The Trouble With The Mainstream Media...

...is that they lie, lie, lie.
Yeah, I'll say it again.
The mainstream media is a pack of ravenous, lying jackals.
Why do I think that? Well, I'll let the mayor of Tall'Afar in Iraq tell you that.

(This letter courtesy of The American Thinker.com)

From: Mayor of Tall ‘Afar, Ninewa, Iraq

In the Name of God the Compassionate and Merciful

To the Courageous Men and Women of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, who have changed the city of Tall’ Afar from a ghost town, in which terrorists spread death and destruction, to a secure city flourishing with life.

To the lion-hearts who liberated our city from the grasp of terrorists who were beheading men, women and children in the streets for many months.

To those who spread smiles on the faces of our children, and gave us restored hope, through their personal sacrifice and brave fighting, and gave new life to the city after hopelessness darkened our days, and stole our confidence in our ability to reestablish our city.

Our city was the main base of operations for Abu Mousab Al Zarqawi. The city was completely held hostage in the hands of his henchmen. Our schools, governmental services, businesses and offices were closed. Our streets were silent, and no one dared to walk them. Our people were barricaded in their homes out of fear; death awaited them around every corner. Terrorists occupied and controlled the only hospital in the city. Their savagery reached such a level that they stuffed the corpsesof children with explosives and tossed them into the streets in order to kill grieving parents attempting to retrieve the bodies of their young. This was the situation of our city until God prepared and delivered unto them the courageous soldiers of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, who liberated this city, ridding it of Zarqawi’s followers after harsh fighting, killing many terrorists, and forcing the remaining butchers to flee the city like rats to the surrounding areas, where the bravery of other 3d ACR soldiers in Sinjar, Rabiah, Zuma and Avgani finally destroyed them.

I have met many soldiers of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment; they are not only courageous men and women, but avenging angels sent by The God Himself to fight the evil of terrorism.

The leaders of this Regiment; COL McMaster, COL Armstrong, LTC Hickey, LTC Gibson, and LTC Reilly embody courage, strength, vision and wisdom.

Officers and soldiers alike bristle with the confidence and character of knights in a bygone era. The mission they have accomplished, by means of a unique military operation, stands among the finest military feats to date in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and truly deserves to be studied in military science. This military operation was clean, with little collateral damage, despite the ferocity of the enemy. With the skill and precision of surgeons they dealt with the terrorist cancers in the city without causing unnecessary damage.

God bless this brave Regiment; God bless the families who dedicated these brave men and women. From the bottom of our hearts we thank the families. They have given us something we will never forget. To the families of those who have given their holy blood for our land, we all bow to you in reverence and to the souls of your loved ones. Their sacrifice was not in vain. They are not dead, but alive, and their souls hovering around us every second of every minute. They will never be forgotten for giving their precious lives. They have sacrificed that which is most valuable. We see them in the smile of every child, and inevery flower growing in this land. Let America, their families, and the world be proud of their sacrifice for humanity and life.

Finally, no matter how much I write or speak about this brave Regiment, I haven’t the words to describe the courage of its officers and soldiers. I pray to God to grant happiness and health to these legendary heroes and their brave families.

NAJIM ABDULLAH ABID

AL-JIBOURI

Mayor of Tall ‘Afar,

Ninewa, Iraq

Now. Why do I think the media are a bunch of lying jackals?

Because you didn't get this letter from the New York Times, or the Washington Post. CNN hasn't said jack shit about it. Even FOX News Channel hasn't said anything.

Because...
Because the Iraqis, and their opinions of what's going on over there, directly contradict the mainstream media's agenda of portraying the conflict in Iraq as an ongoing debacle; the media is sacrificing the "inconvenient facts" on the altar of their political outlook. Their FUNCTION AND PURPOSE IN EXISTENCE IS TO RELAY FACTS. Nothing else. Yet instead of the FACTS, they are persistently reporting only those events that seem detrimental to the image of the United States.

