Outside the Bubble: Iraq's Med Crisis

Even now, when polls show the public has turned against the war, the mainstream media in this country seem to be embubbled -- still listening to the officials returning from their Green Zone dog-and-pony shows, while ignoring the reality of life in the other 99% of the country. Evidence: this story from UK's Independent, delineating the size of the exodus of doctors and nurses. The source is an Oxfam report, pretty reputable as sources about Iraq life are concerned. The piece appeared in last Saturday's Indy, and I've waited to see the American coverage. I'm still waiting. A Google News check today shows the story surfacing in Germany and Belfast, Northern Ireland, but nowhere in the US. Some of the numbers in the Oxfam report, like the child malnutrtion rate and the percentage of the country's population in what Oxfam describes as "absolute poverty", are eye-opening, to say the least. But wait, here's a Senator just back from the Green Zone. He should know.

Comments

[whizkid]

I quit paying taxes about three years ago.
I quit working two years ago.
(Clear Channel wanted me to work twice as hard for half the money).
I could not stand to fund this administration and its use of my tax dollars to wage war while suggesting I would not receive Social Security at retirement age.
Currently, my lawyers are working to get my benefits I paid dearly for.
Not one more cent from me to kill.
Before receiving benefits you file bankrupcy.
Let them squeeze blood from a stone.

[itmaybetoolate]

Interesting how the trolls were able to shift the point of the article. Was saddam a bad man? Yes. Did people die under his rule? Yes. Was america his friend and supplier of WMD? Yes. Is america partially responsible for the gassing of the kurds? Yes. Did george I abandon the kurds after iraq war I? Yes. Did the INTERNATIONAL sanctions (supported by george I) kill innocent people? Yes. Lots of blame to go around. BUT, the point is this - things are going to hell in Iraq NOW because of george II. Oxfam's report reveals the ugly truth bushie doesn't want us to see, so our MSM keeps quiet. They lied and contiune to lie - bushie, dickie and their supporters are traitors to the Constitution.

[Kungfublood]

Remember the middle class and the lie of good health care?
"The mainstream media seem to be embubbled -- still listening to the officials returning from their ... dog-and-pony shows, while ignoring the reality of life in the other 99% of the country." Sounds just like home doesn't' it?

[procrustes]

Harry, another big story being missed, other than a "Sixty Minutes" piece, is the success of Kurdistan. Europe is quietly building a relationship with the Kurds befitting a new country, e.g., Norwegians are drilling for oil there, SAS has regularly scheduled flights--although there was a recent kerfuffle about a flight maybe being shot at.

Divvying up Iraq seems to be the answer for the area and our way out, and, after all, "Iraq" is an artificial country created by Imperial Britain after WWI. Sunnis are securing their piece of the landscape while Shi'a click worry beads over whether to be independent or join with Iran. Turkey is apoplectic but arm twisting from the EU could fix this, and, if done well, keep the Shi'a lands from outright annexation into Iran.

There are answers to the Iraq problem, but none of them lay within the current American regime or in mainstream news.

[adzeman]

We could subdue every single insurgent in Iraq and it would change nothing. The people of Iraq dont want us there, the government of Iraq is a joke. This whole surge nonsense is just a way for shrub to ride out his term without having to declare non-victory. What Harry brings up is the same old same old by these assholes. Just keep selling the surge. The fact that the country really already has collapsed is a non-sequitor.

[fact finder]

stoyver you left out revenge. Remember those forgotten words: " You gotta remember this is the man that tried to kill my daddy." G.W.Bush in the announcement of Crock and Caw.

[BigDan]

We have to stop paying taxes. No taxes without representation!

[LiberalLibertarian]

I have not paid taxes for 4 years as a tax protest. It hurts where it counts, thousonds and thousonds of dollars in fees on top of what I owe. But I just can not be a person of good conscience and help pay for these atrocities committed in my name. It is a small act, but one I feel morally necessary. And I will pay for my stand for years to come....

[Nolafugee]

Kudos to that. I was just thinking that our feckless leader and his friends would set it up so that their class gets "representation without taxation!"

[Stoyver]

Once you accept that the real reasons for invading Iraq were energy security and the security of Israel the whole disgusting mess comes into sharper focus. Permanent bases in Iraq, subduing Iran, Regime change in Syria and the near abandonment of Afghanistan make more sense when viewed through the lens of energy security. It appears that Bush's handling of the "energy war" will turn out as well as the business ventures in his past.

A major interruption to U.S. oil supply would have a prompt and devastating effect. A prolonged interruption might prove fatal.

Clearly conservation, energy efficiency and alternate energy sources are absolutely essential to the security of the U.S.. The Petro-presidency has also failed us in this respect. Electing government haters to run the government was not a good idea!

[ApolloSpeaks]

Al Qaida is being beaten in Iraq. But what is not being beaten is the tribalism sectarianism and ethnicism that keeps Iraq in the past and makes a liberal democracy impossible.

We are serving a government of enemies in Iraq, a government of regressive Islamists who view liberal democracy as Islam's most dangerous rival for the fate of the earth.

