{"id":1934,"date":"2008-06-23T19:24:02","date_gmt":"2008-06-23T23:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=1934"},"modified":"2008-06-23T19:24:02","modified_gmt":"2008-06-23T23:24:02","slug":"really-big-deal-that-the-msm-won%e2%80%99t-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=1934","title":{"rendered":"Really Big Deal that the MSM Won\u2019t Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Iraqis are taking over Anbar Province <\/a>within 10 days!<\/p>\n

BAGHDAD (AFP) \u2014 The US military is to hand over security control of the former Sunni insurgent bastion of Anbar province to Iraqi forces in the next 10 days, a US military spokesman announced on Monday.<\/p>\n

“The handover of Anbar is expected to take place in the next 10 days,” Lieutenant David Russell told AFP, declining to provide an exact date.<\/p>\n

Anbar would be the tenth of Iraq’s 18 provinces to be handed back to Iraqi forces by the US-led coalition amid a push to transfer security control of the entire country back to Baghdad.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This could be the biggest news from Iraq since the attack on the terror attack on the al-Askari Mosque but I doubt you will see it on the news tonight.<\/p>\n

Now, contrast that with this story<\/a> from one year ago this week:<\/p>\n

by Martin Sieff
\nUPI Senior News Analyst
\nWashington (UPI) June 20, 2007<\/p>\n

These grim developments unfortunately confirm a series of predictions we made when in these columns after the “surge” strategy was unveiled with much optimism and fanfare five months ago. On Jan. 19, we predicted of the “surge” strategy, “Its success seems unlikely.” <\/p>\n

Even then, as we noted, there were solid reasons to fear that the “surge” strategy was too little, too late and that it ignored core realities of the strategic dilemmas in Iraq. We noted that the surge had been much hyped, but that it remained exceptionally underpowered.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In Mr. Sieff\u2019s defense, his opinion at the time was being parroted by every network and major newspaper. Harry Reid\u2019s dream of a \u201clost war\u201d seemed possible. But while Reid, Pelosi, Murtha and the other surrender monkeys were gleefully commenting on another \u201cgrim milestone\u201d, something was happening on the ground and it was working. Facts are stubborn things.<\/p>\n

I am 100% sure that Mr. Sieff will pen an article as fast as humanly possible hailing the success and thanking God that his \u201cfears\u201d were unfounded.<\/p>\n

Chirp, chirp (crickets).<\/p>\n

He is not alone. The media trend line about stories in Iraq directly correlate to the numbers of dead US servicemen and women. This is sad but even the New York Times admits <\/a>it:<\/p>\n

According to data compiled by Andrew Tyndall, a television consultant who monitors the three network evening newscasts, coverage of Iraq has been \u201cmassively scaled back this year.\u201d Almost halfway into 2008, the three newscasts have shown 181 weekday minutes of Iraq coverage, compared with 1,157 minutes for all of 2007. The \u201cCBS Evening News\u201d has devoted the fewest minutes to Iraq, 51, versus 55 minutes on ABC\u2019s \u201cWorld News\u201d and 74 minutes on \u201cNBC Nightly News.\u201d (The average evening newscast is 22 minutes long.) <\/p>\n

CBS News no longer stations a single full-time correspondent in Iraq, where some 150,000 United States troops are deployed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is not because nothing is happening in Iraq; believe me, plenty is happening. This is because their prediction (if not their hope) is not materializing. It\u2019s almost as if they have a collective \u201cif we ignore it, it will go away\u201d mentality.<\/p>\n

To use a sports analogy, here\u2019s a headline from today:
\nTeixeira\u2019s 3 HRs power Braves past Mariners<\/strong><\/p>\n

Notice that it didn\u2019t but could have easily read:
\nSeattle Pitching Sucks, Again<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now if the second headline were used in a Seattle paper by a local reporter lamenting the effectiveness of the hometown teams pitching, it would be perfectly understandable.<\/p>\n

The mainstream media has chosen to ignore any progress in Iraq but how far are we away from this headline:<\/p>\n

Sunni Collaborators Undermine Gallant Insurgent Struggle<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Iraqis are taking over Anbar Province within 10 days! BAGHDAD (AFP) \u2014 The US military … Really Big Deal that the MSM Won\u2019t Report<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}