'Everything I thought I knew was wrong.'

Reporting from Iraq suffers from a standard malady, incompleteness. This is partly inherent to news reporting itself and partly due to political bias. Suffice it to say that you do not get the real story if you are a liberal ‘realist’ who already knows what the story should be.

I don't normally watch the local news but yesterday I made an exception. After exactly one-half hour of 'news' about my city I was ready to move. If I got all my information from watching the local evening news I'd have a pretty grim picture of where I live. Yet how many murders do I see everyday? How many thefts? How many scams and tragedies are a part of my daily life? Very little, thank god. But I'm sure the stories were real. In a greater metropolitian area of (approx.) 800,000 people there are a lot of good and bad and indifferent things going on all at the same time. In fact, I'm sure I don't know half of what my neighbors go through everyday and vice versa.

But if my sole picture of the state of my city came from the evening news I would believe I lived in an absolutely miserable place, where any moment I could be stabbed, shot, robbed, or run over. Is this a complete picture from which to make potentially tragic strategic decisions about whether or not to stay until the job is done?

Think about everything you’ve heard about the conditions in Iraq, the role of U.S. forces, the multi-layered complexities of the war.

Then think again.

I’m a journalist. I read the news everyday, from several sources. I have the luxury of reading stuff newspapers don’t always have room to print. I read every tidbit I could on Iraq and the war before coming.

Everything I thought I knew was wrong. newsminer.com

I cannot remember a single positive story about Iraq in the last year from the MSM. Not one. Is it possible that there is no good news in Iraq? Or are we not getting all the facts?

The UCLA has done an interesting media study comparing news outlets with members of congress and found that indeed the news media is heavily tilted to the left.

"I suspected that many media outlets would tilt to the left because surveys have shown that reporters tend to vote more Democrat than Republican," said Tim Groseclose, a UCLA political scientist and the study's lead author. "But I was surprised at just how pronounced the distinctions are."

"Overall, the major media outlets are quite moderate compared to members of Congress, but even so, there is a quantifiable and significant bias in that nearly all of them lean to the left," said co-author Jeffrey Milyo, University of Missouri economist and public policy scholar. newsroom.ucla.edu

Couple this kind of pervasive bias in a news media that is with a Democratic political jihad to defame, derail, and mal-diagnose everything about this war and Bush, and what you have is a distorted picture of reality. A picture that Democrats like John Murtha are dishonestly peddling for their own political gain.

More than anything in the last few days I’ve heard from soldiers and commanders that people back home don’t quite get it. They don’t see the real picture. They don’t get the real story. Some of them, like Lt. Col. Gregg Parrish, look seriously pained in the face when he says only a part of the picture is being told; the part of car bombs and explosives and suicide bombers and death. It’s a necessary part of the picture, but not a complete one, he says.

I’ve listened to the soldiers and Parrish about the missing pieces of the puzzles that don’t reach home. My selfish, journalistic drive immediately thinks “Perfect. A story that hasn’t been told. Let me at it.”

But I have a slight hesitation; I need to keep balanced. I can’t be a cheerleader, even if I have a soft spot for the hometown troops, especially after the welcome they’ve shown me. I still need to be truthful and walk the centerline and report the good or bad.

But then I realize it’s not a conflict of interest. If I am truly unbiased, then I need to get used to this one simple fact; that the untold story, might in fact, be a positive one. It takes a minute to wrap my mind around it, as a news junkie that became a news writer. The great, career-making, breaking news stories usually don’t have happy endings; they usually revolve around disturbing news, deceit and downfall. Nasty political doings. Gruesome crimes and murders. Revealing secrets.

But I’ve come upon something that is none of those. Not this aspect of it. There are politics to this war and controversies and investigations. But there is another side. newsminer.com

Is there a war going on in Iraq? Yes. Are there terrorists trying to kill Iraqi's and U.S. soldiers. Absolutely. Are we defeated militarily? Preposterous. Should we quit the field of battle because of the lack of imagination on the part of strident critics? I think not. To do so would be a betrayal, not only of our troops, but of the Iraqi people, whom we twice promised to liberate and failed to do so the first time.

Iraqi's do want U.S. forces to leave Iraq. But then so do we! And we will leave, as the President says, "when the job is done." This means when there is a stable government and Iraqi armed forces are able to stand on their own and fight for their freedom from murderous thugs who are not 'freedom-fighters' and who have every intention of ruling over Iraq with brutal terror.

The elections in Iraq are an important part of Bush's 'plan for victory'. It is the kind of timetable that matters, rather than a timetable for retreat. And it is precisely the part of Bush's plan that the left wanted to do without. Postpone elections, they said, until there is security. Each election has been downplayed by Democrats, and even ridiculed in some quarters. But then it is precisely this aspect of the war that they do not seem to understand. The moral aspect. The battle for hearts and minds. A battle the left now wants us to lose by capitulation.

One voter said: "This is stability, at last".

Another, with tears in his eyes, told me: "This is the beginning of a new Iraq. I am so happy."

Iraqi men go through security check prior to voting at an election centre at Al-Sadr city, east of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Dec. 15, 2005
Security was high in Muthanna after a bomb at previous polls

Iraqis are known for their spontaneous, and often poetic eloquence.

Ali al-Musawi, a Shia Muslim originally from Sadr city said: "Iraq is like a ship in a storm being tossed from left to right, and now we need a new captain to take us to land and to safety."

One man hoped the election would bring an end to the occupation, but this would depend, he said, on maintaining unity.

"Stability can only come from unity. When we have stability," he said, " then the Americans can go."

In Muthanna, in Baghdad, it has certainly been the day of unity and celebration that President Jalal Talabani said he hoped for. news.bbc

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