Tomgram: Making Iraq Disappear

[lies]

Excellent Article:

The Million Year War
How Never to Withdraw from Iraq
By Tom Engelhardt

Think of the top officials of the Bush administration as magicians when it comes to Iraq. Their top hats and tails may be worn and their act fraying, but it doesn't seem to matter. Their latest "abracadabra," the President's "surge strategy" of 2007, has still worked like a charm. They waved their magic wands, paid off and armed a bunch of former Sunni insurgents and al-Qaeda terrorists (about 80,000 "concerned citizens," as the President likes to call them), and magically lowered "violence" in Iraq. Even more miraculously, they made a country that they had already turned into a cesspool and a slagheap -- its capital now has a "lake" of sewage so large that it can be viewed "as a big black spot on Google Earth" -- almost entirely disappear from view in the U.S.

Of course, what they needed to be effective was that classic adjunct to any magician's act, the perfect assistant. This has been a role long held, and still played with mysterious willingness, by the mainstream media. There are certainly many reporters in Iraq doing their jobs as best they can in difficult circumstances. When it comes to those who make the media decisions at home, however, they have practically clamored for the Bush administration to put them in a coffin-like box and saw it in half. Thanks to their news choices, Iraq has for months been whisked deep inside most papers and into the softest sections of network and cable news programs. Only one Iraq subject has gotten significant front-page attention: How much "success" has the President's surge strategy had?

Before confirmatory polls even arrived, the media had waved its own magic wand and declared that Americans had lost interest in Iraq. Certainly the media people had. The economy -- with its subprime Hadithas and its market Abu Ghraibs -- moved to center stage, yet links between the Bush administration's two trillion dollar war and a swooning economy were seldom considered. It mattered little that a recent Associated Press/Ipsos poll revealed a majority of Americans to be convinced that the most reasonable "stimulus" for the U.S. economy would be withdrawal from Iraq. A total of 68% of those polled believed such a move would help the economy.

Anyone tuning in to the nightly network news can now regularly go through a typical half-hour focused on Obamania, the faltering of the Clinton "machine," the Huckabee/McCain face-off on Republican Main Street, the latest nose-diving market, and the latest campus shooting without running across Iraq at all. Cable TV, radio news, newspapers -- it makes little difference.

The News Coverage Index of the Project for Excellence in Journalism illustrates that point clearly. For the week of February 4-10, the category of "Iraq Homefront" barely squeaked into tenth place on its chart of the top-ten most heavily covered stories with 1% of the "newshole." First place went to "2008 Campaign" at 55%. "Events in Iraq" -- that is, actual coverage of and from Iraq -- didn't make it onto the list. (The week before, "Events in Iraq" managed to reach #6 with 2% of the newshole.)

http://tomdispatch.com/post/174896/making_iraq_disappear

Sorry if this is a repost, but even if it is, if you missed it the first time, read it now!

[JohnyCanuck]

1. Didn't Tom read the White House press release?

The surge has been a success and Iraq is now well on the way to normalcy. What could there possibly be to report?

[lies]

2. hahaha

I think he must've missed that...

[KharmaTrain]

3. Pacifica Radio Had A Great Report On "The Blackout"

I caught it in the car...a free-lance reporter who had spent 6 months in Baghdad talked about how limited he was in covering anything. Most days he was confined to his hotel or a couple of "safe" ministries inside the Green Zone. He couldn't travel anywhere and even making phone contact was risky as they fear having the call tapped and traced. What stories he was able to report were either those fed to him by military press releases or watching the local TV.

So much of what is going on is hidden behind a curtain that enables the GOOPers to claim "success". Of course, if the truth were to be told of the on-going horrors, they'd scream how the media is playing defeatist. The corporate media outlets have long since scaled things back in Iraq due to the risks and expenses. Except for traveling as an embed in a military dog and pony show, the media is kept on a very short leash in Iraq.

This also has happened in Afghanistan...and the situation there has deteriorated in recent weeks. The spring is arriving, and with it the offensives are sure to begin.

Thank you for posting...

[spanone]

5. no reporters...no reporting....fairly simple scenario...it's worked so far

[AlertLurker]

4. Why does this continue to surprise ANYONE?

Wake the hell up, people!

You don't spend the kind of cash the US has spent, building the world's largest embassy and fourteen HUGE permanent military bases, in order to JUST WALKJ WAYA FROM IT.

You really don't have to know any more than this to figure it out, but in case you do, please realize that Iraq, Iran and some of the Caucasus states are the ONLY places in the world where SUBSTANTIAL oil deposits (and LNG, in the case of the Caucasus) are still being discovered.

Got it now?

[Orwellian_Ghost]

6. K&R n/t

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

7. Numerous journalists attempting to report facts/truth have been targeted by U.S. forces.

There is no such thing as "free speech" in our war zones. That's a fact!