The big pictures in Iraq?

This is excellent, by Katherine Kersten via Irish Pennants.

The Crawford campout is a quintessential media event. Its purpose is to gain attention for a small group of people, far out of proportion to their numbers or their knowledge of conditions in Iraq. While protesters win headlines, soldiers with on-the-ground experience have no forum to express their strong support for our cause there.

The major media’s love affair with the Crawford protest is no surprise. It’s consistent with the focus on body counts and funerals we’ve come to expect: “Troop Carrier Flips; Four Dead,”Roadside Bomb Kills Two.” The media rarely give us the context we need to understand the fighting that produces these casualties — the purpose and outcome of the missions the lost soldiers were engaged in. When that information is given, it’s often buried in articles that focus on death.

Without this big picture, any war would appear a meaningless disaster. What if Americans had seen the casualty lists from Omaha Beach or Okinawa — hills of sand — without hearing about the objectives for which those bloody battles were fought?
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Here’s a glimpse of that bigger picture: According to government and policy organization sources, Iraq today has a vibrant free press, with roughly 170 independent newspapers and magazines, up from zero under Saddam Hussein. Thousands of schools have been constructed or refurbished, and more than 200 water treatment projects are underway or have been completed.

In Fallujah, Mosul and Najaf, the scene of brutal fighting last year, the American military is building schools and clinics, extending power lines and laying water and sewage pipes.

Thanks to those efforts, the Iraqi people will soon vote in a historic constitutional referendum. Sunni leaders, who boycotted the January 2005 elections, are urging their people to join the electoral process. But even heartening news like this, which does get media attention, is often drowned out in the public mind by reports of periodic American casualties.

The result of a media obsession with body counts can be defeatism. The Vietnam War’s 1968 Tet Offensive provides a sobering example.

In Tet, our soldiers inflicted a stinging strategic defeat on the North Vietnamese. American and South Vietnamese losses were a mere fraction of those suffered by Communist forces, which had massive casualties. Nevertheless, the American media — preoccupied with American body bags — portrayed Tet as a disastrous defeat for the United States.

Tet was a propaganda victory for the Communists and a turning point in the war. The media’s depiction undermined American confidence and contributed to our eventual decision to turn tail and leave. The people of Southeast Asia, including more than 1 million desperate boat people, paid a horrific price.

Every time the terrorists in Iraq go head-to-head with the American military, they lose. But they understand our media’s obsession with body counts, and they know their only chance for victory is to wear down our will to persevere. That’s the strategy behind the steady drip-drip of roadside explosions and marketplace suicide bombings.

Our major media have a duty to give us the big picture on Iraq. This — not the tears of Crawford — is what we owe fallen soldiers and their courageous comrades.

Brava, lady! Brava!

UPDATE: This NY Times Sportswriter has spent some time in Iraq and gives us a sense of what the day-to-day is like for the troops.