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StrategyPage has a great take on the disconnect between what the medai reports about Iraq and what is REALLY going on.
A story slowly creeping into the news is the disconnect between what American troops experience in Iraq, and what is reported back in the United States, and the rest of the world. For U.S. troops, who are reenlisting in record numbers, even after multiple tours in Iraq, they are fighting a war they are winning, and they see the evidence of this all around them. You’d think that this would make a good story, but it doesn’t. The war on terror, and especially the war in Iraq, have got caught in the middle of other political conflicts. In the United States, the Democrat Party, out of power after nearly half a century, are eager to get control of the government once more, and agreeing about victory in Iraq is not seen as helping their cause. The American mainstream media, needing bad news to keep their ratings up, opt for the Democratic Party view of things.Posted by The Vorlon at December 16, 2005 9:04 AM[. . .]
What the troops see is the majority of Iraqis glad to have them there, and Saddam gone. But the troops also see that Saddams thousands of thugs, and the Sunni Arabs in general, are still free, and fighting to regain the power that Saddam lost for them. While the American media and the rest of the world rabbit on about “the Iraqi resistance,†the troops note that the Iraqis who are still killing, are the same ones who did so for decades while working for Saddam. American troops are killing bad people, not Iraqi “freedom fighters.†Future histories will wonder at how the media was able to carry off their charade for so long. But so far they have, although it’s becoming more difficult as more people get their news from the Internet, where the troops have more of a voice. Not just with blogs and email, but with the different attitudes of web based news organizations. Less burdened with old habits (the only good news is bad news), they also have demographic advantages. Younger people are more often getting their news from the web, rather than TV or paper. At least people the same age as the soldiers know what’s really going on.
As a practical matter, the military can’t do much to get the true story out. Actually, the mass media is already backing off from their Iraq coverage, because of a combination of too much good news, and too much alternative coverage from the troops, and Iraqis themselves. Good news is no news. Moreover, the large number of people who have bought into the idea that Iraq was a mistake, evil, and a defeat, that there will long be an audience for revisionist historians, who will invent alternate realities of what really happened in Iraq.
What the history books will report will be how the battle for Iraq brought democracy (which al Qaeda outright condemns) to the Middle East, and forced Islamic terrorists to show their true colors (fanatic butchers, who don’t much care who they kill.) This led to a sharp decline in al Qaeda’s popularity, and a renewed enthusiasm for democracy throughout what al Qaeda considered their home base. Militarily, it’s known as “taking the war to the enemy.†It’s an ancient strategy that still works. But that was rarely reported, for now. You'll just have to wait.