Media coverage of the War on Terror -- I rant, you decide
A Bridge Too Far
By Cori Dauber
It's been suggested before that the strategy of killing innocent civilians is simply not one designed to win over popular support for the jihadi cause. Sooner or later, city by city and province by province, the Iraqi people will decide they've had enough.
Well, according to the Post, yesterday may have been Ramadi's tipping point.
Here's the first parapgraph:
<<< The residents of Ramadi had had enough. As they frantically searched the city's hospital for relatives killed and wounded in bomb blasts at a police recruiting station Thursday, they did something they had never publicly done: They blamed al Qaeda in Iraq, the insurgent movement led by Abu Musab Zarqawi. >>>
Although notice that according the Post, Zarqawi's boys may be distinguished from the run-of-the-mill insurgents, but he's still running an "insurgent movment."
Sigh.
How many chopped heads will it take before these people will be able to bring themselves to type the word "terrorist?" Can't they at least compromise and use "jihadi?"
In any event, it's been frustrating that the press often notes that there seems to be an "inexaustible" supply of suicide bombers without noting that the same thing seems to be true of police and Army recruits. The lines keep getting bombed, and the lines keep reforming. But, oh boy, it would appear that Zarqawi and the boys made a major mistake on this one (a mistake I believe all three networks missed, although I'm not positive.)
Some of those killed were tribal leaders who had come to supervise the recruitment of residents into the country's police force, said Majeed Tikriti, a doctor in Ramadi's hospital.
Even the Post reporters put it in the 12th paragraph, and I'm not sure they understand the full implications.
The reporters continue (although these paragraphs are buried really deep in the article):
<<< The Ramadi residents responded to the attack with fury. Nearly everyone at the scene said they believed it had been ordered by Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq, considered the most ruthless and best-organized faction in the insurgent movement. >>>
More:
<<< Another group of people beat a doctor in the hospital after he told an Iraqi journalist that U.S. forces were to blame for the attacks. >>>
Is it possible that part of this anger is a result of the tribal leaders being killed?
Well, either way, the Sunnis of Ramadi have now had it. The question is whether their anger will turn to action (calling in information, refusing to offer aid and assistance) and passivity (refusing to join in running gun battles) when it counts.
Only time will tell.
I guess the other question is whether the networks will bother to provide context for yesterday's body count.
One last point, having to do with learning to read critically:
<<< Footage on Iraqi television showed police in the city center shouting and waving pistols and assault rifles in an effort to control a crowd of onlookers. The ground appeared to be wet, and lumps of clothing and flesh lay scattered across the bloodstained street. Police and emergency workers loaded bodies onto wooden carts and pushed them away. The al-Iraqiya television network showed a pickup truck pulling away from the scene, black body bags piled in its bed. >>>
Translation: we weren't there, but we can tell you what we saw on TV.
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