Al Franken's Serious Take
Once again Al Franken spent his holidays in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of a USO tour. He provided this op-ed piece to the Minneapolis Star Tribune on December 31, 2006.
When Laura Bush complained the other day that the media don't cover the "good news" stories in Iraq, I found it literally incredible that anyone in this administration could continue to blame the media for Americans souring on this fiasco.
...One thing I've learned on this trip is that many, if not most, of the troops share in that frustration and anger toward the media and what they see as its focus on the negative aspects of the war. Their feelings are understandable. Every day, our troops get up and work with tremendous dedication and courage to roll the boulder a little further up the mountain. There are literally hundreds of thousands of positive stories to tell. These are the micro-stories of this war. Just a few I've encountered myself: A medic treats a 12-year-old Iraqi boy in Baghdad. Progress is made on a sewage system in Ramadi. A JAG officer works with Iraqi judges to build a provincial judicial system in Tikrit.
But the journalists in Iraq have a responsibility to the American people to report the macro-story. The 12-year-old boy had been caught in the crossfire as troops struggled to maintain order during another spasm of sectarian violence. The (depressed) infantryman who told me about the sewage system had lost friends while working out of a small combat operating base in town. The JAG officer confided that he believes we made a mistake invading Iraq in the first place, but that if we left now, the violence in the already chaotic country would explode.
Franken points out one of the real tricky parts of dealing with this war. The policy that sent those troops into Iraq was flawed and immoral from the start, and has gone downhill ever since. Still, the troops are there, trying to do their best under impossible circumstances. That they would feel their efforts are being ignored or even denigrated is understandable, but that is simply not the case. Even the most fervent of those opposed to this illegal war want nothing more than to honor those troops by bringing them home in once piece.
The fault lies not with a press which refuses to cover the 'good news.' Frequently, the press is explicitly told not to report on the completion of a particular project because all that would do is identify a target for the warring factions. People on the ground learned that rather quickly in this war. The press has its job covering the "macro-story" for those of us back home so that we can make reasoned judgements on continuing the disaster or not.
The fault, as Mr. Franken reminds us, lies with the leaders who have put those American troops in Iraq to begin with. That's where the buck stops.
When Laura Bush complained the other day that the media don't cover the "good news" stories in Iraq, I found it literally incredible that anyone in this administration could continue to blame the media for Americans souring on this fiasco.
...One thing I've learned on this trip is that many, if not most, of the troops share in that frustration and anger toward the media and what they see as its focus on the negative aspects of the war. Their feelings are understandable. Every day, our troops get up and work with tremendous dedication and courage to roll the boulder a little further up the mountain. There are literally hundreds of thousands of positive stories to tell. These are the micro-stories of this war. Just a few I've encountered myself: A medic treats a 12-year-old Iraqi boy in Baghdad. Progress is made on a sewage system in Ramadi. A JAG officer works with Iraqi judges to build a provincial judicial system in Tikrit.
But the journalists in Iraq have a responsibility to the American people to report the macro-story. The 12-year-old boy had been caught in the crossfire as troops struggled to maintain order during another spasm of sectarian violence. The (depressed) infantryman who told me about the sewage system had lost friends while working out of a small combat operating base in town. The JAG officer confided that he believes we made a mistake invading Iraq in the first place, but that if we left now, the violence in the already chaotic country would explode.
Franken points out one of the real tricky parts of dealing with this war. The policy that sent those troops into Iraq was flawed and immoral from the start, and has gone downhill ever since. Still, the troops are there, trying to do their best under impossible circumstances. That they would feel their efforts are being ignored or even denigrated is understandable, but that is simply not the case. Even the most fervent of those opposed to this illegal war want nothing more than to honor those troops by bringing them home in once piece.
The fault lies not with a press which refuses to cover the 'good news.' Frequently, the press is explicitly told not to report on the completion of a particular project because all that would do is identify a target for the warring factions. People on the ground learned that rather quickly in this war. The press has its job covering the "macro-story" for those of us back home so that we can make reasoned judgements on continuing the disaster or not.
The fault, as Mr. Franken reminds us, lies with the leaders who have put those American troops in Iraq to begin with. That's where the buck stops.
posted by Diane at 3:47 AM
1 Comments:
Reminds me of a "good news" story one of the military outlets issued. It seems that the average response time of the Baghdad Fire Department had dropped impressively over the past year.
Of course it did. That's because the Baghdad Fire Department had so much practice responding to explosions and the resulting fires.
Rueful
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