If It Is So Bad, Why Make It Up?

I apologized for stating that Jamil Hussein did not seem to exist. Well, I didn't really doubt he existed as much as I doubted who he really worked for. I tempered my apology by noting my limited interest in Le Affaire Jamil Hussein as a distraction from recognizing the enemy disinformation campaigns that our media falls for every day.

The Left hauled out and displayed the "mission accomplished" banner when AP claimed to have proof he exists. That proclamation seems premature--at least in the sense that he is a real Iraqi police officer--since nobody has seen him since the so-called confirmation.

More importantly, the Left never addressed the apparent faked news stories attributed to him.

The Lefty bloggers merely retorted that Iraq was so bad that even if Hussein't stories are faked, Iraq is still really bad. So, they say, so what? (Shades of fake but accurate, here.)

So I ask, if Iraq is so bad, why not simply report on the many horrible things that do happen rather than take the risk of getting caught faking news that isn't necessary to prove the terrible nature of the war in Iraq?

There is an insurgency and terror campaign being waged by Baathists, jihadis, and Sadrists aided by Syria, Sunni Arabs outside of Iraq, and Iran. The death toll is real and terrible. I do not doubt that. Accurately reporting on all that would paint a grim picture.

But what it wouldn't paint, apparently, is a picture of an Iraq beyond hope that is spiraling into civil war as Shias hunt down Sunni Arabs and an Iraq where the government of Iraq can't protect innocent Sunnis from this fate. This is a picture that supports the attempt by our enemies to keep the Sunni-Shia fight going and to push Sunnis away from cooperating with the government. This is the picture that Jamil Hussein wanted to be created in his wide-ranging detective work. A picture AP was all too willing develop.

I don't doubt that Captain Hussein exists. He may even be in the Iraqi police force. But who ultimately pays him? Tehran?

All war is ugly--including Iraq. But very few wars are unwinnable--including Iraq.