Log in or Sign up

Did anyone watch 'Inside the Taliban' on the National Geographic channel?

Discussion in 'Free Speech Alley' started by fanatic, Jun 4, 2007.

Page 4 of 5

SabanFan The voice of reason

Joined:

Oct 21, 2002

Messages:

26,080

Likes Received:

1,247

red55 said: ↑

The media wants a story, any story. If there are good news stories out there, it would sell and someone would be reporting it. Surely Fox News would, don't you think? The Presidents Press secretary would be highlighting them, right?

All I asked is that some folks that promote this media bias business offer some evidence of good news that is not being reported.
Click to expand...

The FBI and CIA foiled a plot to blow up fuel lines in and around JFK Airport. 3 "terrorists" were arrested. The New York Times ran the story on page 36.

SabanFan, Jun 9, 2007

#31
TigerWins Founding Member

Joined:

Sep 15, 2003

Messages:

4,666

Likes Received:

157

red55 said: ↑

You know, I hear this a lot but I think it is simpler than that. The media wants a story, any story. If there are good news stories out there, it would sell and someone would be reporting it. Surely Fox News would, don't you think? The Presidents Press secretary would be highlighting them, right?

All I asked is that some folks that promote this media bias business offer some evidence of good news that is not being reported. But nobody has. I think damn little of it exists and nothing significant enough to bump the daily casualties and bombings off the front page.

I think some folks are in denial about just how bad it is over there and want to imagine that there is good news . . . and we just aren't hearing it.
Click to expand...

We don't hear much from the media concerning Northern and Southern Iraq, unless there is violence. We know the Turks have things relatively under control in the North. Reconstruction is going well in the North and South. It's not without problems and some violence, but it's a cakewalk compared to what's going on in Baghdad.

Iraq Success Stories

Over the past year, violence in anbar province (western Iraq) is much improved. But we hear little about this in the media.

Anbar tribes turn against Al Qaeda

The battle lines have been drawn around Baghdad and the sunni triangle area. That is where most of the fighting is happening and where a large portion of the population resides. The media focus on this area is understandable, but it doesn't take much journalism to go to the other parts of Iraq to see reconstruction underway.

I haven't seen any polls on this, but I'd be willing to bet that most Americans believe that all of Iraq is in disarray. That is simply not the case, but it would take a little research to find this out. It's not on the nightly news.

TigerWins, Jun 9, 2007

#32
Bengal Buddy Founding Member

Joined:

Dec 25, 2004

Messages:

12,599

Likes Received:

520

red55 said: ↑

What good is happening over there actually? I mean we hear that a lot, but what good compares with the bad that's happening out there right now? Seriously, show us what makes you think that way. I'd surely like to see something positive.
Click to expand...

You won't get any good news with the news media we have now. They are against the war and will not depict anything positive that occurs. They will tell us what they want us to know. Every day they tell us how many servicemen and iraqis died that day, the total number of deaths that have occurred since the start of the war, and the number that have died since the crackdown in Bagdad. But do they mention how many terrorists have been killed or captured since the start of the war or since the crackdown? Do they mention what has been accomplished as a result of the crackdown? No indeed. This is not journalism; it is propaganda.

Bengal Buddy, Jun 9, 2007

#33
red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

Joined:

Oct 21, 2002

Messages:

45,195

Likes Received:

8,736

SabanFan said: ↑

The FBI and CIA foiled a plot to blow up fuel lines in and around JFK Airport. 3 "terrorists" were arrested. The New York Times ran the story on page 36.
Click to expand...

No chit? It was page one in BR and all over the cable TV news.

red55, Jun 9, 2007

#34
red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

Joined:

Oct 21, 2002

Messages:

45,195

Likes Received:

8,736
TigerWins said: ↑

We don't hear much from the media concerning Northern and Southern Iraq, unless there is violence. We know the Turks have things relatively under control in the North.
Click to expand...

The Turks do not control north Iraq, in fact they are agitating the Kurds that do control it.

TigerWins said: ↑

Reconstruction is going well in the North and South. It's not without problems and some violence, but it's a cakewalk compared to what's going on in Baghdad.
Click to expand...

The Kurds are the only Iraqi faction that have cooperated with us and there has been plenty of news about them.

http://www.theotheriraq.com/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19070463

TigerWins said: ↑

Over the past year, violence in anbar province (western Iraq) is much improved. But we hear little about this in the media.
Click to expand...

