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Pulp Fiction, er, News Reporting
EFLRadical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has again proved that he and his followers hold an important card in Iraq's future. Their clashes with fellow Shiites also made clear one very stark fact: The attempt to forge a new constitution has deepened Iraq's religious and ethnic divisions, not healed them, as Americans had hoped. WTF, over? A "stark fact," or a ridiculous and undocumented non-fact? Memo to the geniuses at AP -- Tater Tot and the Badr boys are vying for power, and at this stage in Iraq that means muscling each other around. Additionally, "religious and ethnic divisions" clearly don't apply WITHIN the Shi'a community, asshats. And when did "Americans" declare that they thought the task of building a democratic, rule-of-law-based society in Iraq would -- in the space of 4 months - "heal" these divisions? This sort of nonsense is common in today's "reporting". There's another whopper that's routinely slipped into Reuters dispatches from Iraq. The enemy is described as opposing "the Shi'a and Kurdish dominated US-backed government." Hmmm, all those descriptors are accurate, but d'ya think a significant one is, uh, missing? Like "elected"? The moral inversion of the major media when it comes to "covering" the struggle between the US and other civilized forces and the repugnant blend of genocidal fascists, criminal thugs, and insane religious fanatics in Iraq is, indisputably, a "stark fact." This article nicely showcases another prominent feature of media distortion: attribution of reasonable or rational motivations to various scheming thugs and tools of malevolent forces, combined with a resolute disregard for relevant history and facts. Al-Sadr plays an unusual role in the constitution stalemate. He is Shiite, a fiery preacher and the son of a famous cleric believed murdered by former dictator Saddam Hussein. But in the constitution fight and on other issues, he is allied with Sunni Arab hard-liners. Uh, and with hostile elements of the Iranian intelligence service, which fuels his operations with drug money. Hello? Both al-Sadr and the Sunnis have strong grassroots appeal among ordinary Iraqis disaffected by the political process. WTF? "Disaffected" by the process through which people can have a voice, participate in elections, express their views freely? How about an accurate, informed description of the situation: people terrified their reign of terror, rapine, and larceny is over (Sunnis) and lumpen who like the drug money and are so ignorant they're prey to the crudest and most corrupt rabble-rouser (Shi'as who fall under Tater's spell)? Both have fought against the Americans â al-Sadr in two bloody uprisings last year, ... (unfinished sentence: "both of which were crushed by masterful US military operations with the cooperation of resentful Shi'a victimized by the Sadr forces' brutality and destructiveness." ... the Sunnis in the insurgency. Both view any constitution written under a strong U.S. military presence as illegitimate. WTF???!!!!!!! Right -- Sunnis thugs and drug-fueled Sadrist bully-boys have highly developed, respectable concepts of "legitimacy" in the political sphere -- it's not that they've got their own designs on power which would NOT be served by a true constitutional order -- jeezuz. This is the sort of crap that any editor with half a brain would send back with a nasty note demanding an explanation for the histrionically naieve interpretation. The article rambles on, quoting Juan Cole -- though the quote used is unexceptional, WTF is it that these people can't find a respectable, informed "expert" to comment? So remember, it's not just the massive distortion inherent in the media's selection of what's news and how much play to give it -- the 70+ front page NYT stories on 6-8 hours of criminal activity by military guards at Abu Ghraib that was discovered, investigated, and duly punished by the Army -- it's the constant, insidious insertion of preposterous interpretations and baseless attribution of respectable motivations to anti-Coalition actors. All in all, a noxious confection that helps the public to completely misunderstand Iraq (and many other topics). Posted by: Verlaine in Iraq 2005-08-26 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=127768 |