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Jun 24 2004

Iraq is now a three-city country…

Posted at 7:09 am under War in Iraq

According to the US media, the following are the only cities that exist in Iraq:

Baghdad.
Koufa.
Falloujah.

The media hereby reserves the right to add any cities to that list as long as something bad is happening there.

Comments to “Iraq is now a three-city country…”

Swt GA HunnyB Says:
June 24th, 2004 at 9:07 am

What? That is BS. *rolls eyes*

tarek Says:
June 24th, 2004 at 10:40 am

You forgot Basra

Jeremiah Says:
June 24th, 2004 at 1:15 pm

And Najaf. Ramadi occasionally comes up.

Cities/regions that have been wiped off the map:

Kurdistan, Mosul, Maysan, Karbala, Tikrit, Arbil, and Sulaimaniyah…

samuel Says:
June 25th, 2004 at 1:33 am

I’d list some cities but i need to point out that it’s necessary to report all of these evil happenings. The Right is correct when they tout the improvements being made in Iraq. However, Car-bombings, Suicide bombers, kidnappings, beheadings, and asassinations of Iraqi officials carry more weight than the new text books that Iraqi school children will be recieving this semester. An aside, I’ve always seen it spelled Fallujah.

Vinny Says:
June 25th, 2004 at 7:14 am

It is necessary to report the bad.

So when was the last time you turned on the news and heard the good?

At all?

If you go by what was on the news, only bad things were happening.

Why?

Because there’s no coverage of other cities. It’s a country the size of California, but covered like it’s the size of New York City.

RKB Says:
June 25th, 2004 at 8:30 am

So, Vinny, if a single day brings explosions and upwards of 100 deaths in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego, the media would be more responsible, or more “balanced” if they made sure to report that on those same days kids were playing in parks in Sacramento, or enjoying the beaches in Monterey?

Vinny Says:
June 25th, 2004 at 9:46 am

So Robert, are you saying there’s a balance of good news and bad coming out of Iraq?

Or better yet, are you saying there is no good news worth reporting about in Iraq?

Or even moreso, are you saying that the media portraying Iraq as a country in utter turmoil based on a few cities and not the entire country is accurate reporting of the situation at hand?

Just trying to understand.

RKB Says:
June 25th, 2004 at 10:43 am

I guess I’d think of it this way. There is, of course, always good and bad in any country or city. And The Media, typically, regardless of whether you feel they lean left or right, will tend to splash The Bad News onto the front page because they’re in the business of selling newspapers (or commercials, if they’re CNN).

You balance that with the heartfelt feel-good stories because nobody wants to wallow in misery. But they typically get back page status.

I’m not a member of The Media, but on any given day, I’ll practice the same selectivity, determine what’s “newsworthy” or not. A guy cuts me off in traffic, or there’s a bloody crash, or I see somebody naked by the side of the highway — those are the things I’ll share with family and friends. A drive into work that was exactly like every other drive into work? It’s “good” because I wasn’t involved in a ten-car pile-up, but it’s also not worth “reporting.”

So let’s bring it back to Iraq.

No, I do not think that there is a balance of good and bad coverage coming from Iraq. I think that current news coverage leans toward the bad. But I also happen to think that the amount of ongoing violence there is a very bad thing, and SHOULD be reported before any of the other good news in other cities.

In other words, if somebody guns down ten people in a shopping mall in Backwater, Iowa, I would EXPECT that news to dominate for at least a little while, instead of the cheery news that the State Fair had record attendance, or that Miss Iowa advanced in some national beauty competition.

Do you think the current level of violence — and the types of violence — that we’re seeing in Iraq is accetable? That it’s not so bad, all things considered?

Jeremiah Says:
June 25th, 2004 at 1:30 pm

Well, RKB, since you pose the question, I’ll bite.

All things considered, things really aren’t all that bad. See, it’s all in what you consider. If I consider the results of letting terrorists have their way, the way we had for decades, or if I consider the costs in lives and money and infrastructure of Vietnam, for instance, or even WWII, you bet I’m going to say it’s not bad, all things considering.

Now compared to, say a rosy State Fair where everyone wins prizes for the biggest vegetables, or the latest private enterprise manned space flight, then sure, things don’t look so good.

But what’s the longterm effect?

Vinny Says:
June 26th, 2004 at 11:33 am

“Do you think the current level of violence Ã± and the types of violence Ã± that weÃre seeing in Iraq is accetable? That itÃs not so bad, all things considered?”

I would never say that. However, in their coverage the media has done one thing that is just absolutely unacceptable.

1. The coverage focuses on all the cities where the fighting is going on. Iraq is a country the size of California, but the media acts like it’s the size of New York City. By doing so, the “quagmire” mentality gets a boost because it looks like nothing is going on there but car bombings and sniper killings.

2. The obsession with Abu Ghraib to the exclusion of all other stories coming out of Iraq. Yeah, it’s terrible. It also happened in January and was already being investigated. If you listen to the media, the only thing going on in Iraq is Abu Ghraib.

3. The obsessive mention of Al Zarqawi who’s been operating in Iraq for 13 years, and only casually mentioning who the man is: An Al Qaeda operative and chemical weapons specialist.

All of this combined make Iraq look like the largest mistake in the history of mankind.

Of course it does, because in their eyes, there is no other side to the story.

Sure you cover the bad, but you can’t ignore the good (or even the rest of the frigging country).

Iraq is now a three-city country…

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