It's been all over the media.

CNN:U.S. commander points to progress in parts of Iraq

AP: Marine General: Anbar Getting Better

ABC: Sunnis Revolt against Al Qaida in Iraq

TigerWins said: ↑

I haven't seen any polls on this, but I'd be willing to bet that most Americans believe that all of Iraq is in disarray. That is simply not the case, but it would take a little research to find this out. It's not on the nightly news.
Click to expand...

I'll take that bet. All of Iraq is in disarray, amigo. Even Kurdistan, which is doing the best, is far from back to normal.

I read your link on success stories from Iraq. Just look at the relatively petty good news this US government publication is promoting. These stories just can't compete with the huge failure stories--US casualties, Iraqi violence, and the failure of the Iraqi government to govern.

Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs launches USAID funded Social Safety Net Pilot Center to assist poor families in Iraq

Technical assistance leads to a stronger banking supervision department

USAID course teaches safe use of pesticides in rural farming communities

New microfinance institution provides credit to small businesses in Kirkuk

Cultural center promotes equality
red55, Jun 9, 2007

#35
red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

Joined:

Oct 21, 2002

Messages:

45,195

Likes Received:

8,736

Bengal Buddy said: ↑

You won't get any good news with the news media we have now. They are against the war and will not depict anything positive that occurs.
Click to expand...

FoxNews is not against the war. I watch them and I don't see them reporting much "good news". Some of you need to face up to the cold hard fact that there ain't much good news to be had there. I read the Wall Street Journal and The Economist, too. Both very conservative and neither offering much about good news in Iraq.

Bengal Buddy said: ↑

They will tell us what they want us to know. Every day they tell us how many servicemen and iraqis died that day, the total number of deaths that have occurred since the start of the war, and the number that have died since the crackdown in Bagdad. But do they mention how many terrorists have been killed or captured since the start of the war or since the crackdown?
Click to expand...

It's not hard to find. List of insurgents killed in Iraq.

You're old enough to remember Vietnam. Every Thursday the nightly news would list the 100-200 Americans killed that week, but note that 500-1,000 VC and NVA were killed. And it didn't mean squat as to what was going on over there. Nobody trusted the numbers. In fact since the 1991 Gulf War, the mlitary has a policy of not giving out enemy body counts any more. That's why you don't hear it as much. The military doesn't want their success to be judged by body counts and nobody trusts the numbers anyway. "We don’t do body counts” -- General Tommy Franks, US Central Command

Bengal Buddy said: ↑

Do they mention what has been accomplished as a result of the crackdown? No indeed.
Click to expand...

Washington Times: Bush lauds positive early results of 'surge'

UPI: Eye on Iraq: Mixed results of Iraq surge

NPR: 'War Czar': Iraq Surge Has Mixed Results

Washington Post: Top U.S. Officers See Mixed Results From Iraq 'Surge'

The fact is . . . The media is reporting every bit of news regarding the surge and getting it from the horses mouths. It's just not terribly good news.

Gen. David H. Petraeus , the top U.S. commander in Iraq , said the ongoing increase of nearly 30,000 U.S. troops in the country has achieved "modest progress" but has also met with setbacks such as a rise in devastating suicide bombings and other problems that leave uncertain whether his counterinsurgency strategy will ultimately succeed.
Click to expand...

Bengal Buddy said: ↑

This is not journalism; it is propaganda.
Click to expand...

Perhaps, you are just seeing what you want to see and hearing what you want to hear.

red55, Jun 9, 2007

#36

1 person likes this.
TigerWins Founding Member

Joined:

Sep 15, 2003

Messages:

4,666

Likes Received:

157

Looks like Iran is aiding the Taliban, too. Let's see, that's Hezbollah, Hamas, insurgents in Iraq, and now the Taliban. We're using diplomacy through the U.N. to deal with Iran. Yep, that's really working well.

PARIS, France (CNN) -- The United States has "irrefutable evidence" that Tehran is transferring arms to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, a top U.S. diplomat told CNN Wednesday, noting that NATO forces have intercepted some of the arms shipments.

"There's irrefutable evidence the Iranians are now doing this and it's a pattern of activity," U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told CNN.

"If you see the Iranians arming Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank and, of course, arming Shia militants inside Iraq itself. It's very violent and very unproductive activity by the Iranian government."

And one that puts Tehran contrary to the U.N. Security Council, Burns said.

