Must-read blog post from NBC reporter in Baghdad

[lwcon]

http://onthescene.msnbc.com/baghdad/2006/10/calling_bob_in_.html#posts"

From NBC News Correspondent Jane Arraf:

Some readers and viewers think we journalists are exaggerating about the situation in Iraq. I can almost understand that because who would want to believe that things are this bad? Particularly when so many people here started out with such good intentions.

I'm more puzzled by comments that the violence isn't any worse than any American city. Really? In which American city do 60 bullet-riddled bodies turn up on a given day? In which city do the headless bodies of ordinary citizens turn up every single day? In which city would it not be news if neighborhood school children were blown up? In which neighborhood would you look the other way if gunmen came into restaurants and shot dead the customers?

...I don't know a single family here that hasn't had a relative, neighbor or friend die violently. In places where there's been all-out fighting going on, I've interviewed parents who buried their dead child in the yard because it was too dangerous to go to the morgue.

Imagine the worst day you've ever had in your life, add a regular dose of terror and you'll begin to get an idea of what it's like every day for a lot of people here.

___

Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

[Auntie Bush]

1. What a sad, sad world we live in.

What a horror of a mess George created while he sleeps soundly in his nice warm bed with Laura! All is well in Crawford and that's all that matters...if you have no heart or brains.

[ovidsen]

4. Thank you for this

I'm going to send a few emails or 10 with this link. :patriot:

[sinkingfeeling]

2. I wish we could tatoo those paragraphs on the foreheads of all of Faux's

'talking heads' and their listeners! I could add a couple of dozen others, including Limpballs, Joe, and most GOP office holders!!

[lwcon]

3. I do hope this story will circulate

The sick myth that says the media is making a mountain out of a molehill is leading to more and or senseless death -- not that there's much of any way to stop this Pandora's Box that Bush was only too happy to open, and too heartless to care about when the situation might have been somewhat fixable.

If you never saw this video of Lara Logan a few months back, I'd highly recommend it. If she weren't heart-breakingly beautiful to begin with, her passion and conviction would make her so anyway as she battles that same mythology: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/03/26/lara-logan-smacked-down-the-quotnegative-iraq-war-coveragequot-charges/

___

Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

[DIKB]

5. When I see articles like this

I want to knock the shit outta people who say that reporters are ignoring the "good news" coming out of Iraq.

We DESTROYED the country, we are expected to fix it. Therefore, school openings, basic necessities, etc. aren't "good news" we're putting things back in place, the efforts that set us back, now that's News.

For instance, in an average American city, if some helping hand organization builds a house in said city, and the same day someone storms a building and kills everyone in sight. Which of those is News-worthy ?

I know I'm preaching to the choir, but I just wish these people would be realistic.

[tomreedtoon]

6. "In what American city...?" Name it.

My old home town of Saint Louis has a wonderful event each spring, when the snow melts. In the various ravines in the south counties, the melting snow uncovers the bodies of murder victims killed over the winter.

Those were people killed by the SMART criminals. The dumb ones kill the bodies and leave them where they can be discovered. They're the ones that fill the local TV newscasts.

I can EASILY accept Americans killing Americans. That's pretty traditional. But Americans killing people in other countries...people who aren't trying to kill us and probably would have trouble doing so if they tried...that's an entirely different matter.

This TV reporter obviously has never watched the TV news he produces. Then again, none of the reporters in the station where I work ever watch it, either.

[lwcon]

11. Huh?

In that spring thaw, do several thousand bound, tortured, and decapitated bodies turn up in The Gateway City? Because that's the magnitude and nature of the murder that happens in three months in Baghdad.

Also, Jane is a she.

___

Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

[tomreedtoon]

12. Winter is 1/4 of a year. The proportion still holds.

And be assured that with global warming, the snow won't be on the ground that long, so the ravine cover-up will last a shorter time. But just because the bodies have less hiding time doesn't mean that the killing rate in Saint Louis will go down. Any more than the killing rate in Chicago, Detroit, New York City, New Orleans (well, they got the flood, easier to hide 'em there) or Kalamazoo will go down.

And my California friend tells me that "dude" is now a sex-neutral term. She calls everyone "dude" and her husband can testify that she's not a lesbian.

Getting back to the point, aren't you watching your local news? Your local murder rate, wherever you are, is continuing to rise. You are ignoring the most important content of television news - TERROR!!! Not in some foreign land that neither you nor the newscaster can pronounce, but TERROR RIGHT OUTSIDE YOUR FREAKING FRONT DOOR!!!

[eridani]

7. "Good intentions"????

What's good about invading a country that is no threat to us, kicking the shit out of it and selling off all of their public assets?

[lwcon]

9. Yup, she's being rather generous there...

... probably to provide some air cover to the people who feel guilty for buying into the noble-sounding explanations du jour up 'til now.

Methinks this guilt has been one of the hardest problems in getting Americans to acknowledge what a fiasco and shame this war is.

___

Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

[GetTheRightVote]

8. It is a must that stories like this get out, public would hate it, stop it

The average American would not accept these kinds of conditions, we are better then this shows.

:kick:

[Vinca]

10. It must be heart wrenching to cover it up close and personal.

Bush, Cheney and the whole lot of them should be hauled off and tried for war crimes.

[krkaufman]

13. Consider the Lancet study numbers if extrapolated to the US population....

Assumptions...
Pre-war Iraq population = 24 million
Current US population = 300 million

Iraqi fatality estimate (latest Lancet study) = 655,000
Iraqi refugee estimate = 1.1 million

US equivalents...
US fatalities = 8.19 million
US refugee equivalent = 13.75 million

Basically, the Lancet civilian fatalities estimate extrapolates to the loss of the entire population of New York City.

Any wonder why the Iraqis want us out of their country?