Media Bias on the war

Hyping losses while glossing over victories By Thomas Sowell Originally published December 15, 2005 The media seem to have come up with a formula that would make any war in history unwinnable and unbearable: They simply emphasize the enemy's victories and our losses. Losses suffered by the enemy are not news, no matter how large, how persistent or how clearly they indicate the enemy's declining strength.

What are the enemy's victories in Iraq? The killing of Americans and the killing of Iraqi civilians. Both are big news in the mainstream media, day in and day out, around the clock.

Has anyone ever believed that any war could be fought without deaths on both sides?

Every death is a tragedy to the individual killed and to his loved ones. But is there anything about American casualty rates in Iraq that makes them more severe than casualty rates in any other war we have fought?

On the contrary, the American deaths in Iraqi are a fraction of what they have been in other wars in our history. The media have made a big production about the cumulative fatalities in Iraq, hyping the 1,000th death with multiple full-page features in The New York Times and comparable coverage on TV.

The 2,000th death was similarly anticipated almost impatiently in the media and then made another big splash. But does media hype make 2,000 wartime fatalities in more than two years unusual?

The Marines lost more than 5,000 men taking one island in the Pacific during three months in World War II. In the Civil War, the Confederates lost 5,000 men in one battle in one day.

Yet there was Jim Lehrer on The NewsHour last week earnestly asking Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld about the 10 Americans killed that day. It is hard to imagine anybody in any previous war asking any such question of anyone responsible for fighting a war.

We have lost more men than that in our most overwhelming and one-sided victories in previous wars. During an aerial battle over the Mariana Islands in World War II, Americans shot down hundreds of Japanese planes while losing about 30 of their own.

If the media of that era had been reporting the way the media report today, all we would have heard about would have been that more than two dozen Americans were killed that day.

Neither our troops nor the terrorists are in Iraq just to be killed. Both have objectives. But any objectives we achieve get short shrift in the mainstream media, if they are mentioned at all.

Our troops can kill 10 times as many of the enemy as they kill and it just isn't news worth featuring, if it is mentioned at all, in much of the media. No matter how many towns are wrested from the control of the terrorists by American or Iraqi troops, it just isn't front-page news like the casualty reports or even the doomsaying of some politicians.

That these doomsaying politicians have been proved wrong again and again does not keep their latest outcries from overshadowing the hard-won victories of American troops in Iraq.

The doomsayers claimed that terrorist attacks would make it impossible to hold the elections last January because so many Iraqis would be afraid to go vote. The doomsayers urged that the elections be postponed.

But a higher percentage of Iraqis voted in that election - and in a subsequent election - than the percentage of Americans who voted in last year's presidential elections.

Utter ignorance of history enables any war with any casualties to be depicted in the media as an unmitigated disaster.

Even after Nazi Germany surrendered at the end of World War II, die-hard Nazi guerrilla units terrorized and assassinated German officials and German civilians who cooperated with Allied occupation authorities.

But nobody suggested that we abandon the country. Nobody was foolish enough to think that you could say in advance when you would pull out or that you should encourage your enemies by announcing a timetable.

There has never been the slightest doubt that we would begin pulling troops out of Iraq when it was feasible. Only time and circumstances can tell when that will be. And only irresponsible politicians and the media think otherwise.

If you need any help with your wordplay let me know.

Hope your Christmas is Spectacular! ....and your New Year even Better!

Hope your Christmas is Spectacular! ....and your New Year even Better!

We (including you) still don't know if any laws were broken, we have only assumptions. Didn't some Democrats also know what *was* occurring?

Lastly, what do you think of Wayne's New Year's resolution idea? Harry seems very disinterested, but maybe if you added your significant liberal weight to the idea, we could get the name-calling reduced some. -- John Herring

Hope your Christmas is Spectacular! ....and your New Year even Better!

Hope your Christmas is Spectacular! ....and your New Year even Better!

Ms. Manners would like to know.

Hope your Christmas is Spectacular! ....and your New Year even Better!

Nah, surely not.

I did have one of those pink notices in my box "Item too big for mailbox, please take this notice to the service window to claim your mail"but in the holiday fracas and chaos visible through the service window nobody could immediately find the item. It may or may not be the book in question- I get several books a month from publishers hoping for a review, and somebody must teach a writing course that advises "Put your manuscript in an envelope the size of a billboard so the editor will see it......" as we get a lot of unsolicited manuscripts in oversized envelopes.

It must be me, but it seemed like a mild manner observation that liberals do like to quote the NYT. It seemed very mannerly.

Sheesh...indeed.

Is this that poor poor pitiful Christians book from Faux News regarding the non-existent plot to kill Christmas?

So when did I ask prior to those 2 times today?

I don't know what you know, Jim, since you keep your "profession" a deep, dark secret, but you've never provided evidence "word play" is among your abilities.

What would you like to know?

Think what you like Harry.