Friday, September 09, 2005

Hey! Is There Still A War Going On?

Remember Iraq? Probably so, but you probably haven't heard much about it in the media lately, except the bogus claim that Katrina relief was slow and weak because all the Louisiana National Guard troops were over there.

I have been assuming that the recent silence on Iraq had to do mostly with the media's inability to cover more than one story at a time. But the American Spectator web site carries a post from John Connly Walsh, an American businessman in Iraq, who notes that Baghdad has actually been relatively quiet lately, and seems to be becoming more so each day.

Walsh speculates that the presentation of a constitution for ratification may have something to do with it. But he gives more credence to the notion that the Iraqi army is now capturing (and it seem summarily executing) a lot of terrorists.

Walsh's remark on the lousy state of reporting in Iraq is also noteworthy: most stories come from the AP, whose reporters rotate in and out so quickly that they have little incentive to do anything but hunker down in their hotels and stay out of harm's way until their rotation is over.

All this will certainly be worth remembering when the hurricane cleanup is well underway and the Angry Left returns to the chorus of its one-note tune. Iraq is a failure? It doesn't look that way to at least one person who is actually there.

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