their imaginations to conjure up assertions that were not only willfully ignorant in historical context, but also suspect journalistically. For example, during CNN's coverage of the election Christiane Amanpour got off on a riff about a Sunni she had met who was opposed to the new constitution.
"Never before did we talk about Sunni, Shia, Kurd," Amanpour directly quoted the man as saying without referring to a tape or any notes. "For many, many years, despite our difficulties, despite the oppression under Saddam Hussein, Iraqis never really talked about their ethnic differences. They were Iraqis first and foremost."
Then without a clear line separating the two -- "our" somehow became "their" in a single sentence -- Amanpour continued on with her analysis.
"Many people are very concerned, they say, that it is only since the war that these differences have reared their very ugly heads," she said, adding moments later, "People are very, very concerned about the possibility that somehow in the future their country will lose its unity and will be fragmented."
If this were true, then why did U.S. warplanes spend the better part of 12 years patrolling the skies over Northern Iraq to prevent further genocide of the Kurds or over Southern Iraq to protect Shiites as well as Kuwaitis from the same unscrupulous Sunni minority running the country?
It's a curious bit coming from CNN's "Chief International Correspondent," who it has to be assumed must have some rudimentary understanding of the history of Iraq. If the role of the news media is to enlighten and educate, Amanpour's statement that "it is only since the war" that ethic differences "have reared their very ugly heads" borders on criminal negligence.
To hear Amanpour relay it, during Operation Anfal when Iraq was bombarding Kurd villages with chemical weapons and hauling untold thousands of men, women and children off to mass graves, the Kurds must have been thinking, "Well, at least we are all Iraqis. At least, God forbid, our nation has not lost its unity or is fragmented." And when Saddam Hussein drained the southern marshlands as retaliation against Muslim Shiites that had rebelled in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, killing or making refugees out of all but 40,000 of the 450,000 inhabitants, Amanpour seems to believe it was not Sunnis killing Shiites, but simply Iraqis killing Iraqis. (The marshlands, according to the United Nations Environment Program, are recovering at a "phenomenal rate" in the aftermath of this divisive war. Surely Amanpour doesn't believe Shiites would prefer to be unified as dead Iraqis rather than fragmented as living Shiites.)
Further, when the Kurds rose up in 1961 and again in 1975 to demand some semblance of the autonomy robbed of them by the arbitrary British imperial arrogance that created Iraq's borders in 1922, they must have been somehow confused about their ethnic identity. After all, how could the Kurds not have seen themselves as Iraqis back then? How could they have wanted out? The imperialist neocons hadn't even upset the authoritarian apple cart at that point.
Fifteen minutes later, Amanpour allowed sans irony that "the constitution is seen as a big victory for the Shiites and the Kurds who were very much oppressed certainly in the last years of the Saddam Hussein rule."
Hold the presses. I thought none of these sorts of identity politics had reared their heads until the Americans showed up. I thought Iraq had long been unified and was only now coming apart? If Amanpour is willing to acknowledge the oppression of Kurds and Shiites under Saddam Hussein, it only serves to make her earlier argument all the more ridiculous. Is unity enforced by the mechanisms of a police state really unity?
IGNORING THE SURPRISINGLY SUCCESSFUL vote in favor of on-air hand-wringing over the sectarian violence that has been promised for more than two years yet failed to materialize despite al-Qaeda's best murderous efforts was not merely the order of the day at CNN. On MSNBC correspondent Mike Boettcher attempted a one-way conversation with an anchor about the "significant" enthusiasm he was seeing on the ground in Iraq, even in Sunni areas, for the democratic process and to a lesser degree, the constitution.
Without pause, the next question put to Boettcher after this descriptive first-hand account was, "But did you get a chance to ask any of the Sunni voters how they voted. Would that have been 'No'?"
"No, no, I did," Boettcher repeated immediately. "I asked several of them. I would say easily over half in areas we were in voted 'Yes'."
There was a storyline embraced before the first Iraqi stepped into a polling place, as made clear by the fact that even an eyewitness -- a professional journalist on the ground, no less -- has difficulty coaxing an anchor in a studio in D.C. or New York City to believe anything that fails to fit what is apparently the conventional "wisdom."
The truth is that it is sad enough that both pro-war and anti-war partisans insist on ignoring good or bad news to create a reality more to their liking. When the mainstream press engages in similar intellectual dishonesty, however, it is inexcusable.
I thought CNN was a dead horse already. Does anyone watch?
The mainstream press is composed of "anti-war partisans". So, how is this "inexcusable"? Much less surprising?
They parade their "intellectual dishonesty" before us every day.
(Denny Crane: "I like nature. Don't talk to me about the environment".)
"Many people are very concerned, they say, that it is only since the war that these differences have reared their very ugly heads,"
Only a moronic left-wing journalist could utter something as profoundly stupid as that.
Thanks. Another article to file under "Liars in the Press", subheading "CNN".
I need to add another filing cabinet. This one's getting pretty full.
(Denny Crane: "I like nature. Don't talk to me about the environment".)
(Denny Crane: "I like nature. Don't talk to me about the environment".)
The only real news would be if the "mainstream" commercial media conglomerates actually started reporting truthfully.
I won't hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
(Denny Crane: "I like nature. Don't talk to me about the environment".)
Truer words have seldom been spoken.
One of the principal reasons for this war was to establish democracy, and get rid of dictatorships. Toward this end, there is nothing wrong with letting people vote with their feet. The forced togetherness is mostly a sop to Turkey because if the Iraqi Kurds become free, the Turkish Kurds will join them.
As it stands now, Iran has the most to gain, because the Shiites will probably hand them the country.
The old established/liberal/socialist media is America's most ruthless, relentless, and destructive enemy.
***
She reminds me of a brooding vulture waiting for blood. She seems miserable if nobody is dying and excited and orgasmic as the body count rises.
Iranian vulture - send her back to Teheran.
But unfortunately, the majority of Americans still don't understand the subliminal messages and constant threat of the continual distortions of the old media.
We see encouraging numbers in polls about how greater numbers of Americans distrust the media, thast is good, but most Americans still do not truly understand the insidiousness of the effect of the old media's continual distortions. How can all the terrible poll numbers on Bush and the war be explained but for that insidious negative effect?
***
The old established/liberal/socialist media is America's most ruthless, relentless, and destructive enemy.
***
Who's CNN?? Is he on that television thing?
The problem is this: The Kurds have large populations not only in Iraq but in Turkey and in Iran. If a free independent Kurdistan were allowed to be, large sections of both Turkey and Iran would be pulled into it and you will have a major war. Turkey has threatened to invade to prevent this. In the south the Shia are closer to Iran and a large free Shia population would be expected to drift towards Iran's sphere of influence and this has been a great worry to Kuwait and the gulf states, Israel. The Sunni while at the same time would drift into Syria's and to a lesser extent Jordan's sphere of influence and No one but Syria wants that to happen. Thus a united Iraq is the best geopolitical compromise that can be agreed upon by all the countries.
I will ask my father he might remember.
HA HA
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