These two articles quoted by Instapundit highlight another feeling I've had since the bombing of the shrine: that the press is simply reporting on violence that has been ongoing in Iraq but are now ascribing Samarra as the cause and concluding that the civil war is nigh. And of course they continue to ignore progress in the midst of war.
Really, I did not get a feeling from the facts reported that the Shias were about to go postal on the Sunnis. Anger, yes. Tension, yes. But also restraint. And possible opportunity to forge a real Sunni-Shia alliance against the foreign jihadis and perhaps Iranian influence.
Strategypage notes the lack of civil war and the opportunities:
While the American media was discussing the likelihood of a sectarian civil war in Iraq, and at least one major commentator declared that Iraq was a lost cause, the Iraqi people took a much different course and appear to be on the way to proving them wrong. In some areas, local Shiites guarded Sunni mosques from retaliatory attacks. A Sunni group teamed up with the national government to donate $2.8 million to restore the mosque. These events were not reported in the MSM, but did get coverage from Kuwaiti media, and were reported in the blogosphere.
Short version – what was supposed to cause a civil war has instead pretty much pushed the Iraqis together. In essence, the bombing of the mosque has turned into a major self-inflicted defeat for Zarqawi. As a result, Zarqawi's days are numbered, since he is now losing staff while in increasingly hostile territory.
And Mickey Kaus (via Instapundit) notes that the press seemed determined to report on the civil war they've been sure was imminent for three years now:
Excitable Times in Ruins! Did the New York Times really run a story last week headlined:
More Clashes Shake Iraq; Political Talks Are in Ruins
"Ruins"? Wow. That is embarrassing. ... The hed was repeated in the story's lede, which said that "political negotiations over a new government" were "in ruins." Funny thing, though--in today's NYT, negotiations seem to be going on again. Those Iraqi "ruins" get picked up pretty quickly. ... P.S.: I'm not saying Bill Keller's** headline and lede writers were amping up the Iraq hysteria in order to manufacture another Tet. Maybe they just have no judgment or perspective. It's bleeding obvious that when a Sunni delegation announces it is "suspending talks" in reaction to some awful sectarian attacks, that doesn't mean talks won't be un-suspended after a decent interval. ... In this case it took 48 hours. ... [Thanks to Mudville Gazette for pointing out the NYT howler.]
I am truly sick and tired of our journalists trying to analyze instead of report. They went to journalism school for pete's sake--they are not as a rule experts on the military, history, or anything else. They simply give their opinions and stroke their own egos by imagining they are explaining a complex situation to the rubes at home. Please. They barely are capable of telling us "who , what, when, and where" without bollixing the whole thing up with lame attempts at "why."
I've long said that using our media is only useful if you already know about the topic and region in order to sift out the crap from the actual information. How else could I listen to NPR all these years?
