Some good news from Iraq and Aghanistan...

[happydreams]

Or another example of the Origin of the Specious:


Chairman Lists War on Terror Stories Not Being Covered
American Forces Press Service ^ | Jim Garamone




ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., Oct. 5, 2006 –

....Pace said one of the most significant aspects of the war not getting coverage is the enormous number of women going to school in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The Taliban in Afghanistan forbade women from attending school. Now, almost 50 percent of the students are girls, he said.

“That’s a huge change in attitude,” he said. “It also speaks well of the potential of a nation. Because I do not know how any nation aspires to greatness if it cuts itself off from one-half of its brain power.”

A second story not getting the coverage it deserves deals with health care. The health-care systems in Iraq and Afghanistan are getting better, the general said. “They are not great; it takes a long time to ‘build’ a doctor, but medical facilities are being built, expatriate medical personnel are returning and a great deal is going on,” he said.

My response: Getting better than what? Than before you idiots blew the shit out of the country? Every indication is that the infrastructure in Iraq is many times worse than it was before the war.

The chairman said an often-overlooked aspect of the war on terror is what it takes for Afghan and Iraqi leaders to step up to their countries’ needs.

“Americans do not fully appreciate the courage of the individuals who are striving to lead in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Pace said. Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his government and Iraqi President Jalal Talibani and his government are working to build systems in the face of tremendous opposition, he noted. They are also trying to emplace democratic systems in countries that have never had them, Pace said.

Pace said the reason many stories are not getting out has to do with the fact that news is a business.

“When the war first began, we had 24-hour coverage,” he said. Anyone in America could see or read many aspects of operations in Afghanistan or Iraq.

But over time, because news is a business, “less and less of the resources go to the war in Iraq or Afghanistan,” he said. On television, less time is devoted to airing stories about the war as other stories come up. In newspapers and magazines, fewer column inches are devoted to the war. Also, in both cases, the media send fewer reporters to cover the story.

“News is a business, and the networks go with stories that attract attention,” he said during a lunchtime speech to the Kirtland Partnership Committee here. “So the good-news stories that might make it in a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week cycle might not make it in the 15-minute news cycle that the war has now. That’s just a fact.”

My response: Now if this gibberish from the top brass had one bit of substance, the corporate owned Press, known for its cheerleading in spinning of Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) a as a slam dunk war, spewing the lies for getting the war on and the selective blindness for years to those lies when exposed, would jump at the chance to vindicate its culpability in perpetuating this horrible disaster.

Pace said the military has to accommodate that fact. He said he has asked the military services to look at a program to allow servicemembers returning from Iraq, Afghanistan or the Horn of Africa to have a few extra days of administrative leave to speak to their fellow citizens. “They wouldn’t be scripted or coached,” the chairman said. “(The servicemembers would) in their own words, explain their experiences to their fellow citizens – the good, the bad and the ugly. This will give their local hometown folks a flavor of what’s going on.”

My response: "The good the bad and the ugly"? How fucking original. I like Sergio Leone's films and resent your stealing his movie titles.

This is the kind of shit that Freerepukes thrive off of.
Somebody has to check Peter Pace's stock options and bank accounts for any recent surges in balances.

[LynnTheDem]

1. peter pace is a total joke among US soldiers.

rumsfeld they just hate; peter they mock & laugh at.

[tocqueville]

2. some facts here

How much of Bush's Iraq can now be covered by Western journalists?

About 2%, according to New York Times journalist Dexter Filkins, now back from Baghdad on a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. Filkins claims that "98% of Iraq, and even most of Baghdad, has now become 'off-limits' for Western journalists."

There are, he says, many situations in Iraq "even too dangerous for Iraqi reporters to report on". (Such journalists, working for Western news outlets, "live in constant fear of their association with the newspaper being exposed, which could cost them their lives". Filkins added: "Most of the Iraqis who work for us don't even tell their families that they work for us.")

How many journalists and "media support workers" have died in Iraq this year?

Twenty journalists and six media support workers. The first to die in 2006 was Mahmoud Za'al, a 35-year-old correspondent for Baghdad TV, covering an assault by Sunni insurgents on two US-held buildings in Ramadi, capital of al-Anbar province, on January 25. He was reportedly first wounded in both legs and then, according to witnesses, killed in a US air strike. (The US denied launching an air strike in Ramadi that day.)

The most recent death was Ahmed Riyadh al-Karbouli, also of Baghdad TV, also in Ramadi, who was assassinated by insurgents on September 18. The latest death of a "media support worker" occurred on August 27: "A guard employed by the state-run daily newspaper Al-Sabah was killed when an explosive-packed car detonated in the building's garage."

In all, 80 journalists and 28 media support workers have died since the invasion of 2003. Compare these figures to journalistic deaths in other US wars: World War II (68), Korea (17), Vietnam (71).

more facts here
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HJ05Ak02.html

[Monkeyman]

3. I just posted the truth from War vets

Its the survey Bush and company fear go here for the truth five stories there you might learn something http://www.vawatchdog.org

[Miss Chybil]

4. I think girls used to go to school in Iraq. Now nobody can. nt

[wholetruth00]

5. Iraqi women BEFORE Desert Storm and invasions and sanctions were

among the most educated women in the ME, playing significant roles in government, teaching, and medicine.

[rodeodance]

6. and women now will be living under islamic family law.

[rodeodance]

7. Women teachers have been ordered by their ministry to adopt Islamic codes

Professionals in higher education, particularly those teaching the sciences and in health, have been targeted for assassination. Universities from Basra in the south to Kirkuk and Mosul in the north have been infiltrated by militia organisations, while the same militias from Islamic organisations regularly intimidate female students at the school and university gates for failing to wear the hijab.

Women teachers have been ordered by their ministry to adopt Islamic codes of clothing and behaviour.

"The militias from all sides are in the universities. Classes are not happening because of the chaos, and colleagues are fleeing if they can," said Professor Saad Jawad, a lecturer in political science at Baghdad University.

(more)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1887804,00.html

Iraq's universities and schools near collapse as teachers and pupils flee
Peter Beaumont in Baghdad
Thursday October 5, 2006
The Guardian

[Javaman]

8. In other good news from Afghanistan...

Because of the bumper poppy crop, the price of heroin has dropped!!!

Oh wait, sorry, my bad.


colossal racist drug dealing failure*.