What do do you when you’re a mainstream press reporter, and your narrative of doom and gloom in Iraq is made more laughable every day by General Petraeus and his new strategy? Well, you need a new narrative of course.
Via Greyhawk at The Mudville Gazette we just might be seeing the beginnings of that new narrative. Says Newsweek:
The Bush administration is starving for good news out of Iraq, and it may finally have some: new U.S. government statistics showing that violent attacks of all kinds are down to levels not seen since 2005. But until recently, the administration appears to have resisted acknowledging a key element of the new data, because it flies in the face of President George W. Bush’s ongoing rhetorical confrontation with Iran’s clerical regime.
Part of me wants to respond to this with a couple pictures of owls, one captioned ORLY? And another replying YARLY! But now, I will soldier on and give this a serious look.
Newsweek continues:
According to three senior U.S. officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information, the decline in Iraq violence also includes a decrease in the number of attacks attributable to insurgents backed or armed by Iran. Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell confirmed to NEWSWEEK that “there has indeed been a drop” in such attacks, but he added that “it’s not entirely clear what the reason for that is.”
Overall trends show a significant drop in violence over the last several months, according to previously unpublished military statistics obtained by NEWSWEEK. During a single week in mid-September, attacks in Iraq totaled about 900—down from about 1,700 a week in June. The number of attacks increased slightly in late September and early October during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. But according to the statistics, the just-ended Ramadan holiday was significantly less violent this year than in the previous two years.
I guess technically new reports of early October attacks would be “previously unpublished” because the dates in question would not have occurred previously, but let’s give NEWSWEEK a break. It sounds so much more interesting to refer to this research as the uncovering of “previously unpublished reports” than just saying “I went to a web page and looked up the new reports, then compared them with the old reports.”
It’s still a challenge though, when you’re faced with quotes like “murders in the area, which a year ago occurred more than 150 times each week, are down to an average of five a week,” to find a new narrative that serves the proper role of a Newsweek journalist, but Newsweek has found one. Seriously, this new narrative has all the check boxes filled in. Is something wrong? Is the Bush Administration responsible? Are the Neocons at the root it all? Undoubtedly when the truth about our inevitable victory in Iraq is being hidden by Bushie Neocons in order to further their plot to invade Iran and steal their oil, then the answer to all three is most assuredly yes.
Clearly for the last few years Newsweek, CNN, CBS, and all the rest have been dupes of Grandmaster Rove and his apprentices in the White House, reporting over and over about how “President Bush is stuck in this quagmire of an unpopular war,” while the administration clearly has been paying off former Republicans in deep cover to perpetuate this scam.
That, or we’re just winning and some desperate Bush haters posing as objective journalists are scrambling to find the dark cloud under the silver lining.