Article: "The Nuances of the Negative"

Just finished reading the latest Newsweek. Its cover story: “The Iraqi Insurgency – Why the Elections Won’t Stop Them”. Inside was the typical bleak assessment of our chances for success, another Monday-morning-quarterback session critiquing the administration’s missteps during the initial phase of the occupation and, as per usual, the categorically optimistic appraisal of the enemy’s situation and chances at destroying our hopes for a better future for the people of Iraq. Often it’s the subtleties of phraseology that betray the journalistic bias toward pessimism. Take the cover story title for instance. “Why the Attacks Won’t Stop” – it’s technically a subjective prediction which should warrant a qualification such as “Why the Attacks Will Most Likely Continue”. It’s not as strong a by-line but it conveys the uncertainty inherent with predicting the future. When speaking of Coalition initiatives within the text of the article, the qualifications are indeed present at best or more often than not, the predictions of failure are equally unequivocal. I’ve come to the conclusion that the mass media has made the collective judgment that expressions of optimism risk exposure. The cardinal sins of journalistic integrity is to be perceived as a witless mouthpiece of the powers that be and to be judged by history as being naively optimistic. It’s always best to hedge one’s bets toward the negative. If the gloomy predictions prove false, it’s still considered “professional” to err on the side of cautious pessimism. It’s a sad truth that unfortunately has the effect of unfairly skewing the general public’s opinion against the hopes of those risking their lives to forge functional societies. The added rub is a misguided notion of dispassionate “neutrality” when it comes to coverage of the enemy. To present the agenda of an enemy that ruthlessly murders innocent civilians as a primary tactic in a neutral light lends credibility to its stance. Moral relativism in this context is a grotesque intellectual blunder. The powers aligned against us could not be more overtly evil. What compels journalists to refrain from expressing opinion toward the insurgency while simultaneously heaping negative editorial on the Coalition’s initiatives is beyond me. Now read this quote from pg. 25, column 1, paragraph 2:

After the United States crushed Afghanistan’s Taliban regime and tore up Al Qaeda’s infrastructure in the winter of 2001-02, would-be holy warriors started eyeing Iraq as a place where they could make a new stand…Other would-be holy warriors started finding their own way to Baghdad.

It would seem that one of the basic talking points of those opposed to the invasion, that Iraq was not a safe-haven for Islamic terrorism before the war, seems to have been quietly conceded as if it were conventional wisdom. I guess they still have the WMD issue to fall back on (unless Syria coughs them up), but I did wish to mention that this little furtive acknowledgment did not go unnoticed by this "dumb private".