from AlterNet:
Imperial Scribes: Bush Says We値l Be in Iraq for 50 Years, But Reporters Don't Bother to Ask Iraqis to Comment
By Joshua Holland and Raed Jarrar, AlterNet. Posted June 8, 2007.
When George Bush announced that he favored keeping troops in Iraq for decades, the media apparently didn't think the opinion of Iraqis mattered.On May 25, George Bush signed a defense bill that outlawed the construction of (new) permanent bases in Iraq. But only five days later, White House press flack Tony Snow told reporters that the president is now modeling the future of his bloody signature project on the half-century U.S. experience in South Korea, with troops in Iraq for the long haul to provide, in Snow's words, "a security presence" and to serve as a "force of stability."
Asked how long that commitment would last, Snow said, "A long time." Tens of thousands of U.S. troops have been stationed in South Korea since 1953 -- for 54 years.
In the days that followed Snow's revelation, senior Pentagon officials weighed in with their support for applying the Korea Model to Iraq: keeping a few divisions of U.S. troops in-country for the next five decades or so sounded just about right to them.
It was such a naked acknowledgement of America's long-term designs on carving out a strategic foothold in the region that even the milquetoast American press had to acknowledge it, and most of the major news outlets ran stories in the last week that at least touched on the Iraq hawks' shiny new analogy.
But we noticed something fascinating when reading those articles: In story after story, U.S. reporters were quick to seek comment from White House officials and to "balance" those comments with quotes from congressional Democrats and from analysts at various D.C. think tanks who are critical of the administration. They talked to foreign policy and military experts, historians and even Korea experts.
But here's the rub: None of the reporters we read bothered to pick up a phone and call Baghdad to get reactions from, well, actual Iraqis. ......(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/53469/