Resistance is futile: You will be (mis)informed.

[roo_ster]

There is quite a bit more in his post.  I suggest mashing the link to read it and view his images from Iraq.

October 22, 2007
Resistance is futile: You will be (mis)informed.



[1] A gulf.


[2] A gap.


[3] A chasm.


[4] A parallel universe.


All describe the bizarro-world contrast between what most Americans seem to think is happening in Iraq versus what is really happening in Iraq. Knowing this disconnect exists and experiencing it directly are two separate matters. Its like the difference between holding the remote control during the telecast of a volcanic eruption on some distant island (and then flipping the channel), versus running for survival from a wretch of molten lava that just engulfed your car.

I was at home in the United States just one day before the magnitude hit me like vertigo: America seems to be under a glass dome which allows few hard facts from the field to filter in unless they are attached to a string of false assumptions. Considering that my trip home coincided with General Petraeus testimony before the US Congress, when media interest in the war was (Im told) unusually concentrated, its a wonder my eardrums didnt burst on the trip back to Iraq. In places like Singapore, Indonesia, and Britain people hardly seemed to notice that success is being achieved in Iraq, while in the United States, Britney was competing for airtime with O.J. in one of the saddest sideshows on Earth.

No thinking person would look at last years weather reports to judge whether it will rain today, yet we do something similar with Iraq news. The situation in Iraq has drastically changed, but the inertia of bad news leaves many convinced that the mission has failed beyond recovery, that all Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, or are waiting for us to leave so they can crush their neighbors. This view allows our soldiers two possible roles: either victim caught in the crossfire or referee between warring parties. Neither, rightly, is tolerable to the American or British public.

Today I am in Iraq, back in a war of such strategic consequence that it will affect generations yet unbornwhether or not they want it to. Hiding under the covers will not work, because whether it is good news or bad, whether it is true or untrue, once information is widely circulated, it has such formidable inertia that public opinion seems impervious to the corrective balm of simple and clear facts.
...
Sadly, this is not a new phenomenon. Ive written often about the near complete failure of most media reportingas the craft is most typically plied over hereto capture the truth of Iraq and accurately portray it in an increasingly commercial news environment.
...
But it wasnt until I spent that week back in the States that I realized how bad things have gotten. I believe we are witnessing a conspiracy of coincidences conflating to exert an incomprehensibly destructive force on the free press system that we largely take for granted.

[Tallpine]

If this is true then the Bush Admin. really needs to work on it's PR

[Perd Hapley]

If this is true then the Bush Admin. really needs to work on it's PR

Conservatives have been saying that for years. 

[Tallpine]

So how long until Iraq is a safe vacation destination?

I hear the smoke is quite lovely this time of year 

[Len Budney]

I hear the smoke is quite lovely this time of year 

Nay-sayer. Just a month or so back, a reporter and a politician both proved that you can now walk around in Baghdad's famous open-air market. Sure, there'll be a hundred soldiers around with assault weapons, as well as air support from Apaches and Blackhawks, but that's part of the Middle-Eastern charm.

--Len.

[ilbob]

i would bet it is not a whole lot less safe to walk around iraq as to walk around in some inner city areas in the us.

[Ned Hamford]

So how long until Iraq is a safe vacation destination?
I hear the smoke is quite lovely this time of year 

I had thought the liquor rules are tight over there, but I hear you can get bombed every night.
 

[Tallpine]

i would bet it is not a whole lot less safe to walk around iraq as to walk around in some inner city areas in the us.

Which is proof that the US needs to pull out of places like DC, Baltimore, Newark, Chicago, etc ......