More Tales Of Woe From Iraq

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Sameer Yacoub first came to my attention last November during the Jamil Hussein saga.  He was a Iraqi writer the AP used many times for the doom and gloom stories and was one of those using the man known as Jamil Hussein as a source.  Almost always Sameer was a contributor to the stories, which means to me that he was the groundpounder….the man who found the sources, the eyewitnesses…the man who got the quotes. 

Sameer was the writer on this piece of reporting on November 27th, 2006:

Separately, police and witnesses said U.S. soldiers shot and killed 11 civilians and wounded five on Sunday night in the Baghdad suburb of Husseiniya. The U.S. military said it had no record of any American military operation in the area.

"We were sitting inside our house when the Americans showed up and started firing at homes. They killed many people and burned some houses," said one of the witnesses, a man with bandages on his head who was being treated at Imam Ali Hospital in the Shiite slum of Sadr City. The police and witnesses spoke with Associated Press Television News on condition of anonymity to protect their own security.

A report which turned out to be a lie….you see the insurgents did the killings but hey, what’s facts got to do with it.  Notice the lie is based on witnesses and police sources.

He was the eyewitness to the four contractors who were hung and burned in Fallujah.  Not only that he seems to have been a Iraqi news writer under Saddam and wrote glowingly of the man. 

So I think we can safely assume he isn’t too fond of the fall of Saddam and the US forces in the country.

Now yesterday he was a contributor on this wonderful piece of work.  The author is Ravi Nessman who used two interviews as the basis for an article which decries the lack of electricity:

With Baghdad’s electricity network in tatters after years of corruption, neglect and attacks, a thriving black market in power has sprung up across the capital. In nearly every neighborhood, multicolored bundles of wires flow from private generators that have all but replaced the national power grid.

The black market has grown so large that U.S. inspectors estimate private generators produce more than one-third of Iraq’s power supply. In Baghdad, where many neighborhoods have not had more than an hour of daily electricity for weeks, it almost certainly accounts for more.

The freelance power merchants also highlight the continuing failure of plans mostly bankrolled by Washington to restore many of Iraq’s public services to even prewar levels.

Most of the quotes peppered throughout the article by Ravi and Sameer are of the blame the government, blame the US variety.  Never really blaming those most responsible….the terrorists.  You know, those guys who blow up the electricity grids and generators.  Oh, they put in one quote from a government official about the terrorists being responsible but a majority of the quotes are like this one:

She says Iraqi and U.S. officials, with their industrial generators and 24-hour electricity, are too sheltered. "I just want them, if they care about our hardship as they say, to spend a day in a house of a normal family, to see the suffering," she said.

Or sentences written about the good ole’ days of Saddam:

But Baghdad residents say the problem has never been this bad not under crippling U.N. sanctions during Saddam Hussein’s reign and not even during the opening rounds of the war in 2003.

Yup, things were just so much better during Saddam.  Kites were flying and the kids were in the playgrounds you see.

Maybe, just maybe, if the blame were attached to those who are causing the suffering we could start to trust are MSM a bit more.  Or maybe write about this:

Iraqi officials and military servicemembers gathered at the Joint Coordination Center for the grand opening of the municipal center, May 28, in Ramadi, Iraq.

The opening of the municipal center provided a new place of business for the many departments working to restore basic services to the people of the city.

“Today and with God’s blessing, we open the office building of the municipal services for the city of Ramadi,” said Mayor Latif Iyada. “Now the service departments have a place from where they can conduct business for the people of Ramadi.”

Some of the service providers that will be working in the new municipal center are the departments of sewage, water, health, public works, electricity and education.

Or this:

More than 26,000 residents in 13 villages receive potable water now due to 13 water well projects recently completed as part of the Iraq Reconstruction Program.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) began the well project initiative last year and completed it last month. These 13 villages in Northern Iraq did not have flowing water.

Now, another source of water has been found and tapped in this area. Each one of these 13 projects consisted of construction of deep water wells; supply of generators and submersible pumps; constructing a concrete and steel water tank; supplying and installing the water pipe line; construction of water taps; and expansion of the distribution system.

Or this:

The day was special for the students of the Al Rasul Primary Elementary School here, a town west of Baghdad, April 17. This was the first day students enjoyed the fully refurbished learning facility made possible by the soldiers of 1st Battalion, 149th Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the Kentucky Army National Guard, assigned to 130th Field Artillery Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division.

However, the day was just as special for the soldiers as for the students, said Lt. Col. John Luttrell, the battalion commander, "You could see the smiles on their faces. For my soldiers that really means a lot for them. They truly get to see the fruits of their labors," said the native of Harlan, Ky.

Just as Rome was not built in a day, the fruits of the soldiers labor were the culmination of seven months working in the Makasib community. Work that was as much patrols as it was relationship building, Luttrell said.

"Every day we go out, we try to make some kind of difference," he said. "What makes me proudest is going out and talking to the communities and listening to the people say how much they appreciate you."

Not one of these news stories were reported on by the MSM, and certainly not by Sameer Yocoub nor Ravi Nessman.  Why would they do something like that and ruin the tale they are trying to spin….Iraq is going to hell, it’s falling apart, the US can’t even help the Iraqi’s, it’s a civil war I tell you!

Sigh….