This quote from Newsweek, via Greg Tinti.
Civil war or not, Iraq has an economy, and—mother of all surprises—it’s doing remarkably well. Real estate is booming. Construction, retail and wholesale trade sectors are healthy, too, according to a report by Global Insight in London. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reports 34,000 registered companies in Iraq, up from 8,000 three years ago. Sales of secondhand cars, televisions and mobile phones have all risen sharply. Estimates vary, but one from Global Insight puts GDP growth at 17 percent last year and projects 13 percent for 2006. The World Bank has it lower: at 4 percent this year. But, given all the attention paid to deteriorating security, the startling fact is that Iraq is growing at all.
This from Newsweek? About time for Tinti to be fired. Can’t have a story that doesn’t have blood or blame Bush. Besides the Fox network, how many more MSM outlets will cover the (positive) story?
cbcPravda NOT
Second hand cars sales up — used to haul explosives to terrorists sites.
Telephones used to activate explosives
TV to watch the results on CNN
Gee I’m pretty sure that CNN TOLD ME the situation was rapidly disintegrating into absolute anarchy…Wolf Blitzer himself………!!!!
Iraq is doing fine, that must be why thousands of people are hightailing it out of the country every week.
The American government seems to think things are doing well in Iraq as well. That’s probably why they are planning on sending more troops.
Bush said just earlier this week: “We’re not winning, we’re not losing” , “I’m not going to make predictions about what 2007 will look like in Iraq except that it’s going to require difficult choices and additional sacrifices,” and “the enemy is merciless and violent.”
Yep, things are just peachy.
If a Democrat gets in the White House 2008 you will see the media jump all overthemselves to show how things are SO much better now in Iraq.
yuk.
Here is the latest -Bush did it- editorial from the Arab News. The editors take the obligatory shot at FOX too.
Editorial: Spin vs. Reality
22 December 2006
George Bush has shuffled up reluctantly to the truth that the US military is not winning in Iraq. It was clear two years ago to all but the most blind that thanks to its total lack of post-invasion planning, control of events was fast slipping away from the United States. But this is not a president who confronts reality until it lies in a puddle of blood on his doorstep. And even now he is hinting that the strategic review due next month could see the deployment of yet more US troops.
This is because Bush still thinks, in the face of all the evidence, that his GIs can win a military victory. Beleaguered in their compounds and bombed and shot at when they go on patrol, the US military is hardly in control of the future of Iraq. The occasional big security operation with elements of the Iraqi army may interdict a terrorist attack, slay insurgents and disrupt terror organizations but as soon as the US troops withdraw, the tempo of violence resumes. Though US troops continue to take casualties, it is Iraqis who are paying the daily price thanks to bombs and death squads. Indeed the bitter reality is that at present Washington is dedicated to fighting the insurgency to the very last drop of Iraqi blood.
For three years a further tissue of falsehood has sustained a military operation that was born out of WMD lies and rhetorical conflagrations involving 9/11. Bush and his people have only listened to the reports and advice they wanted to hear. As the whole misbegotten venture turned ever more sour, the White House persisted in denying that there was a problem, let alone the extent of that problem.
Perhaps the whispering armies of America’s political spin doctors have much to answer. Repeating a lie enough times on Fox News may be effective at fooling the general American public, but the politicians who echo them are not supposed to actually believe them. Maybe the prime source of Iraq’s tragedy is that America has a president who broke the rule about believing his own propaganda.
Enmeshed in its own web of disinformation, the White House has never been able to recognize an opportunity to change course. By staking everything on the brute power of US weapons technology, Bush passed up chance after chance to understand the complexities of Iraq and the wider region and recognize clear and invaluable linkages. Had he driven hard for a Palestinian settlement, even without immediate success, he would have won significant respect and robbed his enemies of one of the most potent propaganda weapons of their own. Friends and allies in the Middle East urged this on him. He did not listen.
Now like an injured animal that cannot understand its pain, Bush is casting around helplessly for something to end his discomfort. It looks like it will be a commitment of yet more troops, “additional sacrifices,” as he said recently, because he insists that US military withdrawal will make Iraq a haven for terrorists. He is wrong. The US invasion of Iraq has already achieved that
As I’ve long maintained – the underpinning of leftist thought is poor reading comprehension…
Kate, I was gonna make the same comment but… ya beat me to it…
Jose wrote: “Iraq is doing fine, that must be why thousands of people are hightailing it out of the country every week.”
Jose obviously only wants to hear news implying that the ‘war on terror’ is unwinnable. Let’s have the link showing ‘thousands fleeing’.
If Jose took the time, he’d find plenty of evidence showing that most of Iraq is in fact, improving. Homes are being built and infrastructure restored, but we baby boomers not only want it all, we expect it to be done right now.
Instead of attacking the U.S. for what is a noble and necessary task, why don’t Jose and his fellow travellers concentrate their ire on the people who are creating the mayhem on their own fellow Iraqis? Where is the condemnation of the Shia’s attacking Sunnis? Where are the cries of war crimes when indiscriminate bombing kills Iraqi children?
Sadly the “I’m alright, Jack (Layton)’ attitude of the left, leaves the poor and downtrodden of the world with no option other than to bear their burden of unlucky geography and cultural history. Oddly enough, the moonbats seem blind to their own hypocrisy – protect the poor and the vulnerable, as long as it doesn’t rock my own personal lifeboat.
How can we honestly see any good news from these people reporting from Iraq by reporters in there personnel bunkers for the big papers or magazines. Unless there combatants or free lance reporters?
I mean they don’t even believe where in a real war. This was just manufactured by Bushitler, who by some unknown magic killed all those people in the twin towers, to become a dictator.
Frankly as important as Afghanistan is & Iraq there sideshows to what’s happening in Africa & Asia by the Jihadists with their allies. Principally China.
When news comes out positive like this, I consider it a fluke. After all we live in a Quantum universe. Even the truth gets out once in a while, no matter the forces arrayed against it.
If not for the internet do we really think any news but by the leftist filters, would be allowed?
A growing economy is the best defense of all. No one wants to lose a golden egg wen they find one, nor loose a good wage. Nice to get some good news.
its the yanks fault. dirty yank conspirators.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2006/12/22/osama-france.html
sarge here. do any of you nitwits actually know anyone who’s been fighting over there? sarge would say someone wuz hitting the eggnog a little early but sarge thinks ergot contaminated rye might be the culprit or maybe lead poisoning
sarge here. do any of you nitwits actually know anyone who’s been fighting over there? sarge would say someone wuz hitting the eggnog a little early but sarge thinks ergot contaminated rye might be the culprit or maybe lead poisoning