I think that this, more than anything else, tells us that the war is lost.

If America was winning, then it would be front and centre.

But defeat? No one wants to watch that.

news report:
WASHINGTON, Sept. 7, 2007 – The surge has allowed coalition and Iraqi forces to achieve tactical momentum and has given momentum to local reconciliation efforts, but national efforts still lag, the top coalition commander in Iraq said in a letter to servicemembers and civilians of Multinational Force Iraq today.

“Up front, my sense is that we have achieved tactical momentum and wrested the initiative from our enemies in a number of areas in Iraq,” Army Gen. David H. Petraeus wrote. “The result has been progress in the security arena, although it has, as you know, been uneven.”
----------------
"my sense is" -- sounds suspiciously like he can't prove anything. I suspect his sense is that he would like to draw this thing out and get promoted to army chief of staff like his non-illustrious predecessor George Casey.

With his momentum talk Petraeus sounds like a true Bushy. Memories of #41, GHWB. In 1980, after Bush won the Iowa caucus to start the primary season he told the press that he had "Big Mo" (or momentum). He lost to Reagan.

"Wrested the initiative" -- that's a good one too. After over four years and all those deaths and all that money, and all that talk about dead-enders and bring-em-on and last throes, the enemy (i.e. the Iraqi people) still had the initiative against the world's finest military? But we've only wrested the initiative in "a number of areas" so apparently we still have a number of areas in which the initiative must still be wrested, so we can't rest.

"progress . . .has been uneven" -- well, yeah, how about non-existent? How about negative progress, with things getting measurably worse? I don't think that Bush's recent meeting with the Sunni sheiks that Petraeus has been arming, the same sheiks that supported Saddam and have been killing US troops, is really a sign of true progress, for example. Is that the "victory" that Bush yaps about? Arming your enemies after they promise they won't kill your people any more?

Sorry, I kind of got off topic (the media), but I don't have a TV so I don't know anything about that. General comment: The media exists to sell advertising, and since people buy more when they feel good the purpose of commercial media is to entertain and not inform, particularly avoiding ongoing death and destruction. A local fire with dead kids is okay, but four years of body bags coming from a place most people couldn't find on a map is depressing and not good for sales.

Let me weigh in on the Democratic strategy, and since it may sound like mind reading, I'd understand if others differ.  Just try to remember that, before accusing the leadership of untold crimes, you'll be mind reading, too.

I see Reid as thinking something like this.  The country hates Congress as much as Bush, because they see it as unable to do anything about anything, starting with the war. The right hates it for trying. Independents and moderates hate it for pure results, without thinking much further. The left hates it for not trying hard enough. And, Reid's thinking surely continues, we're never going to do better as an opposition party not easily able to do more than what the GOP did under Clinton (block legislation) and never going to get 60 votes for "end the war now" or on a timetable.

So, he reasons, instead of making up more bills, which only prove our ineffectiveness like last term, we'll find a bill that will indeed gain 60 votes. I think that's just bad thinking. Passing a bill that accomplishes nothing is the likely outcome, and it'll reinforce convictions on all sides. It'll seem even more cowardly. I'd suggest just playing opposition party. Accept you're going to lose, but you get out there, grill Petraeus, start independent Congressional reports into anything you can (which often don't require more votes), and maybe throw up another few bills that don't get past the 60 votes.

Sure, the blogosphere will still call you cowards, since it's too results based. Or they'll call you fascists and participants in the war. And it won't end the war. But the war won't end until a Democrat is president, it'll frame the issues as Bush's war vs the party trying to hold Bush to account. So again, I refuse to call Reid's behavior cowardice or fascism, just a miscalculation. Now go ahead. Call me a coward and a fascist, too. 

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

Call me a coward and a fascist, too.

John, isn’t it a little conceited to go for both coward and fascist? Seriously, I can’t see anyone attacking you for your conjecture as to Reid’s M.O. But I think your take does paint Reid and the Dems as cowardly as much as anything. They can’t overcome the Republicans so they’ll just cave and go along. You’re saying they have no other option but I don’t think that’s true.

I know we're off topic here, and this has been said again and again, but congress can and has defunded and limited military engagements many times, and defunding doesn't require a majority, much less 60 plus votes in the Senate. It is the prerogative of congress to make (or end) war while the president is only the top general who prosecutes the war.The only course that does not show the Dems as cowards is ending the war and stopping Bush.

That Dem leaders took defunding off the table before taking office shows a more scheming strategy. I believe they decided early on that they would do whatever necessary to keep the Republicans saddled with Iraq through 2008. Then again, it may be that they really are too cowardly (politically) to stand up to Bush even though he is the weakest president in modern history.

