SKEWING PERCEPTIONS
Cori Dauber
rantingprofs.com
The headline of this New York Times article is the same for the online and paper editions:
"27 Civilians Die in New Attacks by Iraq Rebels"
Given everything we hear from Iraq over and over and over again, you could look at that headline and legitimately think that you hardly need to read the story: once again the (oh, excuse me, now they're rebels, have you noticed that in the effort to avoid using a negatively charged word, the words used to describe the enemy have gotten progressively less neutral until they're now actively charged with positive meaning?) have launched attacks and innocents have been killed.
What an oddly one-sided war. All that changes from day to day is who has the advantage. If we're on the offense, they can hardly hope to stand against our vastly superior military. If not, they use tactics against which there seems to be no defense: and so it seems innocents continue to die because no one can protect them, these stories suggest an odd and unavoidable passivity on the part of the good guys, don't they, a certain helplessness in the face of the enemy.
One problem: take a look at the first paragraph --
Heavily armed insurgents launched attacks here and in the northern city of Mosul on Friday morning, striking at police stations, military bases and a Shiite mosque. At least 27 Iraqi civilians and policemen and dozens of insurgents were killed. (My emph.)
The first thing that means is that the headline is flat inaccurate. 27 civilians were not killed; some of those killed were not civilians, about which more below.
Second, the headline creates the impression that what happened was completely and totally one-sided. So, while only mentioning the people on our side who died is technically accurate, it's still misleading. A more accurate headline would have said something along the lines of "Violence throughout Iraq: Dozens on both sides killed" (even if we aren't told what "dozens" translates to in terms of enemy dead -- and why not?)
As to the substance of the article, it makes clear that the enemy is still able to mount extensive -- and coordinated -- attacks, important information.
But look what gets completely buried:
Iraqi troops also stormed a partly built mosque where insurgents had fired at American soldiers. Inside, they found five rocket-propelled grenade launchers and seven Russian-made machine guns among other weapons, military officials said.
Notice that when Iraqi forces fail we get full details and a robust discussion of the implications. But when they succeed, it's a throw away line.
And here's the end of the article:
The attack on the Shiite mosque in Baghdad appears to be part of another tactic by insurgents - mostly Sunni Arabs - to destabilize the country by provoking sectarian divisions, a United States official in Baghdad said Friday.
That was the view of many victims and witnesses of the mosque attack in Adhamiya, a former bastion of support for Saddam Hussein where many insurgents are said to live. "I think they targeted the mosque to create racism between the Iraqi people," said Abdul Ameer Khamis, who lives nearby. "There are no important officials or facilities in this neighborhood."
Gee, ya think?
And every time they try this strategy the possibility of civil war is brought up.
But every time they try it, they fail.
At what point, exactly, do we get to say that however bad the situation is and despite the fact that there is a great deal of violence in the country, the strategy of baiting sectarian violence is a bust?
Much earlier in the article (of course) we read this:
The police inside the compound held off the attackers at first, but soon ran out of ammunition, survivors and witnesses said. They called for reinforcements, but when the new officers arrived, the guerrillas entered the compound with them. The insurgents, shouting "God is great!" in Arabic, quickly took over the station and pursued six fleeing officers to the roof, where they shot them all execution-style, with one bullet to the head.
Now, that bit about running out of ammunition is a disaster, and I would hope someone somewhere is launching an investigation to find out what happened and make sure it doesn't happen again. However, this story does make you wonder: how many of the police who are being killed and wounded are going down because, like these men, they stood and fought? Isn't that a question worth asking? |
