Getting The Skinny On Iraq

Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) is at it again, signalling his party's new tack as it tries yet once more to market itself as "the" party Americans may take seriously again in national leadership.

Reid is quoted in a June 5, 2005 Washington Post story titled, Bush's Optimism On Iraq Debated, as saying, "The administration has failed to level with the American people. It's terrible because they refuse to provide a full picture of what is really happening there."

That's odd. Outside of the predictable agreement of mainstream media with Reid, everyone who truly wants to know what is really going on in Iraq pretty much knows it. As the Hugh Hewitt blog puts it in its Sunday post:

The absurd thing about Reid's statement is that pretty much every American who cares to know the situation in Iraq knows it, but gets an enormously skewed view of the situation from MSM. Chrenkoff is the reliable guide to all things Iraqi, not just the car bombs, and Belmont Club the Fourth Rail, VictorDavisHanson, and Winds of Change provide the strategic analysis. Dems trying to peddle "Iraq as Vietnam" find it slow going...

Read the whole post here.

Indeed, mainstream media obsesses over Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Or when a Marine decides that an enemy combatant is only playing dead in order to ambush him and so fires his rifle to prevent the same scenario that killed many of his fellow Marines just days or hours before. But mainstream media plays up only the fact that he fired his rifle.

No more. Americans with real concern for knowing the situation in Iraq know where to find information without the slant mainstream media likes to throw in.

For example, if you would like first hand accounts of a couple of Iraq raids written by a serviceman who actually participated in them, you could try Hurl's BLOG. From there you could find links that may lead to more links.

Americans know the incredible restraint and professionalism practiced as a rule, not as the exception, by our men and women in uniform even while the enemy they engage follow no rules. Many a time, a soldier is wounded or killed because of hesitation to fire his weapon because rules of engagement he is following make him think twice. Meanwhile, his enemy exploits this as weakness. He pretends to be injured. And then detonates a grenade as the American soldier lowers his weapon to provide medical help.

But mainstream media only highlights the exceptions while largely ignoring what is being accomplished in Iraq.

On our sidebar, you will find more blogs dedicated to reporting on the military and national security. Have at it.

God bless you.

Graphic courtesy of:
John Bell
http://www.jrbell.com/