REPORTAGE

There are two articles in this morning’s newspapers that neatly illustrate a point that the major media outlets in the U.S. have been drumming out an anti-Bush and anti-U.S. message for at least the last two years. Both these articles have to do with U.S. losses in Iraq over the weekend. One is in the NY Times (page A6) headlined “U.S. Toll in Iraq Is 27 for Deadly Weekend” and the other in the Boston Globe (page A6) headlined “Cunning, sophistication seen in Iraq ambush”. Both articles detail how Sunni terrorists, dressed up like American soldiers (but with beards no less) conned their way into an Iraqi government compound and killed five American servicemen.

These articles also highlight a helicopter crash in which 12 American soldiers were killed and other combat incidents: one, where two Marines were killed and another, where five servicemen were killed, both in Anbar Province. The NY Times does mention that the first attack “was repelled by American forces” and that, earlier, and American raid had killed a guard in Moktada al-Sadr’s posse which was then diminished by a quote from another al-Sadr lieutenant as “inhuman and against human rights”.

Both articles managed to bring up other past incidents where large numbers of U.S. troops were killed … and other weekend incidents where Iraqi citizens (including young children) were blown up by insurgents. Neither article thought to report or even estimate bad guy losses.

This is not reportage … this is propaganda, but, unfortunately, not pro U.S. propaganda.