Ignoring Iraqi Progress
The Tacit Omissions of Our Media
By Daniel Muniz

The city I live in, San Antonio Texas is also known as Military City USA because it once had five military installations. Even with recent base closings, San Antonio still has a tremendous military presence of active duty personnel as well as an enormous number of retirees. In fact, local military recruiters often boast, that compared to the rest of the country, this city also has one of the highest levels of enlistments into all branches of the service.

But even with such a prominent visibility, the local media isn’t very interested about what our military is doing in Iraq unless a serviceman dies or something sensational happens.

I have personally known soldiers either in Iraq or have returned from there who are upset that the press is almost downplaying the significant progress in that country, such as ordinary people voting in elections, the emergence of a functioning central government, more Iraqi policemen and troops on the street, and a growing infrastructure. And that a number of Iraqis still want an American presence to help stabilize the country.

Such accomplishments are the result of a lot of hard work and dedication.

Some of them have also explained to me the enormous frustration that they have experienced about a media that is quick to report anything that has failed while ignoring the successes. As a result, this type of reporting then becomes too one-sided and almost a bit sympathetic to the enemy.

In a way, it is easy to see that the public in general thinks that the Bush Administration has not done a very good job in Iraq, especially if all they hear and see is only the bad news.

Below is an email sent to me from a close friend of mine who is deployed in Iraq:
 

Today an Iraqi Army sniper team that our brigade trained killed an entire IED team in one fell swoop as they were laying an IED. Five guys, one shot each, which rivals anything the best U.S. sniper teams, have done over here (to my knowledge). We are going to publicize the heck out of this one. This unit has taken a lot of hits lately, so needless to say they are [upset] and [are] killing bad guys at an increased rate.

Even when the Pentagon publicizes such achievements, the press doesn’t care.
 

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This event in itself has so many incredible ramifications but it is not going to get very much attention here in the states. In fact, the only way a story like this is going to make it into the mainstream news is if an American serviceman were to get shot, beheaded, or blown up. And to the media, it only sees the part about getting shot, beheaded, or blown up as being relevant instead of the accomplishment because a story like this is not really news.

But even so, the ramifications are still enormous.

First, it represents the accomplishment of an important objective in Iraq. That is, to eliminate the terrorists who are laying the IEDs. These “Improvised Explosive Devices” have killed a lot of our soldiers and have terrorized Iraqis for a long time. Killing the people who are laying them is a big success in that it prevents the placement of future explosives and it also lowers the number of available terrorists who plant them. And by the way, the number of such IED attacks has also gone down but again, that is something you won’t see publicized too much in the news.

And for each member of the IED team to be killed by one shot represents some fancy shooting and highly skilled marksmanship. It also required a bit of coordination and logistics to be in the right place and at the right time for all of this to take place.

But the kicker is that this was done by an Iraqi sniper team that we trained instead of by us.

For the Iraqis to be performing this sort of mission signifies that they have now taken a bigger role in confronting the terrorists themselves. And that they are becoming proficient and more capable of taking over more important tasks and responsibilities. But most importantly, an event like this vividly demonstrates that the Iraqis can succeed.

Unfortunately, the press doesn’t look at it that way.

They have continued to downplay the progress of the Iraqi army and they continue to ignore their ever increasing presence throughout the country. In fact the media loves to mention that the Iraqi units still cannot completely function on their own even though they only started off from absolutely nothing not very long ago.

Yes, they have the training that we provided them but they also need the experience to be able to operate on their own since they are still a relatively new organization. And that may be years away. But unless the press sees perfection, it doesn’t quite see a dramatic improvement as being a huge success even though it can be solidly quantified and verified.

It is unfortunate that progress such as this and other such events are going to be ignored. And it frustrates me as an American to see that our media either omitting or downplaying the positive accomplishments of our military and of the Iraqi people. And it really bothers me because the press doesn’t have to look very hard to find the positive stories.

The terrorists are being defeated even if it doesn’t show up in the news. Public opinion in Iraq has turned against them even though many Americans are not aware of that. In fact, some terrorist’s factions have even begun to fight amongst themselves and that in itself is also being casually ignored by the media.

And when the mission in Iraq ends and the country is stabilized, that event may come as a big surprise to many Americans but definitely not to the members of our armed forces who were there and helped bring it about.

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