A Citizen of Mosul is a teenage Iraqi girl who writes today and yesterday about her uncle getting shot by US troops.
I've been reading her blog for awhile. She was a sunny, optimistic girl, and she was generally willing to give the US troops the benefit of the doubt.
Today she writes:
Or just because a scared boy holding a gun hiding behind his Stryker and protected from the law, this what changed him from a human to a monster.
GO HOME AMERICANS, WE DON'T WANT YOU HERE
It's very discouraging to read this today, because for a long time now I've been following her blog. Even though she lived in one of the most dangerous places in Iraq, even though her house got searched (and she wrote about how humiliating it was), she was willing to see our point of view.
Shooting her uncle was obviously a mistake. It's turned a potential ally into an enemy. Why it happened, we'll probably never know.
Of course, things like this are inevitable in war. In fact, if the MSM didn't have their head up their butt, they'd actually be covering more of this stuff. (They're actually incompetent in both directions.) If they were fair, they'd also cover not only when US troops shot the wrong guys, but when the insurgents deliberately killed people. In fact, I'd love to see a score card:
Iraqis accidentally killed by US Troops: 500 Iraqis deliberately killed by insurgents: 10,000
I think the media bias is bad because the way I see it, if the media is always going to portray the soldiers in the worst possible light, there is no reason for them to try harder to act well.
Similarly, if they always portray the insurgents in the best possible light, there is no reason for them to act well either.
According to Osama Bin Laden, he considered America a paper tiger because we're unwilling to accept both our own casualties nor that of our enemies. There's some truth to that. Osama doesn't care how many Iraqis he kills, even if we do.
The ideal for me would be for both sides to have every action scrutinized in immense detail, to see something like the scorecard above. What we're trying to do in Iraq is hard, and we have to do it with imperfect people. The reality of an occupation is that an accidental shooting by an Iraqi policeman is a tragedy; an accidental shooting by a US soldier is a call to jihad.
But the media aren't making it any easier. The media could very easily break the cycle of violence in Iraq where: insurgents attack soldiers; soldiers fight back; innocents get killed; insurgents recruit from the families. If they just portrayed the true viciousness of the insurgents, if they reported the ideals that led us into Iraq as well as the baser motivations, I wouldn't have to worry about a civil war in Iraq this morning.
Nor would I have to worry about our soldiers degenerating into barbarians themselves. They say you always turn into your enemy...
sigh Time to send another care package to Iraq I think...
Jon may not agree, but I think good actions have ripples. I think bad actions have ripples to. I've seen that happen in my own life, and the life of others.
Sometimes its obvious how bad actions cause other bad actions, sometimes its not.
Comments (5)
I agree about the good and bad actions. I’m just not sure that the media is the pool where those ripples are felt.
The girl in Mosul did not turn against us because our media got things wrong. The media had nothing to do with it. Whatever effect the media are having, I think this kind of direct, personal stuff is much more significant.
I don’t think your arguments line up. Our media could only be perpetuating the cycle of violence if these new recruits to the insurgency are watching our media. Even if they are watching, they are watching through their own lenses. If our media tried to demonize the insurgents or extol America’s virtues, people who support the insurgents wouldn’t buy it. We are all fairly quick to excuse the brutality of those we sympathize with, and quick to decry the brutality of those we fear.
Even a totally “objective” report of the situation in Iraq is going to give people on either side ammunition to keeping doing what they are doing. Even if what you say about the effects of the media is true, the only remedy would be some kind of totalitarian control of the media — news as propaganda. If we go that route, then we have abandoned the democratic principles we are supposedly fighting for.
I am all for criticizing the media and holding them accountable. But in order for it to be effective (if that’s even possible), you have to be specific and you have to be right. Vague complaints about the overall media environment are just not capable of changing anybody’s mind.
Posted by Jon | March 10, 2006 4:47 PM
Posted on March 10, 2006 16:47
Let me put it this way. I think the media “police blotter” style reporting causes the bad ripples to spread farther then the good ripples.
The Iraqis don’t live on the moon. They have access to our media, and our media leads how stories are covered everywhere to a large extent. The AP is worldwide.
