The Strategy Page puts the recent carnage in Iraq into broader perspective.
March 10, 2005: While spectacular suicide car bombings continue, the overall level of attacks continues to decline, as it has since the January 30 elections. The terror attacks now are being done mostly for the benefit of the foreign media, for the killings are only making the population more hostile to the al Qaeda and Sunni Arab groups that are responsible for nearly all the violence. The terrorists are being hit as never before, with more police raids into neighborhoods known to be terrorist strongholds. Weapons and bomb making materials are seized and arrests made.
Sometimes, the resistance is heavier than expected. A raid today in Baghdad resulted in 14 policemen and at least four terrorists getting killed, as well as 65 policemen, and over a hundred terrorists and civilians wounded. The resistance was so fierce because the terrorists are running out of places to hide. Many have already had to flee "friendly neighborhoods" several times in the last few months. Terrorists are having a harder time recruiting because of this, and many terrorist cells are down to the hard core. These guys will stand and fight, and get killed.
Iraqi media is playing the battle between the terrorists and the security forces for what it is, gang-busters. Confessions of captured terrorists are televised, and camera crews increasingly accompany the Iraqi police on their raids, or to crime scenes where the bodies of terrorist victims have been discovered. The fact that the terrorists are now killing women and children is pointed out, as this is considered over-the-line behavior, and the mark of true outlaws.
It would be nice if the evening news would provide a little of this context along with their reports of car bombings and assassinations. By largely omitting the background they leave their viewers with the impression that all is chaos and carnage in Iraq, and that the situation is hopelessly out of hand. This is not fair to anyone involved and certainly not fair to the viewers. The fact that people have to go elsewhere for a fuller understanding of this conflict is one reason why the evening news in particular and the MSM in general is going the way of the dinosaurs.
