From Iraq's front line, it looks like the media has lost the plot

[SaraDinar]

Thought this frontline view relevant to this area of the forum, too. :)
Sara.
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From Iraq's front line, it looks like the media has lost the plot
March 19, 2006

A SOLDIER friend stationed in Baghdad for the past two months has been sending me emails with such arresting lines as: "It's late here and I [have] to get the Chief of Staff back to the Palace."

From his office in the fortified military and government area, the Green Zone, he scans the web for news about Iraq and compares it with his reality. "Baghdad is not burning down around my ears," he wrote last week. "Things were tense a while back, but violence was within limits. Callous thing to say, but that is the reality around here."

The only "quagmire" he sees is "the soft patch of ground out by the rifle range and no civil war in sight".

He exhibits a soldier's sang-froid. "We are expecting to be very busy the next few days. The terrorists are extremely media savvy (it's the only area they get to win) and will be looking for big headlines. End of religious festival, big crowds and convening of new government."

But with the third anniversary of the Iraq invasion tomorrow, he says, "the only people who seem to have lost both their grip on reality and their nerve are the western media".

He also sent me a letter which has been circulating among soldiers for a month, from the mayor of Tal 'Afar, near the Syrian border, praising the "lion hearts" of the US 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment who have changed the city from "ghost town in which terrorists spread death and destruction to a secure city flourishing with life".

The Iraqi parliament now has 60 days to elect a president and approve a prime minister and cabinet.

Unlike John Howard, US President George Bush has been damaged by the Iraq situation and fears grow of political paralysis for the last three years of his presidency. But George Friedman, author of America's Secret War and founder of Stratfor global intelligence subscription service, wrote last week that American weakness might in fact compel Sunnis and Shias to "sort things out themselves".

http://www.smh.com.au/news/miranda-d...582570062.html