Posted by
Cary Wesberry on Monday, March 17, 2008 8:01:16 PM
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The pain here is choking -- it's a dark, suffocating sorrow.
"They took my husband away in front of me. I found his body in the morgue a few days later. He had multiple bullet wounds and his eyes had been gouged out," one woman tells me, forcefully twisting a tissue in her hands as if it somehow could ease her agony and erase the chilling memory.
She didn't want her story told, too afraid that she would meet the same fate as the man she loved.
Her husband's body bore the "signs of torture." How many times has that phrase been used? It's such a common phrase it's as if what really happened gets glossed over: skin scraped off their bodies, fingernails ripped out, horrifying screams of pain before death.
How many times have we reported death tolls from one horrific bombing or another and not been able to get across that these are lives that literally were blown apart? No matter how hard we in the media try, Iraq remains a nation filled with untold tragedies, the scope of which so often is overwhelming.
And no matter how hard Iraqis try to shield themselves and those they love from the horrors here, more often than not they fail. Yet they keep fighting.
No matter how hard the media tries? All the mainstream media does is report horrible stories like the one you see above from Iraq. Pretending for one second they're trying hard to paint a pretty picture is asinine! Arwa Damon and the other mainstream media reporters in Iraq prosecute their journalism from a hotel room for crying out loud! The real story of Iraq comes from real journalists like Michael Yon, Bill Roggio, and others like them. This article is an insult to my intelligence, and anyone else who takes the time to understand the work our soldiers are doing.
Speaking of which; where are CNN's stories about the hardships our military faces in Iraq outside of a body count? Where! This is outrageous and pathetic! I'm sick of know-nothing "reporters" sending the most disgusting stories they can find home from Iraq while reporting absolutely nothing on the massive victory our soldiers have achieved along with tribes of Iraqis who have stood-up to al-Qaeda and various troublesome militias. Blood that leads. That's the money maker from Iraq for CNN's war reporters. They're no better than al-Jazeera.
No matter how hard the media tries. No matter how hard they try there's still more death to report because it's a war. What exactly did they think would be going on in Iraq when we started helping secular and moderate Muslims fight Islamic madmen? The mainstream media's only goal where Iraq is concerned is to change your mind. It's not journalism, it's editorial and opinion they're peddling beneath a cloak of misrepresentation. Fine one terrifying story, omit any comparison to progress and good, then send it in to be published. The really sick thing is these so-called reporters are proud of it!