The government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has for the moment lost the support of the Sunni Arabs in parliament. The Sunnis in his cabinet have resigned. Even some Shiite parties have abandoned the government. Sunni Arabs, who are aware that under his government Sunnis have largely been ethnically cleansed from Baghdad, see al-Maliki as a sectarian politician uninterested in the welfare of Sunnis. Full Story »
Posted by Kaizar Campwala
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5
There was far more unsupported opinion here than there were facts. While I can agree on the overeall concept, the writer failed to carry through with his responsibility to the reader. He did not support the conclusions and asked the reader to "agree" on faith. There has been a little too much "taking things on faith" for the past seven years.
This story, while consoling to those of us who remain steadfastly against the Iraq occupation, has no opposing viewpoints in it. The only sources are polling results. While they go far in supporting the issues they address there are no sources for several myth-buster statements.
This is an informative, though not so even-handed look at the war in Iraq in 2007. This piece would have been far better if Cole had actually pointed the reader to where in the media these 'myths' were actually articulated.
Not only is this 'good' journalism, but is absolutely necessary journalism given the U.S. Government's and mass media's portrayal of things 'getting better' in Iraq. While not pointing out the original sources of the myth's, anyone who has been paying attention remembers the 'creation' of these myths. Unfortunately, Mr. Cole left out the dismissal of the democracy created in Iraq by Bush and al-Maliki by ignoring the law passed by the Iraqi Parliament regarding continued occupation AND the complicity of the U.N. Security Council in that dismissal.
Juan Cole is one of the most knowledgeable, experienced, and fair experts on the region with access not only to the media but internal sources. Although the post is rather brief, it successfully addresses a number of myths (many of which have been dispensed as administration PR). The establishment media appears unwilling or unable to fact-check these "myths"; instead perpetuating them in sound bites.
The author of this opinion piece presents a very distorted and inaccurate group of assertions. He leaves out all the major steps forward in Iraq during the year, perhaps because he has not read up on what has been happening there. For example, he does not note the recent agreement in the central government on pensions, which adds in a major to the reconciliation among all the Iraqi groups. Nor does he note the sharing of the massive oil revenues with the provinces nation-wide. Nor does he note the support for Christians on the part of Muslim leaders, especially in Baghdad. Little journalistic merit.
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