Thursday, October 09, 2008

Extreme Makeover

Introducing Lourdes Garcia-Navarro's piece on some Iraqi families returning to the divided neighborhood of Ghazaliyah in Baghdad, Melissa Block chirps:
"Millions of Iraqis fled their homes over the past few years; now with violence receding, some families are coming back - especially in Baghdad...but while many neighborhoods are relatively calm, sectarian tensions remain."
Yep, violence has really receded and things are relatively calm in Iraq. After the Extreme Makeover of their country - compliments of Uncle Sam - joyful Iraqis are streaming home.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The dangerous rancor being stirred up by Sarah Palin and John McCain at their Nazi-like rallies is not being properly addressed by the major media.

This really incensed me: on this morning's news roundup on the "Diane Rehm Show," a Republican apologist, Matthew Continetti of the Weekly Standard, shrugged it off by equating the "enthusiasm" at Obama rallies with the hatred at the McCain events, which have incited threats to kill the Democratic candidate, and which the shameless McCain and Palin have not disavowed.

How delusional does one have to be to support this ugly charade of a ticket?

Anonymous said...

Easy, miranda - in their own warped, deluded minds they can do no wrong. Every day's seems to be turning into opposite day for those with a conscience.

Anonymous said...

(ps: pardon the mangled syntax on "Every day seems to be turning into opposite day" - proofread before publishing!)

Anonymous said...

It's kind of funny,in a twisted sort of way.

NPR never acknowledged that the main reason that violence has gone down in Baghdad is that entire neighborhoods in Baghdad have been "cleansed" (of sunni's, for example). This is supported by a recent study of "night lights" which found that lights in certain neighborhoods went out BEFORE the surge and never came back on. The implication was that large numbers of people had simply left (presumably due to sectarian violence)

Where is the evidence that Sunni's are "going back" to what are now Shia neighborhoods?

One need not be a genius to understand that that would be suicide.

It would make no sense, but of course, NPR is not in the business of anlysis, only parroting the cliche of the moment -- in this case "The surge is working"

Anonymous said...

This McClatchy story puts the lie to the NPR's (ie, the government's) BS.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/53871.html

"Iraqis are being attacked and killed for returning to their homes"

By Corinne Reilly | McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD — Haj Ali's family had been home for less than a month when a makeshift bomb blew off part of his garage. The message was clear: Go back to wherever you came from.

Two years ago, when Sunni Muslims began killing Shiites in Ali's west Baghdad neighborhood, he quickly gathered a few belongings and fled. Last month, his family returned home. They didn't stay long."

"We thought it was safe," Ali said. "Now I see that for us, home means death. There are still people who don't want us there."

Only a small fraction of the roughly 5 million Iraqis who've fled their neighborhoods in fear since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion have gone back, although returns have picked up since the Iraqi government last month began urging people home."

///end quote

Melissa block is simply parroting official government talking points.

It is rather pathetic but seesm to have become the norm at NPR.