Well, I'll tell you what. I'm very suspicious of anyone in New York who presumes to know "the situation in the streets" of Baghdad. So, I decided to look at what the people who are ACTUALLY FUCKING THERE are saying. No, not our troops; they might be Republicans, and therefore automatically suspect. No, not for me - I wanted to go to the Iraqis themselves. So, what do they have to say?

Well, let's see.

Mohammed at IRAQTHEMODEL says

From where I'm sitting now I can hear both Sunni and Shia mosques are condemning the attack through their loudspeakers.

I believe there are foreign terror groups behind this attack and I don't think local insurgent would do such a thing, simply because this particular shrine had been in Sunni territory for a thousand years and the residents of Samarra had always benefited from the movement of religious tourism and pilgrimage.

Sami at An Iraqi's Thoughts said

I guess now the talk of a unified government are encouraging, but you have the Shiites who are upset that not enough is being done to avenge the death of the martyrs being killed daily. You have idiots like Saleh al Mutlak who talk and sound like Saddam trying to talk nonsense. The end result is unknown and to be honest it won’t be easy but that just needs time. I hope I still have a readership and I will be writing more often soon. Hope you all enjoyed your new years. 70 percent of people voting give or take five percent is a good omen that people do want to use their voice. It was not all in vain but the Iraqi people need to change their mentalities which will happen with education and a better standard of living to be able to choose the right people to move the country forward.

SEVENTY FRIGGIN PERCENT VOTED. (BIIIIIG failure of democracy, that, considering our elections often feature less than 25% turnout.)
Raghda Zaid, a 14-year-old girl living in Baghdad, has plenty of free time (when she's not being oppressed by jackbooted American thugs in service of godless heathen imperialism, that is) to devote her blog, Baghdad Girl, to pictures of cute kittens.

"Sunshine," another 14-year-old from Iraq, this time in Mosul, gripes about the roads:

Hello all , it has been a very bad week for me ,I spent my mid year holiday in Baghdad , I had a nice time there ,my mom didn't have a surgery (they postponed it) , & I was a babysitter for two days!!! My way to Baghdad was ok, but my way back to Mosul was terrible I spend NINE hours in the unpaved roads... we came back to Mosul as soon as we could because my grandma's mom died during her surgery.

and then tells a wrenching story about her friend's father being murdered, and asks

I was thinking why would someone kill him ? what was his guilt ?, he is an engineer, not a policemen , nor from the national guards , he don't cooperate with any political gathering , & he isn't rich , as these are the reasons behind killing nowadays…..

( A note: apparently, it was the "men in black" who assaulted locations all over Iraq a few days ago, including the now-infamous Sunni mosque.

Husayn from Democracy In Iraq says, proudly:

I am happy to say that the current elections are going on without any problems, it is strange that we have no violence during elections though, if anything - it shows me that our security forces are growing in strength and that is another signal that we are moving forward.

What else can I say - except to say to the naysayers that you must stop your nonsense, and realize that Iraq will be built in a democratic fashion - and that it will happen. Despite all the violence, carnage, and negativity, the Iraqi people continue on the path to freedom.

Mohammed Hassan Al-Musawi of Diwaniya says:

The words of thanks and gratitude expressed by PM Ibrahim Ja'fari for the American people and president Bush were not simply complements made during diplomatic visits and meetings as some would like to explain. They mark the end of an era and the beginning of a new one for both Iraq and America. An era of strategic partnership between the world's greatest superpower, the USA, and the most ancient civilization known in history; Iraq, Mesopotamia, the land of the two rivers, the land of Ali and Al-Hussein, where the first word was written, where the first laws were enacted (an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth). We can confidently say that those simple, yet articulate, words of thanks expressed by Ja'fari, representing the first elected government in Iraq's modern history, have pulled down the curtain over an era of empty slogans and false speeches appealing to emotions such as "America the Great Satan," "Arab oil is for Arabs, death to the reactionaries," "The Imperialist mother," and other leftovers of the cold war era which prevailed in Iraq for long years pushing us decades back behind the rest of the civilized world. Bush's new project in the Middle East came to confirm this new relationship between Iraq and the US.

