"Sydney Morning Herald" Covers Up Bush Successes in Iraq

SMH covers up Bush successes in Iraq
Gerard Jackson
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 3 November 2003

The Bush-hating Marian Wilkinson of the Sydney Morning Herald is another of those ideologically motivated journalists whose reports on Iraq seem to be written with the sole intention of misleading the public about the true state of affairs in that hapless country.

The war looms as a liability with approach of poll (30 October) was a typical piece of Wilkinsonian disinformation that did not contain a single positive statement in favour of President Bush or the liberation of Iraq. The country is doomed, Iraqi support for the liberation is collapsing and Bush is frustrated by "a growing insurgency." Insurgency my foot. What we have is a temporary wave of terrorism carried out by a group of murderous thugs.

That these terrorist acts are a sign of growing weakness by a group of fanatics who realise that terrorism is all they have left is completely lost on Wilkinson. Instead, she slyly insinuates that these thugs are legitimate insurgents who have growing local support. But this view is belied by the fact that these murderers make no attempt to rally the Iraqi people to their cause. Moreover, these thugs (Wilkinson refuses to call them thugs or terrorists) are focusing more of their attacks on soft targets, with about half of the attacks directed against Iraqis.

A further sign of weakness is that the terrorist organisers are now having to pay about $US5,000 for each attack against allied troops against the $US500 they recently paid. Even the cost of paying the unemployed to demonstrate has jumped to $US50 per demonstrator/rioter. Not that our journalists would ever mention that 'demonstrators' have been receiving blood money.

She quotes a single poll as stating that "two-thirds of Iraqis now felt occupied rather than liberated". The same so-called reporter never quoted polls showing that Iraqis supported the liberation and wanted the allies to stay until political stability was secured. No sireeee. The only poll results this lefty reporter is interested in are those that support her political prejudices. Likewise, the only politicians she is interested in quoting are GOP-hating hypocrites like Daschle. No wonder she and her fellow lefties ignored a letter of appreciation to the US that was signed by 30,000 Iraqi farmers.

So desperate is she to see Bush fail regardless of the consequences for millions of Iraqis that she quoted anonymous Democrats as saying that they would "not be surprised to see Mr Bush declare next year that enough 'progress' has been made to start pulling large numbers of US forces out of Iraq, whatever the consequences". This is the kind of malicious wishful thinking that passes for journalism at the Sydney Morning Herald, aka The Saddam Times

What was notable about Wilkinson's report was her total indifference to the tragic consequences for the Iraqi people if Bush-hating Dems and their media pals forced an early American withdrawal from Iraq. So much for her compassion.

New York's Daily News quoted Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as saying that at a recent public meeting he attended in Najaf a resident asked: "What's going to happen to us if George Bush loses the election?" This question made it clear that by giving aid and comfort to Saddam's terrorists the Dems and their media enablers are beginning to frighten ordinary Iraqis.

Actions have consequences, and it's about time that ideologically corrupt leftwing journalists were held publicly responsible for their actions. The truth is that these journalists and their loathsome editors already have a great deal of blood on their hands.

Now the likes of Wilkinson's so-called reporting on Iraq bears an eerie comparison with media reporting of the 1968 communist Tet offensive. Despite promising a truce during the religious festival of Tet the Communist North Vietnamese still launched an offensive. The result was a devastating defeat for Hanoi.

Nevertheless, leftwing journalists reported that the South and its American allies had suffered a crushing defeat. (The bastards are still doing it). Even I, no stranger to leftwing duplicity, was shocked by the media's brazen lying. Now the same vicious leftwing mentality is trying to pull a similar stroke in Iraq, regardless of the bloody consequences for the Iraqi people should these journalists' vicious manipulation of the news succeed.

Leftwing journalists try to manipulate public opinion by leaving out vital facts that could lead the public to draw an accurate picture. This is called lying by omission. So let's see just what little Miss Marian omitted from her reports.

The area of education provides a graphic example of one particular success story. Nearly all secondary and primary schools are now open along with the country's 43 technical colleges and 22 universities. About 1,700 schools have also been rebuilt and reequipped. And that includes everything from blackboards to new plumbing. Moreover, nearly 6 million new textbooks, mainly science and mathematics, have been distributed. High school students have even been supplied schoolbags containing writing materials and calculators.

Electricity production is another success story that the likes of Wilkinson deliberately ignore. Generation has been restored to the pre-war level, even though some plants had to be taken offline for maintenance reasons. In the meantime, the Americans are installing water driven generators as backup for the grid.

Also underway is the rebuilding of the country's water infrastructure that Saddam allowed to badly deteriorate. This project, the one that Wilkinson didn't think worth mentioning, involves building water pumping stations and sewerage treatment plants. The result should see a significant fall in the child mortality rate.

Something like 100,000 nursing mothers and malnourished children are having the diet raised to a healthy level; 20 delivery hospitals in Basra have been restored: thousands nurses are being trained, and the 50 per cent of pregnant who had anemia are now being properly treated.

All of the country's 240 hospitals and 1200-odd clinics have been reopened and reequipped. In addition, since April more than 22 million vaccinations have been administered to Iraqi children.

Thanks to the liberation, for the first time in 50 years or so the country has an independent judiciary: There are no torture chambers, political prisoners, arbitrary arrests or executions. Iraqis now enjoy a free and flourishing media. Censorship has gone and some 200 newspapers and magazines have emerged, completely free from all political controls.

The vitally important civic side of the equation is also taking form. Professional associations holding free elections, scores of NGOs have sprung up, more than 70 political parties have been formed, nearly of the cities and towns have elected councils and mayors

All of the above, and much, much more, has been accomplished in just six months. Yet the ideological likes of Wilkinson refuse to acknowledge these success; quoting political bigots like Daschle is more to her liking.

It's a great pity that she refused to quote Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Ga.), a Vietnam combat veteran. On his recent return from Iraq, Marshall stated in an op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that "we have a reasonable chance of success." He then attacked the media, accusing it of "hurting our chances" and "dwelling upon the mistakes, the ambushes, the soldiers killed, the wounded." The press and television, he said, are "not balancing this bad news with 'the rest of the story' — the progress made daily, the good news. This falsely bleak picture weakens our national resolve, discourages Iraqi cooperation and emboldens our enemy."

Looks to me like the Representative Jim Marshall has been reading the likes of Wilkinson.