Iraq
Here are some photos from Iraq that are so graphic, you will never see them in the mainstream media:
posted by Timothy @ 11:40 AM
don't wait
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- Name: Timothy
- Location: Issaquah, Washington, United States
What can I say? I see life as an adventure, meant to be lived to it's fullest. The adventure is in figuring out how to do that.
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Saturday, October 15, 2005
5 Comments:
You're right, we probably won't ever get to see those in mainstream media ever, but I'm glad that God finds other ways for them to be seen.
Here are some pictures that are so graphic, you'll never see them in the mainstrean media.
The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.
the little kid holding the sign? thats super imposed in photo shop... so is the solder giving the child a high five. ive done this before on my computer. its easy.
LOL!!!
What I meant to say, is...
Most news reports coming out of Iraq are about bad things. Soldiers and civilians dying. Religious and racial tensions. Economic, social and political instability. An untrained, incompetent Iraqi military.
Now, there are good things happening there, too. But we hear very little about things like schools being built, power being restored to neighborhoods, decreasing violence and discrimination against women. Positive stuff like that.
Why do bad reports so outnumber the good?
If you think it's because the media, being predominately left-wing liberals, are intentionally slanting their coverage to bolster their anti-war stance and embarrass the president, you're an idiot.
The reason is the same reason why newspapers all over the world, conservative- and liberal-owned alike, fill most of their pages with stories about bad things.
Bad. News. Sells.
But in Iraq, there's an even bigger reason the majority of reports are about bad things: there's a lot of bad shit happening. And right now, the badness of the bad far outweighs the goodness of the good. When another section of another city has been made safe, the inhabitants finally returning to a somewhat normal life --- that's a real good thing. But news papers and programs have a limited amount of time and space, and when the decision makers have to decide between a neighborhood returning to normalcy, and 8 more dead US soldiers, which do you think will make it in?
Which story should it be? Is not death and chaos more significant than incidents of progress? Of the two, which is more relavent? Which is more likely to demand a response? Which is more important for Americans to know? The good things are supposed to be happening! Considering our goals over there, and the governments assurance they are providing the necessary tools, it should be safe to assume that steady progress is being made. Taken for granted.
But this is all a moot point, because the good things happening in Iraq are being reported. If your only source of news is the Seattle Times and CNN, well, it seems you haven't earned the privelege of acquiring a broad scope. It'll take a little more effort than that. And these days, with the internet? There's no excuse.
One more thing before I </rant>. There's a error of logic made by most people who accuse the major news outlets of telling only half the story. This mistake is easy to make. I've made it myself. Here it is:
Reporting mostly about bad things does not imply that good things aren't happening, or that they're happening less than bad things, or anything about good things, whatsoever. A high ratio of Bad to Good stories makes no implicit claim about neither Good or Bad things, their frequency, or their rate of increase or decrease.
It's an easy mental jump to make. After all, if lots of good things are happening, wouldn't they be reported? If someone has nothing but negative things to say about his job, and says them often, wouldn't you eventually conclude that not many good things happen to him there?
But we cannot make the same assumption about news corporations --- or news businesses, which is what they are. A business. Their goal is to grow sales and increase profit, and...?
That's right. Bad news sells. It doesn't matter if we've turned the corner in Iraq or not. Bad news sells. Or if bad stories become harder to find due to the fact mostly good things are happening. Bad news sells.
Think about it! If there were no bad news to report, they wouldn't report anything at all! How often do you hear stories about Switzerland? Why? Because no shit ever goes down there! It's like the most peaceful country in the world. Only time we ever hear about them is when they occasionally produce a Nobel Prize winner, or the greatest tennis player in the history of the universe.
So when you watch the news and hear about all the badness, don't mistake it as an attempt to convince you of anything. It's only an attempt to get you to watch... and it seems to be working. :)
Here are some first-hand sources of information on Iraq:
Jake went to Iraq in April to see what was going on. He blogged, interviewed, filmed and Bit-Torrented around a good size chunk of the country. You can read about it in his LiveJournal, starting here.
If you dig around at the Brookings Institute there's some useful facts to be found. This is a good place to begin --- "a statistical compilation of economic, public opinion, and security data, providing updated information on various criteria, including crime, telephone and water service, troop fatalities, unemployment, Iraqi security forces, oil production, and coalition troop strength."
There's a number of bloggers in Iraq. Here are the ones I know of, along with a list of others:
Iraq the Model "New points of view about the future of Iraq."
Baghdad Burning "Girl Blog from Iraq... let's talk war, politics and occupation."
Hammorabi "The Past, Present and Future of the Cradle of Civilization."
Healing Iraq "Daily news and comments on the situation in post Saddam Iraq by an Iraqi dentist."
Iraq at a Glance
Iraqi Bloggers Central "An American Looks at Iraq and the Iraqi Bloggers."
The Mesopotamian "TO BRING ONE MORE IRAQI VOICE OF THE SILENT MAJORITY TO THE ATTENTION OF THE WORLD."
Long list of Iraqi bloggers via Healing Iraq
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