I think that if the media covered good ripples in the same way they covered bad ripples that there would be less tension on both sides. If there was less tension on both sides, perhaps our young ladies uncle would still be alive.
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March 12, 2006 7:46 AM
Posted on March 12, 2006 07:46
Man, this is getting more comical as time goes on, and again, you are incredibly divorced from reality, your ideological beliefs are as thick as any religion i can think of. This blog entry is pure crap. i.e….
“Iraqis accidentally killed by US Troops: 500 Iraqis deliberately killed by insurgents: 10,000”
how interesting given that the US military openly admits “it doesnt do body counts” you mean to tell me that all those cluster bombs, the US blitzkrieg into iraq, and subsequent chaos only killed 500 Iraqis civilians? Goddamn you are out of touch, the most amazing social phenomenon i find today is the technocrats ignorance of humanitas and dignity…i think it comes from thinking too much like a computer, following and obeying those who imprint upon your hardrive, unable to think for yoruself…state dogmas…in any event your lack of reality is getting US working class kids killed and a cleavage has begun in rebellion against your corporate paymasters who you defend so willfully.
next….
“Osama doesn’t care how many Iraqis he kills, even if we do.”
jesus christ you are either really stupid or you think we are really stupid. OSama is to blame for this mess, not you and your mythological view of the planet…
“if the MSM didn’t have their head up their butt, they’d actually be covering more of this stuff.”
“But the media aren’t making it any easier. The media could very easily break the cycle of violence in Iraq where: insurgents attack soldiers; soldiers fight back; innocents get killed; insurgents recruit from the families. If they just portrayed the true viciousness of the insurgents, if they reported the ideals that led us into Iraq as well as the baser motivations, I wouldn’t have to worry about a civil war in Iraq this morning.”…
ya, this all the media’s fault especially when they uncritically accepted Bush lies in the lead up to this phony war supported by phony “men”. Ya, MSN is to blame for all the bad press, not the war itself and the negative feedback loops it has produced…
Man, in short, get real.
ernie
Posted by ernie | March 12, 2006 12:15 PM
Posted on March 12, 2006 12:15
The OB writes:
“I think that if the media covered good ripples in the same way they covered bad ripples that there would be less tension on both sides. If there was less tension on both sides, perhaps our young ladies uncle would still be alive.”
I don’t know. Anything’s possible, I guess, but that sounds more like wishful thinking to me. Whatever the effect our media are having, I don’t we can assume that if you make X change to the media, you will get Y result.
If the media started doing a lot of reports that emphasized the brutality of the insurgents — and I really don’t have the same sense as you that this topic is being glossed over — it could inspire more violence. It’s not as though Iraqis are not aware of the brutality, is it? Some support it, some oppose it, and some just fear it.
The same is probably true of the good things the US has done. They are probably known by Iraqis to some extent, and increased coverage of them may produce more support for America — or it may produce disbelief and/or more determination to drive America out of Iraq.
I can understand not liking the media, and I know that you said you don’t blame them entirely, so I should probably stop harping on you — but as I said, your comments just don’t line up, to me.
Did you see the piece on 60 Minutes last night? I think it was good. It was about how Al Qaeda had taken over a town until the US came back and ran them out. It certainly didn’t portray Al Qaeda in a positive light. Nor did it cast a negative light on the US military, showing the Iraqi children following around the military commander like he was some kind of rock star. I don’t think the media effect is as one-sided as many would like to believe.
Posted by Jon | March 13, 2006 8:47 AM
Posted on March 13, 2006 08:47
Hey ernie, you made a reasonable point. Huzzah!
Yeah, the US has probably intentionally killed about 30,000 Iraqis. I wasn’t necessarily thinking about the whole country, as much as in an area like Mosul.
As for you Jon, I it probably is wishful thinking. Ultimately, I think the whole Iraq adventure was a roll of the dice, and either gutsy/crazy. I also think we could have done more to tip the odds in our favor, and the media could have done more to NOT tip the odds against us.
Cest la Vie.
I didn’t see the 60 minutes piece though, because they lost all credibility with me about 1983…
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March 13, 2006 9:26 AM
Posted on March 13, 2006 09:26