The Common Ills: NYT undercounts Iraq to beef up Afghanistan

Thursday, February 12, 2009

NYT undercounts Iraq to beef up Afghanistan

If it bleeds it leads? Not so much. Not when you're the New York Times -- a paper that it is now obvious will never recover from selling the illegal war. Today, Richard A. Oppel Jr. and others -- no link TO GARBAGE -- team up to tell you "AT LEAST 20" dead in Afghanistan!!!!! And to grab that headline the pimps have to include not just a bombing that killed 8 -- wow, 8!!!!! -- but two who were shot in one incident for a whopping ten people!!!!! And fifty-seven were wounded!!!!! Throughout Afghanistan!!!!!!

Front page news or 'news'.

A16 (national edition), Steven Lee Myers offers "Security Talks About Iraq Not Needed, Iran Signals." Golly. Nothing must have happened in terms of violence in Iraq yesterday. Oh wait, yesterday's snapshot notes 27 deaths. 27 deaths -- 16 from one double bombing. Yeah, that would trump "AT LEAST 20" dead. As for the number wounded in Iraq yesterday? 47 just from the double-bombing in Baghdad. That's before you count up all the others (including "Awakening" Council members wounded in shootings). Translation, Afghanistan is NOT front page news if the point is violence. But the paper that LIED to the American people to start the illegal war CONTINUES TO LIE and wants your morning take-away to be, "Afghanistan violent! Iraq, calm." It's bulls**t. And shame on Myers for taking part in that nonsense. Shame on him for contributing to the deception and the lies. One of the few things the current NYT division in Iraq has going for it is that none of them sold the illegal war. All those losers are elsewhere now. (And the selling includes the garbage Dexy and John produced -- the half-truths and evasions that led people to believe things were going great for the first two years of the illegal war.)

"Bombs targeting Shiite pilgrims kill 20, injure 60 in Iraq" -- that's the headline in the Los Angeles Times. Monte Morin and Saif Hameed open with:

Attacks targeting Shiite pilgrims bound for the holy city of Karbala rocked Baghdad on Wednesday, leaving 20 dead and more than 60 injured, government officials said.
The attacks ended a monthlong lull in violence that accompanied Iraq's parliamentary elections, when security was at an all-time high in the capital. The bloodshed also appeared to be timed to the climax of an annual 40-day period of mourning for Shiite Muslim faithful, a period in which Sunni Arab insurgent attacks had become commonplace in the years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

"Attacks Kill 16 In Iraqi Capital" is the headline in the Washington Post for Qais Mizher and Ernesto Londono's article which opens:

Two car bombs targeting a bus station in a Shiite neighborhood in southwest Baghdad killed at least 16 people Wednesday, Iraqi authorities said.
One of the bombs detonated inside the main bus stop in the Bayaa district about 3:30 p.m., and the second exploded just outside in a busy commercial area, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said. The official said the blast inside the station killed two people and the one outside left at least 14 dead. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to talk to reporters. He said more than 40 people were wounded in the bombings, which happened in close succession.
Mahdi Ali Hadi, 29, a taxi driver who was outside the gate of the bus station when the blasts occurred, said passengers started running for cover as security guards fired their weapons in the air.

"String of bombings threatens relative calm in Iraq" is McClatchy's headline to Trenton Daniel and Laith Hammoudi which informs:

More than a dozen Iraqis were killed and 43 were wounded Wednesday in back-to-back car bombings at a bus station in a Shiite Muslim neighborhood in south Baghdad, police said.
[. . .]
The attacks came a little more than a week after Iraq held provincial elections in 14 of its 18 provinces. Election officials are expected to release final results in the coming weeks.
Around 3 p.m. Wednesday, bombs in a parked car and a van detonated in the crowded bus depot in the Bayaa neighborhood, killing 16 civilians and wounding 43 others, police said. The area is a popular shopping destination.
The U.S.-led Multi-National Corps in Iraq put the death toll in a second depot attack at eight dead and 33 injured.

(The byline says "Leith," we're assuming it's a typo.)

To read any other outlet is to be aware just how violent yesterday was in Iraq. To read the New York Times -- home to the bad writing of Michael Gordon, Judith Miller, John F. Burns, Dexter Filkins and other 'creative' types -- is to be under the impression that Afghanistan was far more violent yesterday than Iraq. (And for anyone who says, "It's not a competition," yes, it is. It is a competition for media resources and media attention. And Iraq, with 147,000 US troops still on the ground, is being treated as the war ended when no such thing happened and no such thing is happening anytime soon.)

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