In this election year, everything has become fair game for the political arena. Increasingly, the favorite topic of both camps has become the status of the War in Iraq. Somebody has to be exaggerating. Perhaps a little logic will help us figure out what is really going on.
It seems to a growing trend (and perhaps it is human nature) in many news organizations that the sensational stories are the ones that are getting all the press, and all the stories that are good and decent but just don't have the "shock and awe" value, are pushed onto the backburner. Nowhere is this more true than in Iraq. Senator Kerry repeatedly points to a National Intelligence Estimate on the situation in Iraq as proof that things are not going well. What most of the news reports left out is that the report was based on intelligence from January of 2003, before the war in Iraq had actually begun. Senator Kerry also points to the media reports as proof that the war in Iraq is not going very well. However, given the fact that news organizations report on the sensational and not the good and the decent, this can hardly be held up as conclusive proof of the state of the war in Iraq.
So, let's apply a little logic to the situation. When was the last time you flipped on the news and heard a story about a child rescued from a burning building in England? When was the last time you flipped on the news and heard a story about a school getting top marks on standardized tests in France? When was the last time you flipped on the news and heard a story about the work that volunteers are doing at orphanages in the Ukraine, Romania, and Poland? If your answer to these questions is somewhere between "a long time" and "never", you would be correct. If you think that the news media reports on everything going on in every country, and that if you don't hear about it on the news, then it isn't happening, then you need a serious wake-up call. Nowhere is this more true than in Iraq. There are good and decent and admirable things that happen in every country of the world everyday that are not reported in the news media in the United States. Percentage-wise worldwide, the good things that happen on any given day outnumber the bad things that happen by a large margin. However, in the news, taken by percentage of news items by category, negative and sensational news from other countries versus good human interest stories, the percentage of stories that are sensational news would be statiscally insignificant from 100% and the good human interest stories would be statiscally insignificant from 0%. In other words, if it is sensational and shocking, it wil be in the news. Otherwise, "fugeddabout it". Applying the same logic to Iraq, the number of good things that happen in Iraq outnumber the bad, although it may be by a smaller number. However, the reporting is still swayed overwhelmingly to the sensational. So, given that, isn't it possible that the situation in Iraq actually has many positives and is not all doom and gloom as the media would have us believe. I submit that not only is it possible, it is probable and it is indeed the truth.
Does this mean that there is not some cause for concern? Of course not. The killing of civilians and the continued insurgence does need to be dealt with. But what is needed now is realistic optimism, not politically motivated pessimism. Senator Kerry, I have a news flash for you: while the media may be kind to you, they are not the best source for reliable information on what is really happening in the world. Think about that before you use them as justfication for what is really going on in Iraq.