"Iran is operating against the last Security Council Resolution 1747, passed on March 24, which said that Iran must not transfer arms outside of Iran, and here it is doing it in Lebanon, in Gaza, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq, so Iran is in outright violation of its Security Council commitments," according to Burns.

In late May, U.S. and British officials simply said that weapons crossing the border from Iran to Afghanistan may be winding up in the hands of the Taliban, the hard-line Islamic militia that is battling U.S.- and NATO-led forces in Afghanistan.

Wednesday's accusations took the case against Tehran to the next level.

"It's certainly coming from the government of Iran. It's coming from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard corps command, which is a basic unit of the Iranian government," Burns said.

Iran Arming Taliban
Click to expand...

TigerWins, Jun 13, 2007

#37
red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

Joined:

Oct 21, 2002

Messages:

45,195

Likes Received:

8,736

Even the Liebster is getting worked up about the Iranians.

Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran
By Trita Parsi

WASHINGTON - US Senator Joseph Lieberman's call for cross-border bombing raids into Iran appears to be the culmination of a two-week campaign by proponents of war to put the military option center-stage in the US debate over Iran once more.

The immediate effect of reigniting the let's-bomb-Iran discussions is the undercutting of the recently initiated US-Iran talks over Iraq, which in turn will cause the military confrontation with Iran to be viewed in a new light.

Lieberman out-hawked the administration of President George W Bush on the television news show Face the Nation this past Sunday by calling for "aggressive military action against the Iranians", including "a strike over the border into Iran". Repeating accusations - by now all but abandoned by the Bush administration - of Iranian complicity in the killing of US soldiers in Iraq, the Connecticut senator's comments caused a storm on Monday. Suddenly, the military option against Iran was once more at the center of the United States' Iran debate.

Read the rest ...
Click to expand...

red55, Jun 13, 2007

#38
red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

Joined:

Oct 21, 2002

Messages:

45,195

Likes Received:

8,736

TigerWins said: ↑

Looks like Iran is aiding the Taliban, too. Let's see, that's Hezbollah, Hamas, insurgents in Iraq, and now the Taliban.
Click to expand...

Beware Dick Cheney! He is being contradicted by the commanders.

Cheney's Iran-Arms-to-Taliban Gambit Rebuffed
by Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON, Jun 11 (IPS) - A media campaign portraying Iran as supplying arms to the Taliban guerrillas fighting U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, orchestrated by advocates of a more confrontational stance toward Iran in the George W. Bush administration, appears to have backfired last week when Defence Secretary Robert Gates and the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Dan McNeil, issued unusually strong denials.

The allegation that Iran has reversed a decade-long policy and is now supporting the Taliban, conveyed in a series of press articles quoting "senior officials" in recent weeks, is related to a broader effort by officials aligned with Vice President Dick Cheney to portray Iran as supporting Sunni insurgents, including al Qaeda, to defeat the United States in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

. . .

The combination of anonymous statements by administration officials and the dismissal of the charge by the commander in the field contrasts sharply with the Bush administration's claims that Iran was sending armour-piercing IEDs to Shiite militias in Iraq last January and February. Those accusations, which were never backed up with specific evidence, were made publicly by Bush himself, the State Department and the U.S. military command in Baghdad.

The fact that the officials making the accusation about Iran and Afghanistan are unwilling to go on the record and the refusal of Gates and McNeill to go along with it suggests an effort by Cheney and his allies in the administration to do an "end run" around the official policy by conjuring up a region-wide Iranian offensive against U.S. forces.

. . .

NATO commanders in Pakistan have long been aware that the Taliban has been dependent on Pakistan for its arms and ammunition. The Telegraph reported Sunday that a NATO report on a recent battle shows the Taliban fired an estimated 400,000 rounds of ammunition, 2,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 1,000 mortar shells and had stocked over one million rounds of ammunition, all of which came from Quetta, Pakistan during the spring months.

Read the rest ...
Click to expand...

red55, Jun 13, 2007

#39
TigerWins Founding Member

Joined:

Sep 15, 2003

Messages:

4,666

Likes Received:

157

red55 said: ↑

Beware Dick Cheney! He is being contradicted by the commanders.
Click to expand...

Where does it have any quotes from Cheney about Iran in that article? If Cheney is not quoted, how can it be contradictory?

Yeah, I know. Unnamed sources.

TigerWins, Jun 13, 2007

#40

(You must log in or sign up to reply here.)

Page 4 of 5

Share This Page