Sunday, March 06, 2005
Grudging newspapers
Someone hit me now. Someone punch me in the face because I still cannot believe what I read today on the front page of Al Ahram newspaper. They published a picture of an Iraqi man rescuing a young girl right after a motorcycle suicide bombing in Iraq. The caption under the photo went like this: Iraqi man helps young girl after a terrorist attack in Azamiyah in Iraq.
My jaws dropped when I read this caption. This is the FIRST time Al Ahram, Egypt’s largest newspaper, uses the word terrorist to describe an attack on Iraqi civilians in Iraq!!! It never happened before. Such attacks were simply described as “bombings” without the word “terrorist”.
If such an attack happened in Algeria or Saudi Arabia then they would definitely describe it as a “terrorist attack”. The reason behind this is because Al Ahram and most of the Arab media do not want it to appear as if there is another enemy in Iraq besides the USA, not mentioning that there are many sick disgusting Arab commentators and journalists who still long for any destruction in Iraq as long as it will make the US unhappy.
Pharoah thinks it may be a typo.
Al Ahram is not the only grudging newspaper in the world. This morning's New York Times has a pretty decent article on the front page underneath an extremely partisan headline: "Unexpected Whiff of Freedom Proves Bracing for the Mideast." Unexpected by whom? He Who Shall Not Be Credited expected it all along. As did the Prince of Harshness and his Chief Acolyte. And all those other guys.
We do not know whether George W. Bush's grand strategy -- only the fourth in the history of the United States -- will secure America's future. We probably will not know for at least twenty years, and perhaps fifty. But Bush's critics -- first among them the editors of the New York Times -- have not hesitated to say when he "should have done" this or "should have anticipated" that. It is, I suppose, expecting too much for them to admit that these wonderful winds of change were unleashed on purpose and were the intended consequence of the execution of the Bush Administration's strategy.
UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers!
7 Comments:
By 
, at
Sun Mar 06, 09:47:00 AM:
Tigerhawk:
Could you tell me the rest of the historical grand strategies ?
I am guessing without googling here, but they: 1) Union grand strategy in the Civil War, 2) US grand strategy in WWII, then 3) the Cold War ?
Thank.
carl
By 
Presley Bennett, at
Sun Mar 06, 10:02:00 AM:
I would have guessed: (1) The Monroe Doctrine (2) The Marshall Plan (3) Cold War. But I could be wrong.
By enuff, at
Sun Mar 06, 10:44:00 AM:
From Lebanon’s Daily Star, ‘…Iraqis have become increasingly vocal in their criticism of the insurgency, even staging a rare public demonstration condemning militants as terrorists….’
Angry Iraqis denounce insurgent attacks
By , at
Sun Mar 06, 10:55:00 AM:
Pivotal US foreign policy doctrines include:
1)The 1823 Monroe doctrine which stated that Europe must stay out of the Americas;
2)The 1904 TR corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (talk softly and carry a big stick), which stated the United States was justified in exercising "international police power" where our interested were threatened;
3) The 1947 Truman Doctrine which dedicated the US to the "containment" of Communism around the world.
By , at
Sun Mar 06, 11:42:00 AM:
LOL. I especially adore your "He Who Shall Not Be Credited" link. Delicious!
Sissy
sisu
By , at
Sun Mar 06, 12:17:00 PM:
I am surpirsed that you call the NY Times "partisan" when in fact it is you who is partisan. Do you think that most folks living in the Middle East are not surprised by current events in their region? And are reacting to it? The Times has it right.
By , at
Sun Mar 06, 02:06:00 PM:
Anon3, are you really "surprised" that he calls the NY Times partisan? Would a partisan like yourself (somehow it shines through) really expect a conservative to fail to see bias in a NY Times piece? More importantly, do you really think a national newspaper is doing its best to provide nonpartisan coverage of American foreign policy when its A1 headlines are written from the purported perspective of third world observers of American foreign policy, rather than from the perspective of American policy-makers' assessing the success of US policy in meeting our objectives?
Oh, wait. The NY Times is not a national newspaper. It's a regional Upper Manhattan newspaper catering to terrorist apologists and Bush-hating Democrats. My bad.
