Due to embedded journalists with combat units in Iraq, the American people were able to get the news, despite the reporting "boycott" the mainstream media had placed, and those reports by the embeds, as they filtered into the publics homes started a reversal of support for the our actions and the surge.
Certain news outlets are now starting to buck Ms. Wright and Barbara Starr's assertions that good news is not news, bad news is news and no news is good news.
One of the biggest surprises was (Hat Tip to QandO) the New York Times on November 16, 2007, where they printed two news articles that were not buried on page A-19, all of which showing the success of the surge and the counterinsurgency strategies implemented by General Petraeus.
Giving credit where it is due, Kudos to NYT.
Perhaps it was other countries media taking our media and politicians to task for refusing to acknowledge what is happening and has been for the last 6 months in Iraq.
Perhaps it was voices from the front, soldiers, in Iraq, using the ability of the internet to get word to America and calling our media out on their refusal to report the truth, or the amounts of embeds like Totten, Roggio and Yon, that have funded themselves and risked their lives to bring the truth from Iraq home to the American people.
Maybe it was some of the editorial writers from the very newspapers that refuse to print the actual news, calling them on their duplicity.
THE EVIDENCE is now overwhelming that the "surge" of U.S. military forces in Iraq this year has been, in purely military terms, a remarkable success. By every metric used to measure the war -- total attacks, U.S. casualties, Iraqi casualties, suicide bombings, roadside bombs -- there has been an enormous improvement since January. U.S. commanders report that al-Qaeda has been cleared from large areas it once controlled and that its remaining forces in Iraq are reeling. Markets in Baghdad are reopening, and the curfew is being eased; the huge refugee flow out of the country has begun to reverse itself. Credit for these achievements belongs in large part to U.S. soldiers in Iraq, who took on a tremendously challenging new counterterrorism strategy and made it work; to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the architect of that strategy; and to President Bush, for making the decision to launch the surge against the advice of most of Congress and the country's foreign policy elite.
Perhaps it was portions of our own media that refused to stay quiet and started calling their counterparts in the MSM, on their journalistic ethics.
News from Iraq gets better by the day, but the media have done their best to downplay the turnaround and congressional Democrats have basically pulled the covers over their heads and pretended it doesn't exist.
There's an eery silence out there about what's going on in Iraq. It's almost as if the silence is, well, intentional.
Perhaps it is more simple and self serving than all those possibilities.
They might just not want to be on the wrong side of victory now that the "trend" is undeniable.
Where the media goes, how long before the Democrats follow like good little lapdogs?
From the IBD editorial, linked above:
Stranger still is the Democratic Party's response, as reflected in its recent actions in Congress.Captain's Quarters shows just a small part of the political success Iraq is seeing now that the security situation is allowing for it:
We expected a certain amount of sheepishness on their part. After all, wasn't it just Sept. 11 that Hillary Clinton told Gen. David Petraeus his progress report on Iraq required "a willing suspension of disbelief"? What we didn't expect was all the self-delusion and denial that now seems to mark Congressional Democrats' efforts on Iraq.
The Democrats are denying our troops the funds they need to finish their job by playing games like Friday's, when they tried to tie $50 billion in funding to massive troop withdrawals, beginning almost immediately.
The measure failed in the Senate by seven votes. But the question remains: Why would they do such a thing in a war America is on the verge of winning?
Meanwhile, as if that vote wasn't enough, Democrats ripped Iraq's government — apparently oblivious to what's going on in Baghdad.
"Every place you go you hear about no progress being made in Iraq," Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday. "The government is stalemated today, as it was six months ago, as it was two years ago. It is not getting better; it is getting worse."
Virtually nothing in those three sentences is true — unless you replace "Iraq" with "Congress." Yet, Reid speaks for his party.
Maliki just approved the trial of two high-ranking Health Ministry officials linked to Moqtada al-Sadr for hundreds of murders and abductions, some from hospitals. Maliki has also proposed an amnesty long demanded by Sunnis to release all but the most violent of the accused native insurgents as another step towards reconciliation. He has isolated Sadr politically and traveled to Sunni strongholds in the west to build trust for steps to come. All of this has occurred in the last three months as violence began to ebb throughout the country.
The depth of the Democrats denial regarding Iraq is shown by their most recent, 41st failed attempt to force America to surrender in Iraq, just as the media is finally telling the American people that we are winning without a doubt.
They are so invested in defeat and failure that to acknowledge the truth which is hitting them in the head with a shovel, would be political suicide.
The problem they now face is that denying the progress and success is also political suicide because every day Americans are being told.
The other day I stated that the Democratic politicians had 2 choices before them:
Choice #1: They can acknowledge what is right in front of them and risk the ire of their far left, liberal base, like MoveOn.org and Code pink and the liberal bloggers that have shown they will "go after" anyone that dares speak up and tell the truth. (As they have done with Brian Baird and what they call the Bush Dog Democrats)I also had a little note to Hillary Clinton, Dingy Harry Reid and the rest of the Democratic politicians:
Choice #2: They can continue to ignore the progress and success that is being seen in Iraq and mollify their far left, liberal base, while they alienate the moderates of their party and the independents.
Neither choice is enviable but I cannot feel any sympathy for them because this is a position they have placed themselves in by betting against America, betting against the Iraqi's, betting against our military and betting against General Petraeus and his counterinsurgencies strategies.
Note to Hillary Clinton: Your continued statements about the policies in Iraq being "failed", requires us to have a "willing suspension of disbelief" that you are able to tell the truth and are qualified to be the commander in chief of our fine military which you have staked your political career on betting against. You owe General Petraeus a public apology Hillary.(Click image to enlarge and read Hillary's words to General Petraeus, said for the whole world to hear)
Note To Harry Reid: Hows that "Iraq is lost" comment going for you now Dingy Harry?The war in Iraq "is lost" and a US troop surge is failing to bring peace to the country, the leader of the Democratic majority in the US Congress, Harry Reid, said Thursday.
Note to the rest of the Democratic politicians... eventually you are going to have to pick choice #1 or choice #2 from above because the days of ignoring it and hoping that things will go bad in Iraq are over, and it is time for you to either tell your moderates and the independents to go to hell or to tell MoveOn.org and the far left liberal, unhinged faction of your base to go to hell.
You have left yourself no middle ground. They will not let you have it both ways.
So, whats it to be Democrats?
We are waiting.
SPEAK UP, WE CANNOT HEAR YOU.
[Update] More media acknowledging good news in Iraq.
(Corrections have been made to this post)
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