[CLUE-Talk] Media's Iraq casualties put into perspective

[Kevin Cullis]

Thought you all would like to hear an anti-media perspective of the
goings on in Iraq:

An excerpt from the op-ed in the July 1 New York Post by Ralph
Peter, identified as "a retired Army officer and the author, most
recently, of Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World":

....[T]he fierce competition that makes our media so effective can
also be its worst enemy. The fight for the hottest headline can
lead to peculiar forms of group-think and pack journalism at its
worst.

The Laci Peterson story is a good example. One murder, among many,
catches on -- and suddenly it's a more important story than
terrorism, famine, coups or genocide. Pack journalism leads to a
loss of perspective that badly distorts our national priorities.

Well, journalistically speaking, poor Laci Peterson's in Baghdad
now. A relatively small number of foreseeable attacks -- predicted
by this column months ago -- have been blown wildly out of
proportion.

Our troops are doing remarkably well -- but the headlines make it
sound like a disaster. Last weekend, almost as many Americans died
in a residential balcony collapse in Chicago as have been killed
by hostile fire in "postwar" Iraq.

As a former soldier, I don't discount any American casualties as
unimportant. But the fact is that, despite real errors and
miscues, reconstruction efforts in Iraq are going surprisingly
well.

How bad is it in Iraq? It's terrible -- if you're a former Saddam
loyalist, ex-secret policeman or Ba'ath Party muckety-muck on the
wrong end of Operation Sidewinder. The party's over for Baghdad's
bully-boys, and they don't much like it.

As one pal of mine serving in Iraq puts it, the attacks on U.S.
forces are foolish acts of desperation. The last hardcore
loyalists -- those whose futures and fortunes were tied to Saddam
-- have recognized how unexpectedly smoothly the U.S. occupation
has been going (Saddam's guys don't read the Western press, so
they don't realize we're doomed to failure). And they're trying
everything they can to disrupt things.

We shouldn't be surprised that the last embittered thugs are
engaging in occasional acts of terrorism against us -- on the
contrary, we should be relieved that we see so little continuing
resistance. After toppling a totalitarian regime that ruled a
population of 25 million for over a generation, it's amazing that
we face only one or two attacks every few days. We could be
suffering hundreds of incidents daily, if the population stood
behind Saddam & Co.

On our worst day last week, when two convoys came under attack,
more than 600 other U.S. convoys didn't hear a single shot. Two
patrols got into firefights. The other 500 patrols didn't even get
hit with a water balloon.

Are the Iraqis "turning against us"? Bull. Our best sources of
intelligence continue to be Iraqis who are glad the regime is gone
and don't want it to come back in any way, shape or form.

The Iraqi population is complex, with varying interests, loyalties
and levels of political sophistication. But the masses aren't
demonstrating to bring back Saddam, Uday and Qusay. They may find
the integrity and diligence of our soldiers frustrating as they
try to work their local scams -- but they don't miss the secret
police....

    END of Excerpt
 
    For the piece in full:
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/2135.htm