Why isn’t it being reported on by our taxpayer funded media, and their competitors?
Via Instapundit
Amir Taher has been touring Iraq. .
Iraq today is no bed of roses, I know. I have just come back from a tour of the country. But I don’t recognise the place I have just visited as the war zone depicted by the Arab and western media.
[…]
Despite the continuing terrorist violence Iraq has attracted more than 7m foreign visitors, mostly Shi’ites making the pilgrimage to Najaf and Karbala where (despite sporadic fighting) a building boom is under way. This year Iraq has had a bumper harvest with record crops, notably in wheat. It could become agriculturally self-sufficient for the first time in 30 years.
“Iraq has always had everything that is needed to build a successful economy,” says Heydar al-Ayyari, an Iraqi politician. “We have water and fertile land. We have oil and a hardworking people. What we lacked was freedom. Now that we have freedom we can surge ahead.”
Nor should one believe the claims of self-styled experts that the Iraqis are not ready for freedom. During the past 10 months elections have been held in 37 municipalities. In each case victory went to the moderate, liberal and secular candidates. The former Ba’athists, appearing under fresh labels, failed to win a single seat. Hardline Islamist groups collected 1% to 3% of the vote.
What is wrong with our media? What great dysfunction has set in, that I must go to the internet, to private sources, to find these reports for myself?
Surely there are reporters and editors who surf through here. I see it in my logs- “cbc.ca”, “abc.com”.
I want to hear from you. You covered every anti-war demonstration. You quoted every naysaying Canadian politician. You gave a closeup to every half-wit Hollywood actor who could move their lips. You covered UN deliberations. You’ve dissected every hoped for disaster, from the “massive humanitarian disaster” to the “quagmire” of the stretched supply lines, to the “failure” to catch Saddam, to the “uprising of the Arab street”, to the “Vietnam” of El Sadr’s militia, dancing to the rhythm of every RPG to be tossed into the Green Zone. You even reported on the ones that “caused no casualties”. So, it’s not like you didn’t have the time and space.
Are you intentionally trying to mislead and misinform the Canadian public by reporting out a tiny window facing in a single direction?
Pro-democracy voices dominate the new privately owned Iraqi press which, with more than 200 dailies, weeklies and periodicals, represents a breath of fresh air in the state-controlled Arab media.
Preparations for self-rule have been under way for months. All but four of the 26 government departments set up after liberation are now under exclusive Iraqi control. The provisional government headed by Iyad Allawi, the prime minister, has been sworn in ahead of the formal transfer of power at the end of the month.
I want to hear from my politicians. The ones who echoed the false predictions and doomsday scenerios like trained parrots. You, whose job it is to represent our interests and direct an intelligent, informed foreign policy. Why aren’t you talking about the progress? Setting the record straight? You’re sending our tax dollars to this country. Why aren’t you talking about the achievements of the Iraqis?
I want to hear your explanation for denying the Canadian public information as important as this. We are paying for it. We are paying your salaries.
You surely cannot say you don’t know, can you? Are you that lazy?
Or do you have so much invested in your smug Canadian superiority and faith in the UN that you cannot bring yourself to display any information that contradicts your fondest failed predictions of the past year?
If lives are to be saved in the region, both Western and Arab, if the threat of Islamism is to be defeated without the use of thermonuclear devices, these people, these fledgling democracies, need to be celebrated and supported. To do anything else is to aid and abet the enemy.
It does not mean we do not need to know the bad news. But it’s dishonest to ignore the good in order to preserve your “told you so” as long as humanly possible.
It’s not about you. It’s about them. It’s about us.
