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Ignorance on Iraq

Captain's Quarters:

The Washington Post carries an interesting argument from Michael O'Hanlon from the Brookings Institute on the divergence of military and civilian opinion on the war in Iraq, a separation that he calls dangerous in the long run for American political discourse. O'Hanlon acknowledges that the support for the war in Iraq among military personnel goes far beyond the normal top-level cheeriness down to at least the mid-level officer corps, and wonders why that doesn't translate to better civilian support....

O'Hanlon only barely mentions the root cause of this problem -- a national media addicted to a narrative that embues every story with fatalism. The media has become addicted to body counts even though, historically speaking, they have remained low for a conflict of this scope and size. The national media continues to avoid reporting any positive developments from Iraq except those which cannot be ignored, like the national elections. In fact, the reason the successful elections seemed like such a big story was because they were seen as such an anomaly, not because they represented a conscious effort resulting from American plans to establish democracy in stages throughout the country.

When journalists embedded themselves in American units during the initial invasion in March - May 2003, the reports gave a much more balanced look at the military efforts in Iraq. However, the national media derided the efforts of "embeds" as out of context and government-controlled propaganda. Now the reporters choose to write their reports from the Green Zone in Baghdad, far away from the actual fighting going on and reporting instead on nothing more than the number of IEDs and body counts. Only a handful of embeds still exist, and they do not get the kind of national exposure that the 2003 invasion embeds received.

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There is also distrust of the more recent embeds. Troops do not agree with their agenda journalism and are not as open with them. They know they are talking to people who want to lose the war in Iraq. That is why there is so much excitement about getting someone who understands warfare into the war zone like Bill Roggio.