Bias in the Iraq War
Well since the issue of Bias has come up several times in how i have seen the media, and the LA Times in particular, I thought it would be a good idea to look at what I mean by it and how i see it. Bias is when you favor one side over another because of preconceived ideas or dispositions. I have noticed it in the media lately alot and here is how.
Going back to the LA Times article, I see it has highly biased against the President. The LA Times uses facts that are outdated or only a snippit of the total information to refute or cast doubt on the points made by the president. It leads people believing what is not the whole truth. When the LA Times brings up the case of Fallujah in April 2004 to show the ineptitude of the Iraqi military, they are showing that the Iraqi military ran from combat, and the US was forced to lead and do the fighting. They completely leave out the fact that in the past month, 11 battalions of Iraqi fighters, with a few American observer attached, lead the assult on another Iraqi town, similar in size and scope to Fallujah. This battle is more recent by a good 18 months yet the LA Times chooses to reference a far older, and less representative operation. That is biased to me because it presents a false picture. Imagine that in December 1943, with the US island hopping all over the Pacific using massive air superiority of carriers to roll back the Japanese. Now think of the media reporting on the readiness of American power during the Coral Sea where they broke even at best trying to stop the assulting Japanese. Its just as dishonest and irrelevent because it uses technically true facts that are far outdated and mean very little at present.
The media reporting on the number of Iraqi battalions that be completely independent of the US is a red herring because we never expect them to. Since we are over there, we will always supply them with logistics and probably observers. There has never been a goal not to do this. So its technically true that only 1 battalion is completely independent, but we arn't trying to make them completely independent. To ignore the 40 battalions that conduct their own missions, do all their own fighting, and are having major success, just because we supply them with our massive amounts of recon distorts the actual reality of how effective they are. It misleads people into thinking, "Oh wow, the US is doing a shitty job if only 1 battalion can operate."
The media reported very frequently on how the military is missing its recruiting goals. However when the military, as it has in the past 2 months, met or exceeded goals, we hear nothing about that. Nor do we hear that the reenlistment rate is actually higher than it ever was during peacetime. At its highest of the soldiers in Iraq by the way. We hear frequently that the US is losing the battle of PR and that the Sunni people as a whole are against the Americans and Iraqi military. Yet we don't hear that in the past 6 months, the amount of tips coming from Sunni Muslims has increased 10 fold.
We hear lots of testamonials repeated from politicians and reporter that stay in the "green zone" but we don't hear almost any interviews with soliders who have actually been to Iraq and the facts that they come up with. The people on the ground are given almost no airtime while the people in the hotels get to make all the situation reports. We are told repeatidly that Iraq is "quagmire" with no exit stratagy and no hope of accomplishing our goals. Of course there is no fact checking to see actually how far we have come to meet our goals. Yet when the President puts out a brief on how far we have come and where we are going, so simple in fact that a 8th grader could understand it, we see fact checkers pop out of every hole in the media to hammer an insignificant point.
I am not saying that there are not problems in the war, but i am saying that the media disproportionitly covers them and sticks to the gloom and doom prophiscy in the face of facts that directly contradict them.
Going back to the LA Times article, I see it has highly biased against the President. The LA Times uses facts that are outdated or only a snippit of the total information to refute or cast doubt on the points made by the president. It leads people believing what is not the whole truth. When the LA Times brings up the case of Fallujah in April 2004 to show the ineptitude of the Iraqi military, they are showing that the Iraqi military ran from combat, and the US was forced to lead and do the fighting. They completely leave out the fact that in the past month, 11 battalions of Iraqi fighters, with a few American observer attached, lead the assult on another Iraqi town, similar in size and scope to Fallujah. This battle is more recent by a good 18 months yet the LA Times chooses to reference a far older, and less representative operation. That is biased to me because it presents a false picture. Imagine that in December 1943, with the US island hopping all over the Pacific using massive air superiority of carriers to roll back the Japanese. Now think of the media reporting on the readiness of American power during the Coral Sea where they broke even at best trying to stop the assulting Japanese. Its just as dishonest and irrelevent because it uses technically true facts that are far outdated and mean very little at present.
The media reporting on the number of Iraqi battalions that be completely independent of the US is a red herring because we never expect them to. Since we are over there, we will always supply them with logistics and probably observers. There has never been a goal not to do this. So its technically true that only 1 battalion is completely independent, but we arn't trying to make them completely independent. To ignore the 40 battalions that conduct their own missions, do all their own fighting, and are having major success, just because we supply them with our massive amounts of recon distorts the actual reality of how effective they are. It misleads people into thinking, "Oh wow, the US is doing a shitty job if only 1 battalion can operate."