It appears to be a Russian RKG-3 or something similar. I'm trying to remember the nomenclature, but the British had something similar in WWII, an evolution of the "sticky bomb".

Expect to see wire mesh screens around vehicles; cyclone fence can make this predetonate. Reactive (i.e., explosive) armor also works against it, but reactive armor is very limited in situations when you have no friendly troops or civilians near you.

Some of the newer urban combat vehicles have a sort of venetian-blind slat outer armor, which has the same effect.

In other words, not radically new, not prepared for by most vehicles. Things designed for urban combat can deal with it, but the Bradley and Abrams don't come with the right type of protection.

One question that ought to be asked is "where are these coming from?" They could probably be built in a reasonable machine shop with a good set of plans, but are these either old Soviet-bloc grenades, or being supplied by a third country? IIRC, this model was introduced in 1974.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

I just finished reading Joe Conason's book, "It can happen here", which is a well laid out articles of impeachment, in one sense. But, several things are clear from reading it. First, Bush will not obey any law passed by Congress even after he signs it, since he considers Congressional actions to only be advice to him. Second, the huge domestic wire tapping being done by the NSA, CIA and FBI are sure to have uncovered enough dirt on all but the certified saints in Congress to drive them out of office when played in political ads. Third, Bush will spend whatever money he wants to spend, citing the vote to authorize him to take all necessary action to protect us from terrorists, as his authority. It doesn't matter if the money has been authorized by Congress or not. It will be spent in any case.

Once again, short of impeaching and convicting Bush and Cheney, we are stuck in Iraq and in an attack on Iran as desired by Bush until January 2009.
Hoppy in Sacramento

So now we know the news worthiness and attention span in the US of our own war: four and a half years.

I think it is because the Dems are dodging the hard question so it looks like a regular political fight rather than principal, and the news is on the politics not the war.

I don't think there has ever been any "raw footage of war actuality" here in the US. I had to hear what we were really doing in Falujah from my sisters in the UK while the news here was always the Army's: we are only striking at identified opposition. The same is true now; spin the figures but the press never asks, as an independent, "Now hold on there, how about . . . XYZ?"

You can't be the occupying power and be at war with the populace. We ARE the police.

If you don't realize that we have been acting like the worst sort of colonialist oppressor without providing the least level of protection or law for the populace, you don't understand imperialism.

Atleast we have Frank Rich.http://select.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/opinion/09rich.html?hp

Re: It seems that the problem all along has been a media that cheerleads for the war

With the obvious exception of Fox "News" I have never seen or read any cheerleading for the war. It's usually portayed as the unending rat-hole that it is. This endless whine of blaming everything on the media needs to stop. The Right does exactly the same when things do not go their way politically ("liberal media" is practically a mantra of the right).

This endless whine of blaming everything on the media needs to stop.

Why exactly?

The popular press has always been lightweight in coverage, politically conservative like most any business interest. It is in business to sell papers and advertising. Crusading liberal journalism is a tiny part of the entire print media.

The Right does exactly the same

So?

The very far out rightwing doesn't get their more outlandish complaints treated with respect. Do you think they should? In the meantime the conservatives bark like whipped dogs that they too are victimized while having the vast bulk of the press under their thumb.

What is your argument?

Best, Terry

This is the thing. If they can't cheerlead, they won't cover it at all. The worst the war goes, the less they'll have to say about it.

In five years, Americans will think they won the war, because losing never got reported.

You are missing the point. As the war worsens, the relative volume of coverage declines.

The claim that there is negative coverage is misleading. We're talking volumes and proportions.

The United States is made up of internal narratives. Stories that reinforce those internal narratives "White Women being preyed upon" get a lot of play. Stories that don't reinforce or contradict that narrative "Poor black women disappearing" don't get a lot of play.

In war, the narrative is that America is a winner, America is virtuous, America is competent. Those sorts of stories get lots of play.

On the other hand, stories where America is clearly losing, America is criminal, or America is incompetent. Those stories get covered, but they get less emphasis, their news cycle is shorter.

It's just human nature.

What's the point of covering the war? It's hard to keep down your Sunday breakfast after listening to the politicians in both parties bloviating in total incoherence about a war they intend to fully fund forever because they are saved by not having 67 votes. As long as they don't have 67 votes they are totally, utterly, entirely, and forever free from accountability or responsibility for the loss of lives and treasure in this war no matter if it lasts 100 years. You can be darn sure, they will see to it that they never have 67 votes.

Prof. Gitlin, I think hectoring for more coverage of Iraq is an important and admirable thing for a professor of journalism to do, maybe even a requirement. I agree that it would be the correct thing to do to give Americans more of the bad tasting medicine that's good for them.

