Alternate Reality Created = Media Cover-Up

Day after day we hear in the news how many people died in Iraq today. No doubt it's not a very safe place to be right now. At this time we have about 140,000 troops over there. Last night I heard 10 died. That leaves 139,990 over there doing SOMETHING today! What are they all doing?

I really don't care if you think we should be over there or not. That is not what this blog is about. This blog is about education. Hopefully helping more people to pull their heads out of the sand, and search for the truth. Even if almost every scientist, politician, news reporter, celebrity, etc is agreeing on some "fact", it still might not actually be the truth, or accurate.

I'm not over there myself. Thankfully most of us are not. But I DO get curious as to what (if any) good is being accomplished. Any time something bad happens or people die, there is no shortage of news reporting about it, but is anything good happening? Or is it REALLY all bad?

I wish I had a direct line to the troops myself. How many are saying bad things? How many are saying good thing? Is the news media leaving stuff out on purpose?

TODAY MY WISH HAS COME TRUE !

Someone posted a link on Digg to a site called MilBlogging.com which is a site that links to other military blogs! I have not checked out very many, but seems like a great resource! After following a few more links I came across a news story on Media Cover-Up, which really bothered me. A couple quotes are:

• many press types. "They didn't want to talk to us." Why? I asked. "Because we were gung-ho for the mission."
  
• members of the press were reluctant to photograph Iraqis laughing, giving the thumbs up sign, or cheering.


• two Marines pushed and pulled by hand they could get the thing turning to give rides to the children of the Iraqi employees. They did so for hours on end. A photographer from a large American media company watched impassively. "Why don't you take a picture of this?" demanded one Marine. The photographer snorted, "That's not my job."
  

Read the whole thing yourself.

Perhaps we can't trust all Republicans because they are trying to stay in power, but in that same way we can't trust all Democrats because they are trying to get in to power. With Party Politics having such a strong foothold here in the States it's hard to know who might be telling the full truth, mostly the truth, little truth, or no truth. So it was rather amazing to hear Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman come out and give such praise of the efforts in Iraq as accounted here after coming back from his 4th visit. A couple of choice quotes are:

• setting an artificial timetable would discourage our troops because it seems to be heading for the door. It will encourage the terrorists. It will confuse the Iraqi people.
  
• the number of Iraqis who desire civil government (27 million) compared to the 'roughly 10,000' terrorists or other rejectionists in Iraq.
  
• 'about two-thirds' of the country is in 'pretty good shape.'
  

And makes further observations about how the media has down-played certain stories while overblowing others. Again, read it here: The Iraq Story You Haven't Heard.

Norman Podhoretz has an interesting commentary called Who Is Lying About Iraq?
Where he points out a few things such as:

• With regards to Bush's "lie" about WMD: The intelligence agencies of Britain, Germany, Russia, China, Israel, and 'yes' France all agreed [there were WMDs]... and a LONG list of specific people, including quotes from Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry.
  
• The British government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit [to Africa/Nigeria] was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger's exports, the intelligence was credible.
  
• the Senate Intelligence Committee as having lied about the forged documents
  

There are tons more examples of media NOT reporting things and misreporting things. As I find them I'll post them in the comments section. You feel free to post things as well. Again, this is not about "Good Bush" or "Bad Bush" ... this is about the MEDIA molding our perception of what is going on over there, rather than giving us ALL the information and letting us make up our minds, so ANYTHING you find the media not reporting on is good stuff.

As far as some military blogs, you might want to check out these:

• redleg's "last night in Iraq" letter has lots of insight in to mission goals, accomplishments, media, etc. His post "good news" also has some great stuff. Check out the rest of his blog.
  
• SGT Hook's "taste of freedom" letter, and "my recruiter lied to me".
  
• Ma Duece Gunner has a good blog.
  
• Another called A Soldier's Perspective.
  
• And Black Five's blog is rated at the top.
  

A full list of Military blogs are here. This is a great start to seeing what is really going on over there.

What is MOST troubling to me is that people can onlintelligenteligent decisions about things when they have as much information as possible, and it seems rather obvious we aren't getting some that IS available, but is not being reported..... on purpose?!