If You Had Numbers, You Would Have Used Numbers
By Cori Dauber
This front page Times article, headlined, "Shiite Faction Ready to Shun Election in Iraq," purports to demonstrate that even among the Shia turnout will be low, or lower than advertised, because a key faction is apparently not going to play, and it's chock full of adjectives about the size of this faction, you know, "vast," and "huge," and so on.
Garbage.
While I'm sure the political analysis about this faction -- it's our old bud al-Sadr, for God's sake -- is accurate, that he's been talking out of both sides of his mouth on his willingness to participate in the political process, the idea that if he takes his marbles and goes home that's going to so impact turnout as to produce a "less than overwhelming voter turnout" amongst the Shia is flat nonsense.
Numbers are relative after all. Sadr may have enough forces backing him that they may count as "vast" if they're in the streets launching RPGs.
But to suggest, as this article does, that Sadr's support is "vast" in head to head comparison with Sistani's is just nonsense. Which, I would suggest, is why Reporter Filkins doesn't bother to tell us what their overall numbers actually are. Highest estimates I've ever seen are in the range of 100,000. How do you think that compares to the loyalty Sistani controls?
Now, just around the time you figure you know what this article is about and you've got it together and therefore don't need to go to the second computer screen if you're online (long after you would have had to flip to page A6) we come to what is, in essence, a second article altogether, nested inside the first, at the 22 paragraph mark.
Iraqi leaders claimed a major success in their effort to break up the group led by the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. They said they had captured three senior members of Mr. Zarqawi's group, including Salah Suleiman al-Loheibi, described as the chief of its Baghdad operations.
Qassim Daoud, minister of state for national security, told reporters that Mr. Loheibi had met with Mr. Zarqawi more than 40 times over the last three months. The two other men captured were Anad Muhammad Qais, described as Mr. Zarqawi's military adviser, and Ali Hamad Yassin al-Issawi.
Barem Saleh, the deputy foreign minister, said his government was getting close to capturing or killing Mr. Zarqawi himself.
"We are getting close to finishing off al-Zarqawi, and we will get rid of him," Mr. Saleh told reporters.
Not only is this information stuck where it's virtually impossible to find, it's also undermined:
Still, apart from the assurances of the Iraqi leaders, it was not immediately clear how important the suspected militants were, or whether their capture would slow down the insurgency. Iraqi leaders have claimed to have captured senior members of Mr. Zarqawi's ring before, and his murderous campaign has rolled on.
Well, thanks, but whose opinion, exactly, is that? Because one of the reasons it's dangerous for reporters to insert their own opinions into articles is that they don't feel compelled to insert any opposite opinions for balance, seeing their own opinions as simply neutral statements of fact.
But then, when even the hardiest of souls will likely have given up, since we're now into other topics, so surely any information on voter turnout must already have been presented, we come to the very end of the article:
At Bouratha Mosque in northern Baghdad, Sheik Jalal al-Sajhir, who is also a Shiite candidate for the national assembly, told his followers to go to vote Sunday no matter what their fears.
"The day of our victory will be Sunday," Sheik Sajhir told about 1,000 people assembled before him. "We are going to show the terrorists that their car bombs are not stronger than our belief."
He urged Iraqi women to vote, and to overcome not just their fears of violence, but their husbands as well.
"Give your voice, even if your husbands refuse you," he said.
Even some Sunni clerics urged their followers to go forward to the polls. Breaking with most of his fellow Sunni clerics, who have called for a boycott of the election, a cleric at one of the most anti-American mosques in the city told his followers to vote for the best candidate.
"The national assembly is going to happen," said Sheik Moayed al-Adami, imam at Abu Hanifa Mosque in the Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiya, according to Agence France-Presse.
Sheik Adami seemed to allude to the prospect of Shiite dominance, which, he suggested, could be countered only by voting. .
"Our rights have been damaged," he said. "The elections must be of benefit to all and not to one group and or one party."
For people who pride themselves on the craftmanship of their writing, reporters (and their editors) certainly do worship at the altar of the non-linear. |