That said, for a sophisticated audience interested in journalism issues, aren't you sort of ignorning two issues:

1) Actual real reporting in Iraq has become more dangerous and expensive than any other previous war, it's even very life-threatening for Iraqis?

2) Is the quarter you are looking at the summer? Isn't there a (regrettable) traditional dip in serious coverage of any kind in the American media that period? We actually haven't had the traditional shark attack coverage this year. Even the Iraqi parliament went on vacation, they didn't care either.

Plus reporting is one thing, punditry another. Right now I have on the tube the McLaughlin Group show from this weekend. He started the show with this:

Issue one: once again, Iraq dominates the debate....

Then there's that whole other thing, the internet. People there chose the news they want to see.

Yeah, I’m sick of the whining, too, even when I’m doing it. But you know what I’m even sicker of? That would be the war in Iraq. And what contributes to the war continuing? That would be the subservient media.

It’s true that the press has changed its frame, especially after the mid-terms when it became impossible not to accept the popular view of the war as failed. But they are again going along with the latest stalling tactic (the surge). Two years into the war, 60% of the people still believed there were WMD and Saddam was connected to 9/11. That is a clear illustration of media failure. At the start, this war was packaged like a Superbowl with killer graphics and serious titles and names and dozens of DoD sanctioned retired generals as analysts. Pundits implied that those opposed to the war were unpatriotic or cowardly. Friedman declared this one of the noblest things America has ever done outside of the country. That is cheerleading.

The military has sanitized war reporting beginning with the embeds where reporters joined the troops in effect and would not critically report on their brothers. Stories of misbehavior by troops (friendly fire, rapes, shooting and harassing civilians, etc.) are untouchable unless they’re exposed elsewhere. Of course, stories of all kinds are reported. But downbeat stories are few and get buried in the back pages or shortened in broadcasts. And we are in the fourth quarter of a losing game, so the cheering is more what's not being said or attempts to lower the bar or mumbled excuses now.

Right now, the British are being chased out of Basra- have you seen that headline? We do not see or read details about the dozens found everyday tortured and killed. We do not see or read of the daily, knocking down of doors and harassing of ordinary family members who may or may not be hiding an insurgent (or may know something). We do not see the tens of thousands imprisoned. We don’t see the children dying of disease and malnutrition and the millions fleeing their homes. We don’t see the blood, unless it can be blamed on “al Qaeda.’

This post is about media coverage of the war. Mr. Gitlin makes the point that coverage of the war has dropped during the evaluation of the surge and, so, Democratic opposition is dampened. I was making the point that it has never been covered honestly and if Congress is relying on the mainstream press to tell them what is happening in Iraq (differently from the administration), then we are really in trouble.

"Matthew Christopher Whitley and the Lost Treasure of Albert Pike"
www.ilovepoetry.com/viewpoem.asp?id=93288

The likes of Bush and Cheney always choose riche$ over richness?

Yes, there is a bias towards feel-good war stuff overlaid on the basic no change = no story. 

P.S. Somewhere, somehow, the American public has gotten a certain picture of what might be going on with the surge (poll report via Kevin Drum/Washington Monthly.)

Did that come out of thin air?

Edit to add, after going over to Time.com to look for another article:

Here is the cover of the Time Magazine that's been staring at people in many supermarket lanes across the U.S. this last week: How Much Longer? As General Patraeus delivers his progress report on Iraq, here's how to understand the debate.

Governments (and not just in the US) have always been strongly influenced by wealth. That was true when this country was founded and it will true when our great-great-children breathe their last. The so-called "corporate influence" is not however monolithic. It's all over the map, as different corporations (and different rich people) have very different agendas. Nor are the "corporate interests" identical with idelogical conservatism-- in fact I believe the GOP has moved too far right for the liking of much of the US business elite. Iraq has profited very few businesses (Halliburtion aside), nor are most elite movers and shakers very comfortable with the Christianist movement in politics.
As for the media, it's fairly unimportant all things said and done. It simply reflects what people already think, and it's fragmented into a half dozen or so niche markets anyway. Rightwingers watch Fox News and listen to Limbaugh, leftwingers read The Nation and particpate in blogs like this. We all pretty much accept as news whatever suits our preconceptions in the first place.
Meanwhile some very good things can be accomplished in the next decade provided folks don't succumb to letting the Best drive out the merely Good. The moment has come for universal healthcare. If that is accomplished by the nxet president, then I would pronounce his/her term a ringing success no matter what tomfoolery happens in the Middle East (short of nuclear war perhaps). And we definitely need to get moving on alternate energy as well.