http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18369Misreportiing the Iraqi Uprising
It's the oldest story in the world: what goes up must come down. All the bluster, PR, "positive" press, bullying, distortion, deception, and military tough-guy bluster cannot keep a flawed policy afloat. The invasion of Iraq, sold as the "liberation of the Iraqi people," was always a B-rate production with a bad script, flawed characters, and no third act.
Despite all the Bremer ballast served up about how only a handful of Saddam-worshipping, al-Sadr-loving, Al-Qaeda-following fanatics stand in the way of a U.S.-imposed democratic paradise, the reality on the ground suggests otherwise. A Sunni-Shia opposition movement is emerging, and gathering steam. snip
For the most part, the U.S. media, even while reporting on the deterioration of the situation in Iraq, continues to echo the Bush administration's desired media message. The White House spin puts all the blame for the violence largely on Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has been described as an unrepresentative, mentally unbalanced mullah bent on violence. He is depicted as a hot head, an outlaw and a terrorist. But this demonization rarely has been backed up with documentation or detailed analysis. snip
"If the reporting on the U.S. military campaign is fundamentally flawed, its meaning is often obscured," writes Robert Fisk of The Independent in London. "The grim truth, however, is that the occupying powers are now facing insurrection of various strengths in almost every big city in Iraq. Yet they are still not confronting that truth."
For the past nine nights, Fisk reports, the main U.S. base close to Baghdad airport – and the area around the terminals – has come under mortar fire, "but the occupying powers have kept this secret." They would prefer to tell us that the U.S. occupation is working, that democracy is right around the corner.
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