Two news stories today. Each tells a roughly parallel tale – of a mother travelling to Iraq to visit a daughter in the U.S. military. But the spin each story generates is itself a story.
From the L.A. Times (registration, use ‘laexaminer’/’laexaminer’):
“The Americans promised so much: democracy, freedom, security – now we have none of these things,” said Capt. Mazen Ayash Youssif. “We were better off before. We all prefer the time of Saddam.”
The depth of their anti-U.S. conviction underscores the difficulties the military faces in winning over ordinary Iraqis, especially in the Sunni zone of central and western Iraq favored by the former regime.
“If this is the way the people think here,” concluded Valencia, “then we’re in a lot of trouble.”
The sponsors of the trip?
The trip was sponsored by Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based activist group that opposed the U.S. invasion and is eager to spread its antiwar message. None of the parents had formal military clearance to visit their soldier children.
In the Tennessean, another mother goes to visit:
Many of the soldiers serving in Iraq volunteer to help in hospitals, schools and with athletics and other areas where they feel they can make a difference.
Holly’s unit has a lot of fun helping at the Baghdad Zoo, where more than half of its 800 animals were stolen, killed or eaten by looters after the invasion.
Some of the unit found a camel that had been stolen from the zoo. They put it into the back of the Humvee and hauled it back.
The unit works closely with the South African group Thula Thula, which has come to Baghdad to improve conditions at the zoo.
Holly and Vanessa took Raoul and me to the zoo, where we saw parents and children strolling the grounds.
and
I was on a 12-day trip to Iraq and Kuwait to visit my daughter, Maj. Holly Meeker, an Army reservist who was deployed in February with the 372 Mobile Public Affairs Detachment based in Nashville.
Operation Iraqi Freedom is her second war. And mine.
I’m coming to the conclusion that somehow Iraq has become a sandy mirror where our journalists – the eyes and ears of our polity – see what they set out to find. The activists find unhappy Iraqis; the military moms find peaceful families strolling through the zoo.
Somehow, in this era of instant communication, the fog of war is thicker than ever.
So the question is, who has more credibility? Or is that yet another sandy mirror?
Immanuel Kant addressed some of this in his writings. He talked about the colored glasses that we all wear, glassed that partly obsuce reality. The question of who to believe is resolved by asking who as the least tainted glasses, the nearest to being clear. For me, the choice between the two is obvious. The first article was written by someone with a strong, RED tint.
To be fair, the second mother is a journalist, so that might have helped get the necessary clearances.
That and not being associated with a group of people opposed to the US military and showing up without having it organized ahead of time.
Certainly there are journalist who find what they are looking for. The fact that they find differences is more revealing to me than the fact they them.
Many North American readers are looking for simple answers. Is it good or is it bad. Is it justified or is it not. The situation in Iraq is complex. Both stories can be true representations of the situation without being contradictory.
Looking for “the” answer, IMO, obscures the effort to find solutions ( note the plural ). It is mildy ironic to me that the military – a truly single purpose organization – has a better grasp of the need for multifaceted solutions than the media or citizens.
The over-use of rhetoric and polarizing stories is no aid to anyone.
Arghh,
The first line of the previous post should read:
Certainly there are journalist who find what they are looking for. The fact that they find differences is more revealing to me than the fact they seek them.
Sorry.