The media reported very frequently on how the military is missing its recruiting goals. However when the military, as it has in the past 2 months, met or exceeded goals, we hear nothing about that. Nor do we hear that the reenlistment rate is actually higher than it ever was during peacetime. At its highest of the soldiers in Iraq by the way. We hear frequently that the US is losing the battle of PR and that the Sunni people as a whole are against the Americans and Iraqi military. Yet we don't hear that in the past 6 months, the amount of tips coming from Sunni Muslims has increased 10 fold.
We hear lots of testamonials repeated from politicians and reporter that stay in the "green zone" but we don't hear almost any interviews with soliders who have actually been to Iraq and the facts that they come up with. The people on the ground are given almost no airtime while the people in the hotels get to make all the situation reports. We are told repeatidly that Iraq is "quagmire" with no exit stratagy and no hope of accomplishing our goals. Of course there is no fact checking to see actually how far we have come to meet our goals. Yet when the President puts out a brief on how far we have come and where we are going, so simple in fact that a 8th grader could understand it, we see fact checkers pop out of every hole in the media to hammer an insignificant point.
I am not saying that there are not problems in the war, but i am saying that the media disproportionitly covers them and sticks to the gloom and doom prophiscy in the face of facts that directly contradict them.
posted by Maddawg at 12/03/2005 07:49:00 PM
2 Comments:
Didn't you say, in an earlier blog-post or whatever you call them, that "if it bleeds, it leads?" That's basically what you're describing.
But that's irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that Bush has been vague as to what our goals ARE. I'll give you an example.
When Bush said one of the objectives of Operation Invade the Desert was training a fully independent Iraqi army and police force, he didn't mention that there are some parts of EVERY "fully independent" army that aren't their own. I didn't know that most of the armies in the world (or at least armies of our ALLIES in the world) rely on U.S. logistics and such. But by the goals set forth, there was no mention of that.
So when the news reports that there is only one battalion that is capable of operating without any U.S. support, one battalion after 2000+ lives and 2 and a half years, I'm PISSED! What have we been doing? I thought we were supposed to be training a fully independent army! We've only got one battalion trained fully in 2.5 years? What the fuck?
ALL that need to be done to correct that is for the President to be MORE SPECIFIC in what our goals are. The reason the L.A. Times is, in your view, "biased," is because THEY probably didn't know that Bush didn't mean "fully independent," either. If a news organization is reporting on the progress of the mission, more specifically the building of the Iraqi army, and their criteria is an independent Iraqi army, and they only see one independent battalion, then that's not biased. It might be wrong relative to the REAL criteria, but it's not wrong to the STATED criteria.
Now, as far as the two battles go, it's just the point said above but drawn out more. Had the populace known that we had only intended to train a couple of battalions to be fully independent, and a majority of the rest to be the level just below that, the second Fallujah-scale battle wouldn't have been discarded as without progress. They would have been able to report that, "Several Iraqi battalions, trained to their fullest intended level, backed by U.S. logistics support, sacked" said town. But all they knew was that several Iraqi battalions, not trained to an independent level, which they knew to be the standard, were leading in some battles, but still needed U.S. support, which showed little progress.
Do you understand now why we've wanted a detailed fucking plan for so long now, and not just the empty "stay the course" rhetoric?
Even if the aspect was to train fully independent battalions, then they still refereneced a much older battle that has less to do with current situations. They are still far more effective and independent than they were in Fallujah. So even if the LA Times thought that the goal was absolutely fully independent battalions, they are much farther along to that goal. So they still reference an out of date battle to gauge current progress. There is NO reason they should be talking about Fallujah to reference current conditions unless a comparison is made. To reference an older one with no current ones is either done intentionally because they are bias or its just really crappy lazy reporting.
Also, one would have to figure that the LA Times, with its large resources, would be able to find the same information i can. I mean they are paid to do it. If i can find out what constitutes independent battalions and know how much support we give to all our allies around the globe, then they should be able to come to the lead conclusion. The information isn't that hard to come up with, I assume that you can find it just as easily, 15 minutes on a DSL line is enough to find out that the US has aided just about every allied army in the past 60 years. And those are considered independent armies. I agree that the President should have made it clearer on terminology for those that are very lazy since the media won't do it, but anyone that actually cares about what is going on can find the info in a matter of minutes.
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