Zeyad of Healing Iraq describes the aftermath of today's "men in black" attacks:

Apparently, the attackers were fended off in our neighbourhood. The fight ended about 2 hours ago, about the same time electric power returned to our area. Now we are only hearing sporadic gunshots here and there. To have an idea of what was going on, listen to these small audio files I recorded using a cell phone.

News are conflicting. Some say the local National Guard unit (its commander is from our own area) helped repel the assailants. Others say the neighbourhood watch teams clashed with an armed group in several unmarked vehicles.

And then goes on to say that they suspect the men in black are Wahhabi terrorists from neighboring countries, not Iraqis.

Iraqpundit writes, specifically about the American media:

If Moktada Al Sadr's thugs are behind much of the violence, would it really be accurate to describe this as open civil war? The information the reporters give us does not match that of an open civil war.

There is no question that Al Sadr's thugs are indeed a troubling group. And the chaos they seek to create should not be dismissed. But how much influence over the rest of the population do these gangsters have? How representative are they of the Iraqi people?

There have been reports of joint Sunni-Shiite peaceful protests of the attacks on the mosques, and there have been calls for calm from both Sunni and Shiite leaders. There also have been several joint Sunni-Shiite prayers throughout the country to help calm the tensions.

And in a show of unity, thousands of Shiites joined Sunnis and attended the funeral of a Sunni religious figure who was murdered by unknown thugs.

Iraqis have been working hard to avoid a real civil war in the midst of suicide bombings, killings and kidnappings. But the media prefer to ignore these efforts and instead choose to focus on the agressive acts of Moktada Al Sadr's gang.

I really hope that these reporters are just as wrong as they have been in the past. Those who have followed the Iraq story carefully might recall that if we were to believe press reports, there would have been no constitution written, there would have been no elections, and the Sunnis would never have joined the government.

Alaa, of The Mesopotamian, writes of the recent "cartoon controversy" that:

Those who have been following my blog should know that I am a practicing believer in the religion of Islam; so naturally I consider it offensive to show disrespect to Islamic religious symbols or any religious symbols of any kind, for that matter. However there is more to this than meets the eye. It seems to me quite suspicious that this storm is created at this particular time. To start with this is certainly not the first time that insults and affronts of this nature appear on print in western media in many countries and places. Such things do not deserve any kind of reaction other rather the contempt they deserve. Yet there are those who seem to seize upon such opportunities for motives that have nothing to do with the apparent religious sensitivities. Clearly there are those who wish to harm relations between the West in General and the Moslem World and more particularly we should not forget the contribution of Denmark to the allied effort in Iraq. Yes friends, I who consider my self a fervent Moslem, tell you that this is an artificial storm stirred by the same kind of people who are beheading, kidnapping and blowing up market places and day workers in Iraqi cities etc. Those in the West who give such people the ammunition and pretexts to launch such pitiful shows and stir up the emotions of gullible simple people, are their allies and facilitators. Yes indeed extremism and misanthropy has many faces and colors. Myself, and many of my friends have seen even in the comments section of this blog site much of this blasphemous nonsense which most of us just dismiss as “trolling” which was a new word that my friends taught me. For my part it suffices to read just the first sentence of any such trash to dismiss the whole diatribe simply out of lack of interest above anything else and generally they do not stir any kind of emotion other than boredom. You have noticed perhaps that I never tried to ban or delete any such kind of talk; it is not even worth the trouble of deleting.

24 Steps To Liberty posted

Here are some information,which, for whatever reason, you don’t get in your news about the bombing:

The first reaction to the bombing which “targeted a Shiite” shrine came from the Sunni residents of Samarra. The first demonstration to condemn the attack was held spontaneously by Sunnis in the area where the shrine is. Almost all Sunni leaders went on TV to condemn the attack and show solidarity and unity with the Shiites. Here are some of what the Sunni leaders said on TVs all day yesterday [that’s what I could get]

and goes on to post a laundry list of statements of cooperation from the various groups and parties in Iraq, none of which made it into the U. S. or international mainstream media.

Now, I ask you the most important question about this: what IS their agenda, and why do they think that they need to blacken the name of the United States intentionally to achieve it?