How’s This for a “Milestone”? Sunni Parties Buy Into Democracy; Al-Reuters Can’t Handle It
Since I have to read their business missives for both work and blog reasons, the fairness and accuracy of Reuters’ reportage is important to me. Because of their horrid international hard-news coverage, I have learned to be highly skeptical of anything they produce.
After all, there’s a reason critics call it Al-Reuters (HT Dean’s World; obvious untruths after title are in bold, my responses are in italicized parens):
Sunnis form alliance as US deaths mount
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Sunni Arab leaders formed an alliance on Wednesday to run in Iraq’s next election, as the U.S. death toll passed 2,000 and intensified pressure on Washington.
(Where is the “pressure”? Even Hillary Clinton won’t directly criticize the progress being made.)
Three Sunni parties joined a coalition to contest the December 15 parliamentary poll, after fierce Sunni opposition narrowly failed to veto a new, U.S.-backed constitution in a referendum.
(The constitution passed comfortably with 78% of the vote, and only two of the three Sunni provinces that could under the rules have negated it were able to vote it down [all three had to vote it down for failure to occur]. It was only “US-backed” in the sense that the US backs any country that attempts to run its society based on the rule of law, and served as mediator in disputed areas of the document. You would have preferred food fights?)
“We call upon all Iraqis to participate actively in the elections and not listen to calls for boycotts because they are harmful,” the new Iraqi Accord Front said in a statement.
The alliance of the Iraqi People’s Gathering, the Iraqi Islamic Party and the Iraqi National Dialogue was the clearest sign yet that some Sunnis are turning to the ballot box after boycotting Iraq’s last parliamentary vote in January.
(The parties mentioned represent a large plurality, and perhaps a majority, of Sunnis; the characterization as “some” is an attempt to minimize the significance of their interest in participating in the democratic process.)
U.S. and Iraqi officials are likely to welcome the move, but it is not clear if the group has much sway over hard-line Sunni insurgents fighting the Shi’ite and Kurdish-led government and the U.S. occupying force protecting it.
(This is a deliberate mischaracterization of the government; only Al-Reuters and the international press are so obsessed with ethnicity; the Iraqis want a country.)
Nor did it appear to have the backing of all mainstream Sunni politicians.
(This is raising the bar impossibly high–If you don’t have the backing of every last Sunni politician, it doesn’t count. Where in the world does any constitutional issue have the backing of “all mainstream politicians”?).
The U.S. military, which on Tuesday marked its 2,000th death since the 2003 invasion, on Wednesday announced another soldier had died, in a vehicle accident in southern Iraq.
(The US military did nothing to “mark” the death, except to respond to war opponents who insisted on describing it as a “grim milestone.” Nothing has been written about the 50,000 Iraqis who likely would have been murdered had Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror continued for past 2-1/2 years; Saddam’s pace averaged much higher than 400 per week when he was in power.)
The rise of the U.S. death toll has piled pressure on President George W. Bush to show progress in Iraq, with growing numbers of U.S. voters skeptical about the direction of the war.
(There may be polls showing discontent, but, again, where’s the “pressure”?)
The U.S. military also said that two al Qaeda members, one a cell leader accused of taking part in at least three videotaped beheadings, have been killed in Iraq.
The suspected cell leader was killed during a raid on a house in Mosul on Saturday, while the second al Qaeda member, identified as Abu Du’a, was believed to have died in an air strike near Qaim in western Iraq on Wednesday.
(So nice of you to bury this HUGE news so deep in the story.)
Sunnis turned out in large numbers to vote against the constitution this month, but failed to muster the two-thirds majority “No” in at least three provinces necessary to veto the measure. Two provinces reached the mark; a third fell short.
Some Sunni leaders said their failure to block the constitution, which many fear hands permanent control of much of Iraq to the Shi’ite majority and its Kurdish allies, would spur a new political campaign to force Washington to withdraw.
(Totally, in, your, dreams–by whom?)
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The mainstream reporting from Iraq is distorted beyond recognition. Michael Yon and the Milblogs are where to go for the real story (see the third section of the blogroll; additional suggestions are welcome).
And you can see why Reuters’ business news has to be taken with a mountain of salt.