From an officer in Iraq that I know - I have redacted the name and organization for privacy concerns - ------------------ Friends, Greetings from Baghdad, most of you know I am over here supporting the Army?s 1st Cavalry Division with the program I manage for the xxxxxx. We are located in Baghdad just north of the International Airport. Our team has been over here on the ground since the later part of April. Before I came over here, I like most of you got the sense that this place was just absolute chaos with violence every where. That is exactly what the U.S. media is selling you in their incessant coverage of every incident over here. I do not want to make light of the fact that soldiers are dying everyday, four were killed this morning and my heart aches for their families and friends. I also don?t want to make light of the fact that Iraqis are being killed nearly everyday. The thugs that are doing this often leave some note on the bodies saying, ?See what happens when you cooperate with the coalition.? What I never saw during the entire prison scandal was one report on the great cooperation between the majority of the Iraqi civilians and the U.S. Soldiers here in Iraq. The Division I am supporting is doing great work making the lives of the Iraqis better. They have embarked on a program that hires local contractors to do work on local projects to make the lives of the local Iraqis better than they have had it before. There is an area outside of the main city where many, many attacks on coalition forces originate. One of the bases where U.S. soldiers live is attacked by mortars and rockets from a nearby neighborhood. In this same neighborhood the soldiers are working side-by-side with Iraqis to build sewer systems that have never existed. Local Imams in one neighborhood were told to start cooperating with US troops because the US troops do what they say they will do. I am busting with pride at the job these guys are doing over here. It frustrates me to no end to watch the news and see none of this reported. Please continue to pray hard for the situation over here, your troops are representing you all very well. From sunny Baghdad xxxxx ------------------
OK, so now we have this unnamed guy, the letter from the unnamed "Army Chaplain" a month or two back, and another letter from an "unnamed soldier" a few months before that, ALL in a similar style of writing, ALL bemoaning the "fact" that the media ignores the good things in Iraq, and ALL making it sound like there may be a problem or two, but most everything in Iraq is just shy of Leave it to Beaver. The first letter, I thought to myself, "well gee, with reports about how a large percentage of the military over there wanting to go home/not believing in the war, this anonymous letter is pretty convenient." The second letter (the army chaplain), I thought, "well gee, isn't it kind of strange for a man of the cloth to be espousing violence? And doesn't the writing sound familiar?" This letter, like the others circulated through chain mail and online blogs/message boards, has me thinking, "how ********ing stupid do they think we are. They could at least get a different guy to write all these "anonymous" letters. They could try a little originality." It amazes me that some folks on here and others in this country can't see this for the **************** that it is. Is Iraq as bad as the media portrays it? I doubt it. But quite frankly, if it was as rosy as these propoganda letters paint it, soldiers wouldn't be getting killed on a regular basis.
In all honesty, I have received two similar emails, both from relatives of people I know. One was from the sender's brother, the other from her son-in-law (one of the national officers of an organization to which I belong has a son-in-law in Iraq). Each of these are verifiable, and in the same vein. The only reason I never posted them here is because the majority has more fun tearing down the truth/morale/or whatever you want to call it than building up. That's not what I'm about.
I have a cousin in Baghdad fixing the hummers, I haven't talked to him, but have talked to his mother (my Aunt). Same basic theme, lots of friendly folks, but tension due to not being sure who the bad guys are.
At the beginning of the Iraq war the media placed all these "embedded" journalists amid the fighting and the war coverage was generally positive as the media was amid and among "what was happening." Since general hostilities ended (and I cautiously use that term) and we are policing Iraq, as has been the case for the last year, the media have drawn back from the military and the few that are still in Iraq report from in front of hotels or in fixed sites, the media coverage of the war focuses upon war accidents, war deaths, and/or a genarally unfavorable portrayal of the war. Very seldom does any of the major media (except for possibly Fox News) interview a soldier or a commander and ask their opinion on the war. Very seldom are CENTCOM briefings covered anymore (although they were early in the war). I submit that if you ask those prosecuting the war the Iraq (the soldiers), a favorable report is generally given. Sure they will complain about long assignments, delayed rotations, and hazardous conditions, but when asked about the liberation of Iraq, their answer is always "things are getting better." It is only those outside of Iraq that say things are going poorly. This is important and is the defining characteristic of war coverage. IntheNet
I'll write the same thing I wrote about the other "anonymous" e-mails that prompted threads here. How in hell is this guy some kind of expert on what the media in the US is reporting? Doesn't that activate anyone's bulls*** detector? He's THERE, he's not HERE. Because if he were, in fact, informed, then he wouldn't lie like this. I read the WaPo site obsessively, and they report on stuff like this 2-3 times a week. Maybe they'd report more often, but THE ROADS ARE TOO FRIGGIN' DANGEROUS TO MOVE AROUND!!! The key problem in Iraq is the lack of security. Now, this jacknut who has hunkered down with his unit at a base, yeah, he's fairly safe. No s***. But the 99% of Iraq that isn't within a stone's throw of an army base IS, by ALL reporting, chaotic and violent. When there was that drug turf war in Washington DC, and the murder rate was terrible, Bush I (I'm pretty sure it was when he was POTUS) was safe. Congressmen were safe. This soldier (assuming it's not some bulls*** PR cooked up at the AEI or something) is the classic blind man describing an elephant. Hey, dumbass, stop pretending you know anything about anything you can't see.
http://www.iraqthemodel.blogspot.com http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/ http://www.iraq-iraqis.blogspot.com/ http://iraqataglance.blogspot.com/ http://www.roadofanation.com/blog/ http://messopotamian.blogspot.com/ http://sunofiraq.blogspot.com/ http://fayrouz.blogspot.com/ http://nabilsblog.blogspot.com/ http://hammorabi.blogspot.com/ http://kurdo.blogspot.com/ http://iraqi-dude.blogspot.com/ http://www.operationgive.org/ I long for the days of Saddam when the Iraqis couldn't speak for themselves...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23714-2004Jun7.html I guess like American's they only go after the left-leaning reporters
his name and organization would allow you to do a very quick google search to find out exactly who he is and where he works - probably not a good thing.
say what you like Jason - the author of the letter from Baghdad is a personal acquaintance of mine. "Joe" (not his real name) doesn't write bs. He sent that yesterday to about 10 of us.
"Joe" deployed to Iraq about a month ago with his "product" he is testing out with the Marines in the field. He was here in DC up till then (active duty Marine officer) and read the saw the same stuff on a daily basis that we hear and see from the media. He is simply making an observation from an in country perspective. As I said - take it or leave it. I will leave the "dumbass" comment you made to the reader to determine exactly who is credible here.
I linked this article and several others, and our "unbiased" mod moved them all to the occupation thread.