the war in iraq?

Question

why can't the news find one good story in iraq? the soldiers have opened up schools, hospitals, etc. they're helping people. my friend went to iraq and was amazed at how much they're helping them.

Answer 1

Because if the media tell the good stuff about Iraq it will not put the President in a bad light. This would go against their agenda. Of course now me and other like me have no use for the press, but I guess they will fill their coffers instead with bright eyed kids to will swallow everything they print.

Answer 2

According to the International Foundation for Journalists (IFJ) 2006 was the worst year for journalists getting kidnapped, tortured and killed and has actually gotten the United Nations to look into this.

Here in Iraq, we never see journalists anywhere, and even though we're standing where the news story is happening we still don't see the journalists anywhere. Imagine our surprise when we see them on the news reporting that they were there covering the story.

We dropped 4,785 Teddy Bears from Camp Anaconda in 2004 for Christmas/ Eid ul Adha. A further 8,500 Teddy Bears were dropped from Al Asad during the same time frame. We've rebuilt schools, mosques, highways, community centers and provided security to day laborers building everything else under the sun for the Iraqi people.

None of this will get a reporter an 'atta-boy' from their publishers who only want to publish 'soldiers losses' and flashy videos of bombs going off. The journalists are afriad To leave and they all know they will never get promoted or allowed to leave until they get a "Booming Story"

Answer 3

When was the last time the news reported a good story domestically? It's not an Iraq issue, it's that the news/media would rather focus on problems than good deeds.

Answer 4

The problem is, painting a school doesn't really compare with hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. It's not that good things don't happen.... it's just that those things aren't good enough to blunt the massacres occurring there.

I mean, if I help an old lady across the street, and then she's brutally murdered by a serial killer once she's on the opposite sidewalk, did I do a bad thing by helping her? No, of course not. But that doesn't mean my helping her was a more notable event than her murder. The newspaper headline the next day is unlikely to be "ELDERLY WOMAN ASSISTED BY KINDLY, DASHINGLY HANDSOME YOUNG MAN". News is relative.

Answer 5

Why can't the Department of Defense find a good story in Iraq?

The DoD would release good news stories from Iraq if real progress was being made.

Answer 6

The schools, hospitals, etc have been blown up and the soldiers killed. Remind me again how much we've spent, how much has been stolen, and just where do we go from here? Oh yea, that right, there's gonna be a new "strategy" out soon.

Answer 7

Evidently you too have been talking to a member of our military that has returned from Iraq. Yes, we have done much good there. Unfortunately, there has been a great deal of bad news that has overshadowed it.

Answer 8

In case you haven't read the schools and hospitals are nearly empty because professionals have fled Iraq. Trying to find a doctor or teacher in Baghdad is like trying to find is like trying to find WMDs in Iraq; they aren't there. Read the news stories. What's the point in building a school or hospital when there is no one to staff it?

Here's some excerpts from the links I have posted for you to view:

"Even school- children are not spared: at a press briefing this month, Abdul Falah al-Sudani, the minister for education, said that 76 schools around the country have been attacked since April 2003, resulting in the deaths of 64 students and 310 teachers or other school employees. This was threatening to paralyse the entire school system, putting in jeopardy the educational rehabilitation of the country, he said.

The story is the same at the universities. Isam al-Rawi, head of the Teachers' Association of Iraqi Universities, says that more than 200 lecturers have been murdered since the fall of Saddam Hussein, in what he describes as "organised killings". Just last week, four lecturers were kidnapped from al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad and to date no trace of them has been found. Samir, a sports teacher from Fallujah, told me resignedly: "Threats to teachers like myself, and their assassination, have become something normal in Iraq and we have to live with that."

"There is a scarcity of basic equipment that most hospitals store in ample quantities as a matter of course. Many injuries caused by car bombs require silk stitching thread for wounds to delicate parts of the body such as the face. Iraqi surgeons, however, have to use nylon thread, leaving the victims of shootings and bombings with more prominent physical scars to compound their psychological trauma. The situation today, the professionals insist, is even worse than in the last years of the old regime, when essential materials were in short supply because of UN economic sanctions."

Keep in mind this story was published before the "brain drain" in which professionals fled the country in high numbers. Imagine what it's like now.

Answer 9

Good news is harder to find, takes investigative effort. Easier to chase the violence around.

Then there's just the sad reality that there's more bad news to report than good. Don't kid yourself otherwise. Just wishful thinking.

Answer 10

its good that their helping build schools but the fact is electricity output freshwater output and oil production are below pre-war levels.given a choice between water and school i think most would choose water.