It's that time of year when New Yorkers start making their
summer vacation plans. Renting a place in the Hamptons? Nah, been
there, done that. How about a Parisian jaunt? Noooo. Too many
riots. Well, how about visiting a country that's ancient,
historic, beautiful and exotic - Iraq? Sure, there's a little war
going on there, but when you look at the violent death statistics
in the world, it's safer than a number of other popular travel
destinations. Believe it or not.
I happened to catch Rep. Steve King, a Republican of Iowa, on
C-span last week and he rattled off some startling figures that
demonstrate how off-base journalists are when it comes to
reporting on the war in Iraq. According to Mr. King, the violent
death rate in Iraq is 25.71 per 100,000. That may sound high, but
not when you compare it to places like Colombia (61.7), South
Africa (49.6), Jamaica (32.4), and Venezuela (31.6). How about
the violent death rates in American cities? New Orleans before
Hurricane Katrina was 53.1. FBI statistics for 2004-05 have
Washington at 45.9, Baltimore at 37.7, and Atlanta at 34.9.
The point Mr. King was making is that if journalists covered only
the violence in these other cities and countries, as they do in
Iraq, our perceptions of these places would also be highly
negative.
Of course, I'm not serious about Iraq being a prime vacation
spot, at least not yet. However, while this country of very brave
people has made enormous strides in a relatively short time, it
is hardly being reported to the American people. Why?
On a daily basis, mainstream journalists are spewing out anything
they can that is negative about the Bush administration,
regardless of whether the information threatens our national
security. Leaking highly classified information to the public
during a war should be grounds for criminal investigations.
Instead, it's been deemed worthy of reward.
Dana Priest of the Washington Post received a Pulitzer for
reporting that the CIA was holding terrorist suspects in secret
European prisons. The New York Times exposed intimate details of
the CIA charter flights ferrying prisoners overseas. The names of
the charter companies were disclosed and the Times even ran a
picture displaying the identification number of one of the
aircraft. Al Qaeda must be so grateful to these newspapers for
doing all their legwork.
Now the big brouhaha is about the phone-number database that the
government maintains, and we're supposed to get upset that our
civil rights are being invaded. I don't care if the FBI has my
phone number - Radio Shack, Macy's, and the New York Times have
it as well. Besides, the phone companies that are cooperating
with the government are furnishing only numbers, not names and
addresses. NSA is looking for patterns to detect terrorist
activity, not to record your conversations with your mother.
Before the phone database furor, there was the
"wiretap" uproar. Let's be clear: Wiretapping is what
Democrat Robert Kennedy did to Martin Luther King Jr. There is a
huge difference between that activity and eavesdropping on
communications between America and other countries to thwart
potential terrorist attacks.
The thinking public knows this, and recognizes that national
security trumps our right to privacy, which has always been
ignored by the IRS anyhow. Syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell
said it best in a January column at Townhall.com headlined
"Fourth estate or Fifth Column?" He writes: "With
all the turmoil and bloodshed in Iraq, both military and civilian
people returning from that country are increasingly expressing
amazement at the difference between what they have seen with
their own eyes and the far worse, one-sided picture that the
media presents to the public here."
It's not just the war that gets spun out of reality. Another
Pulitzer went to the Times-Picayune of New Orleans, which tied
with a paper in Biloxi, Miss., for its coverage of Hurricane
Katrina. That much of the coverage was a pack of lies meant
absolutely nothing to the Pulitzer panel. Nevertheless, the
distorted coverage did its job. The nation was outraged at the
horrific images conjured up by the newspapers. Forty bodies were
stacked in freezers, reporter Brian Thevenot wrote - or were
they? Mr. Thevenot later admitted that he never verified that
information before rushing it into print. His reporting, too, won
a Pulitzer.
Maybe we should start awarding a new journalism award for
uncovering the absolute truth, regardless of who's in office.
Wouldn't that be unique?
The reality is that the Iraqi people and the coalition forces are
winning the battle to rid the country of the murderous
Islamofascists. In a few years, tourists will be flocking to
Iraq, site of the most famous ancient city, Babylon, and other
cultural treasures. That's the truth - believe it or not.