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| Iraq |
| Al Qaeda Decapitated in Iraq |
| 2008-04-22 |
| Between mid-March and mid-April, al Qaeda suffered major losses in Iraq. American and Iraqi troops killed or captured 53 al Qaeda leaders. These include men in charge of entire cities (or portions of large cities like Mosul or Baghdad), as well as men in charge of various aspects of terror operations (making bombs, placing them or minding the bombers). Most important, nine of the ten most senior men involved, were captured, and interrogated. This led to locating more al Qaeda staff, and assets. Hundreds of weapons and explosives caches have been discovered this year, as a result of interrogating captured terrorists. The result has been a sharp fall in suicide bomber attacks, and the ones still carried out are against soft targets (civilians), including the recent funeral of two men earlier killed by terrorists. This was part of an al Qaeda campaign to force Sunni Arabs to switch sides again and support terrorism. But these attacks have the opposite effect, causing more hatred for al Qaeda. All this is good news, meaning it's not reported. Face, any media outlet that puts out too much good news will go out of business. Bad news brings in the eyeballs and advertising revenue. Stories of desertion and desperation in Basra grab the headlines, while al Qaeda's travails are relegated to the back pages, if at all. |
| Posted by:ed |
| #7 Reading the above, I'm very glad "If it bleeds, it leads" no longer works. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2008-04-22 13:42 |
| #6 Ironically, the education establishment and the media propaganda establishment are at cross purposes on this one, and non-brainwashed people win as a result. The educrats have tailored the system to produce few high school graduates who give a damn about reading a newspaper. Drop-outs sure don't read papers. The entertainment media wants the empty-headed focussed on American Idol, Britney Spears and other such irrelevant crap. Upshot - world gets run (for the most part) by the earnestly educated and informed... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2008-04-22 10:58 |
| #5 Strategy Page is incorrect with respect to the "bad news brings in eyeballs". The 'bad news' paradyme has been used for decades now and the viewership of the nightly national news shows and the readership of the NYTimes and WaPo continuing declining. However, bad news not only reinforces the ideology of CBS, NYT, etc. A really compelling bad news story (if the USA was made to look bad)would have a better chance for one of the journalism awards. Of course if the news made the mullahs look bad, it wouldn't have a chance for an award. |
| Posted by: mhw 2008-04-22 10:33 |
| #4 In the late fourties there was a communist-led concerted effort to infiltrate Hollywood in order to mold American minds. I cannot believe the commies missed that far more strategic target. They didn't miss it, JFM. They tried by taking over the Screen Actors Guild, but were stopped cold by the SAG President at the time. A B-movie actor called Ronald Reagan. |
| Posted by: ptah 2008-04-22 09:36 |
| #3 It is not merely a question of advertising revenue. In the late fourties there was a communist-led concerted effort to infiltrate Hollywood in order to mold American minds. I cannot believe the commies missed that far more strategic target. |
| Posted by: JFM 2008-04-22 08:25 |
| #2 Darth is exactly right. The MSM will not report good news because it challenges their Iraq as Vietnam meme. The shibboleth that bad news sells is pure BS as evidenced by the tanking of New York Times and other major media stocks over the years. Truth sells. I'd buy the NY Times in an instant if they could be relied upon to tell the whole truth and keep their political pandering out of the news stream. They can't and so I don't. DanNY |
| Posted by: DanNY 2008-04-22 08:24 |
| #1 Bad news brings in the eyeballs and advertising revenue. While true to a degree, the MSM is also deeply in bed with the dhimocrats who have invested in defeat and will do anything to help bring it about. Including lying, and not publishing stories that fit their mold. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2008-04-22 08:10 |