How the Media Deceives: An Iraq War Veteran’s Perspective

Xitter post from Cynical Publius

One of my constant themes here on X is just how deceitful the Democrat/Media Complex actually is. IMO, the media’s deceit extends not so much to what they lie about, as it more so does to what they refuse to report upon. I want to tell a true story from my time in Iraq to illustrate this point.

Early on in the Iraq War, I was a primary staff officer on the general staff of the 82nd Airborne Division. After IEDs became a thing, we were rushed back from Fort Bragg to Al Anbar Province (where the infamous Fallujah is located) in an effort to stem the growing efforts of Al Qaeda in Iraq (“AQI”). I was the leader of the Division’s advance party that was establishing a logistics base at Al Taqaddum airfield, near Habbaniyah and midway between Fallujah and Ar Ramadi. (We called it the “DREAR.”) Taqaddum, known to US troops forever after as “TQ,” once was an active airbase of the Iraqi Air Force (it was outside the pre-war “no-fly zone” established by the UN and was a primary target of US air strikes at the beginning of the war—it’s the base where you may have seen Iraqi MIGs literally buried in the desert after we invaded). In later years, after the US Army and Marine Corps occupied and developed TQ, it gained a reputation as being a plush base for noncombat “fobbits” to hide in, with a PX, a movie theater and a Sbarro’s pizza joint. However, when I occupied that barren piece of desert, it was the Wild West, and there was nothing there other than a lot of abandoned buildings, nightly 107mm rocket attacks and the occasional incursion into the wire by our AQI enemy. (We were trying to turn TQ into the center of logistics in the region, and we ultimately did, but that’s a story for another time.)

If I have piqued your interest, please Google “Al Taqaddum” and take a look at the “Maps” tab. You’ll see that TQ sits on a very extraordinary elevated bluff overlooking the huge Lake Habbaniyah to the south, a giant Iraqi lake fed by the Euphrates River. If you turn to the satellite view and look very closely at the northeast corner of the lake, you’ll see a small cluster of buildings. That’s a fishing village, built for fishing the plentiful number of freshwater fish living in Lake Habbaniyah. I want to talk more about that fishing village.

When the 82nd first occupied TQ, we noticed the buildings of that fishing village just outside our wired-in, secured area. It was a small cluster of buildings, obviously homes, and just as obviously it had been abandoned for many years. The buildings were dilapidated, and appeared to have been empty for a decade or more. After we had occupied TQ for a few weeks, we noticed that Iraqi civilians were starting to inhabit that fishing village again. Suddenly, that village was alive with life, families, children playing in the street, fishing boats and FISH! Since that village was located inside our defensive fields of fire, we thought it best to figure out what was going on. We pulled together a small task force with a Civil Affairs detachment, some Arabic interpreters, and a security element, and we drove down to the village to figure out what was up. When we got there, we were greeted enthusiastically, introduced to a few of the village elders, and they told us a story. The story was along these lines (I paraphrase):

“For as many generations as we can remember, our ancestors fished this lake from this village. It was a hard life, but a good life, and our families were well cared for by the bounty of the lake. However, about eight years ago Saddam’s sadistic sons, Uday and Qusay, set up a palace on the east side of the lake, and decreed that all of the fish in the lake were theirs. At first we ignored them, but then some of our cousins were machine-gunned to death by the bodyguards of the Hussein brothers as they tried to pull in their nets full of fish, and we knew it was no longer safe for our families to fish here. So we abandoned our home village, moved to Baghdad, and tried to survive doing other things. It was hard and never the life our ancestors had provided for us. After you Americans came here and we knew Uday and Qusay were no longer a threat, we came home and as you can see we are fishing once again. We are so thankful for you Americans. You have saved us, you have saved our families, you have save our way of life, and you have honored our ancestors. We are so grateful for you and what you have done. Would you like some fish?”

As I think back on my military career, this is one of the things I am most proud of. No, we did not defeat the Nazis on D-Day, and world-changing events were not involved. However, for a small community of innocent, peaceful fisherman, I helped restore their traditional way of life, and I am very proud of that. I think about this a lot.

Which brings me back to the evil media.

Are you surprised you never heard this story before? Are you surprised it was never featured on a news platform like 60 Minutes (or elsewhere) as a stellar example of the great good created by the US military in Iraq? Don’t be. Our Public Affairs Office team tried mightily to get this story out there. At that point in 2003, we were literally surrounded by major US and British network reporter teams everywhere (I’m not exaggerating), yet all of the three-letter networks REFUSED to pick this story up or even mention it. We pushed and pushed and pushed, and no network had the slightest interest—I found it disagraceful at the time. Look on Google today—search some of the terms I provided—you will not find this story ANYWHERE other than on my X account, and I’m not lying—I was there. Even today so few know this story.

What I just recounted was in late 2003. If you were an adult then, think back to the U.S. and British news reports of the time—doom, gloom, Abu Gharaib, IEDs everywhere, AQI ascendant, American death counts, “Bush Lied, People Died.” There were ZERO NEWS REPORTS that the Iraq War was helping ANYONE at all, at any level, yet our fishing village story was in reality one of hundreds (perhaps thousands) of identical stories across the entire nation of Iraq regarding the bits of true goodness brought to Iraq by the sacrifices of US and coalition troops. It was the SWORN MISSION of the Democrat/Media Complex to paint the Iraq War in the worst possible light, specifically so W. Bush would lose the next election to his Democrat opponent. That was the ONLY purpose for news reporting on that war at that time—any “good news” story needed to be instantly squashed and never, ever reported upon.

The error of media omission I just described is a form of propaganda, plain and simple.

Let me be clear why I told this story. If I had been the US President in 2003, I would not have invaded Iraq. In hindsight, I believe that war was a horrible thing for the USA that should never have been fought. I and so many others paid a cost that may never be accounted for. Yet…. and I cannot deny this… at the individual and community level, the Iraq War was a true blessing for many hundreds of thousands—perhaps millions—of Iraqis who were freed from despotic tyranny. I was a part of this reality. I am still proud of this fact. But did YOU, the average American voter, KNOW anything of what I just said? Was it ever reported to you, or anything like it? By any news source, ever? Why did you NOT KNOW about the fishing village on the banks of Lake Habbaniyah and its free fishermen? Why? The answer is this:

The Democrat/Media Complex had an agenda in 2003 in Iraq, and NOTHING—no actual events, no true stories, no uplifting accounts of heroism—would EVER prevent them from pushing their agenda of defeating a GOP President. If you were in the USA in 2003, I guarantee you that your personal view of that war was colored by that political agenda, and I’m here to tell you that at some very basic and quite important level, you were deceived.

But my story here is not a cautionary tale for 2003—it is a cautionary tale for 2024. Please remember my story as you review ANYTHING the media tells you (or refuses to tell you) about ANY ISSUE AT ALL in the world today. Nothing has changed since 2003 (other than the fact that X gives people like me who lived it the ability to share their stories). We live in a world of propaganda and lies—seek out truth for yourself, independently, use primary sources, research, and arrive at opinions based on your own good judgment and nothing else—please. I beg you. The truth is out there, and freedom depends on the discernment of all Americans.

Peace out, and God bless America.