A Shaky Media Taboo - Withdrawal from Iraq

[illbill]

http://www.realopinion.com/realboards/showthread.php?t=1477

<snip>The latest polls show that most Americans are critical of the war in Iraq. But the option of swiftly withdrawing all U.S. troops from that country gets little media attention.

So far this year, many news outlets have lapsed into conjecture on what George W. Bush has in mind for the Iraq war. At the end of a recent lengthy editorial, the New York Times noted that "there's speculation about whether President Bush intends to use the arrival of a new elected government as an occasion to declare victory and begin pulling out American troops." <snip>

http://www.realopinion.com/realboards/showthread.php?t=1477

[Cocoa]

1. here's the meat, imo

it's the letter that predictably has been ignored...

Sixteen members of the U.S. House of Representatives launched an initiative in that direction on Jan. 12 with a letter to President Bush urging him "to take immediate steps to begin the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq." Led by Rep. Lynn Woolsey of California, the signers contended: "It has become clear that the existence of more than 130,000 American troops stationed on Iraqi soil is infuriating to the Iraqi people - especially because Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction and did not have a connection to the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, or to the al Qaeda terrorist organization. Indeed, the very presence of Americans in Iraq is a rallying point for dissatisfied people in the Arab world."

Few media outlets beyond California did any substantive reporting on the letter. But it could turn out to be an initial step on a long journey for efforts to achieve a congressional cutoff of funds for the Iraq war. Such efforts can only be successful if immense grassroots pressure develops to compel members of Congress to take action.

Rep. Woolsey is set to take another step by introducing a resolution in the House of Representatives calling for U.S. troops to come home from Iraq as soon as logistically possible. Her office told me on Jan. 19 that Woolsey's resolution - still in draft form and not yet circulated to House members - was scheduled to be introduced in late January.

If left up to newsroom editors and mainstream pundits, the Woolsey resolution will scarcely cause a ripple in the national media pond. But the resolution could do much more than sink like a stone. It has the potential to serve as a catalyst for nationwide debate.