IRAQ: How the News Got Strange
Strategy Page
July 3, 2005: Iraq’s Sunni Arab rebels are trying to capitalize on the hostility of Europeans, and some Americans, to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Many foreign journalists have created a mythology that there is a legitimate “insurgency” in Iraq, composed of men who are valiantly attempting to ”liberate” their country from “foreign occupation.” The Sunni Arabs are actually trying to restore their dictatorship, and resume decades of brutal oppression towards the Kurds and Shia Arab majority. Their al Qaeda allies want to turn Iraq intro an Islamic dictatorship. Many foreign journalists have gone along with the Sunni Arab propaganda, despite growing protests from the Iraqi government that this policy is supporting terrorism and efforts to return Saddam Hussein's government to power. Saddam had spent a lot of money to buy support from foreign politicians and journalists, and now many of these people feel compelled to continue that support. Getting behind al Qaeda attacks against Iraqi civilians is rather more difficult. But many who oppose American counter-terrorism strategy and tactics, have no problem in calling al Qaeda terrorists "Iraqi insurgents", and "foreign supporters of Iraqi independence" (from "foreign occupation.") When the histories of the Iraq war are written many decades hence, this double-think by so many journalists and politicians will be seen as very strange. For now, however, it's often just, "the news."
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