The President is making a valiant effort to turn things around and we are winning some victories on the ground especially against Al Qaida-a group of lunatic loser Jihadists who are foolishly fighting the world.

But the war of ideas is lost in Iraq; it was lost on January 30, 2005 when the brave people of that country defying terrorist threats massively rejected the President's American vision for their Molsem country.

In chosing the past over the future, of an Islamic republic of masters and slaves and religious oppression over the good society of individual rights, equality and freedom Iraq can do nothing to adavnce the casue of civilization in the region and continues to be part of the cultural problem, the problem that gave us Al Qaida and 9/11.

Gone is the hope of building the first Arab liberal democracy, gone the dream of using Iraq as a model of regional reform and social progress. Tribalism, sectarianism and ethnicism have defeated us in Iraq, a defeat that tragically only great and terrible suffering can reverse.

[truth101]

The tunnel vision of the media towards IRAQ is nothing at all new. You might well say it began in its contemporary mode in the BUSH ONE ERA.
I recall quite vividly hearing a 20 second radio new report that the army of Saddam
Hussein was massing on the road leading to KUWAIT threatening invasion. I recall that the newspapers and television networks were totally silent.
Only when the invasion was a fait accomnpli it become NEWS. The question needs to be asked why the USA and British did not bomb the road at the border and stop the invasion in its tracks. THIS COUNTERFACTUAL is so glaring because the entire
situation in the region today is the result.
:Try to imagine the MEXICAN ARMY on the highway leading into San Diego. Try to imagine the ITALIAN ARMY on the highway to Switzerland. Try to imagine the EGYPTIAN ARMY on the highway to Israel. No one in their right mind in the media would think there was not a story there, that someone in either Mexico City or Rome or Cairo was off their rocker thinking they were going to engage in an invasion and that invasion even if it succeeded would stand. Yet apparently this was exactly what happened during BUSH ONE, both the government and the media acting like it was just
Saddam out there parading his toy soldiers in their war games.

[realpolitic]

After swallowing the Bush administration propaganda line for leading us into the war, I thought the news media would now be much more aggressive in their reportage. They seem to follow the opinions of the same Bush spokespeople and conservative journalists they did then; all the while agreeing that most of the public does not favor the war.
The public has not demonstrated their anger about the war sufficiently through mass demonstrations to wake the media and politicians. The media is still callow and afraid of the Bush administration and Fox News types who want only good news. How often do you hear a report on how many hours of electricity daily there are in Baghdad or about access to clean water? The telling story in the U.K.'s Independent that Mr. Shearer refers to would not likely be seen in our press.

[Buckzollo]

Smart is being able to look at what is written and determine what has been overlooked. Harry you are the man. Shine the light my brother.

[NickJones]

So much for the Right's snarling characterization of the MSM as having a 'left-leaning, Anti-American agenda'....

[Indiana]

I second that--I watch NBC Nightly News every night and regularly visit its blog dailynightly.msnbc.msn.com and Brian Williams is practically a cheerleader for what this country's doing in Iraq. "Nightly" is also supposedly the best when it comes to covering New Orleans, but lately that city has mainly been on the back burner even though the needs are still great there. (To be fair, I'll add that early this year Williams aired a piece on a New Orleans firehouse which was in need of all sorts of help to keep it from closing down, and in response so many viewers sent in enough in donations to keep the firehouse going--but this is the only such good example I can think of.)

[Nolafugee]

Harry, I too look enjoy this salient change of venue from the diaspora of post surge NOLA to the diaspora of post surge Bagdhad. But then again is that such a stretch actually. I'm reminded of the cold war days, when the only place a Russian could get any real news about the Afgan War was form sources outside the Soviet Union...that is, if the average Russian was even aware of sources of news outside their country...or the war, for that matter. Sound familiar? Now, here we are no matter, where we're goin'...or where we've been. And if we search underneath all that media misdirection we will find the casualties. If we look back behind that media curtain we will find those who would control the present, controlling the past, to control the future. Thanks. We have to pay more attention. We can't just let it all float away.

[Indiana]

Bear with me for being a "devil's advocate," but ever since this January (following Bush's State of the Union address in which he never even mentioned Katrina or New Orleans) I've been suffering from profound Iraq fatigue. Because I've come to the realization that were this country not so heavily entangled in Iraq, I'm sure more money, other resources, and attention would be devoted to the need to bring New Orleans and the rest of the area devastated by Katrina and Rita back. And there also would be more media attention paid to New Orleans' needs. We can't just let New Orleans "float away," either.

Regarding Iraq's med crisis per se--why can't the UN, the European Union, and deep-pockets oil-producing states like Saudi, instead of the American taxpayer, help out? As a taxpayer, I'd rather see my dollars used to bring back New Orleans' shattered health care system and the rest of her infrastructure. That's far more important.

[JayWilliams]

So Congress is on break. What do they do? They visit the "mission accomplished" zone in Iraq, come back and tell us how sweet it is!.
The "surge & spin" cycle is working! Time for our next new exciting conquest!
Who would ever have thought that Amerika would sink to such insanity? I don't see why anybody will even bother to go to the polls and vote. What difference can it make?