The story the media aren't telling

It's a commonplace today that, if we had today's media during World War II, we'd have lost it. If the press were reporting on people like Mohammed at Iraq the Model I doubt that Americans would want to abandon that land. We've been told, or maybe we're telling each other that "these people can't handle democracy." The arguments against the war never made that much sense to me, and the longer it goes the more fevered and dishonest they become. There has never been a war that couldn't have been spun in this way. We have the lowest rate of casualties of any military operation ever, yet we're told that we didn't send enough men. It's as if Bush's opponents want more casualties to bolster their position.

Anyway, Mohammed has been in Egypt at a "seminar for bloggers and civil society activists that was sponsored by the Cato institute, American Islamic Congress and HamsaWeb, and it seems to have re-energized him to realize that so many others are focused as he is on make the Middle East more free, more peaceful and more prosperous. His post deserves to be reprinted on the front page of every newspaper in the country. Here are some excerpts:

The beautiful thing about the meeting is that everyone is looking forward to see the Iraq experiment unfold to something good that will reflect positively on all those who have accepted the Middle East to be their home.

On the other hand the destructive effect of the media-that abbreviated Iraq to a car bomb leaving away or ignoring the other good side of the story which is the birth of a democracy-was also clear. I was trying hard to clarify the blurred image asking the others not to judge something huge like the change in Iraq through events in a relatively very short time compared to the history of nations.. . .

It may sound a bit odd but that's really what I felt in Egypt that I don't feel in my war-torn city; for the first time in 3 years I felt the restrains of government…I told one of my colleagues I feel safe in Baghdad despite the dangers, I may feel afraid of terrorists or random violence but I never fear the government and that's not only how I feel, Iraqis are not afraid of expressing their differences with the authority because we in Iraq have more or les became part of that authority the day we elected our representatives while terrorists and militias are nothing more than temporary phenomenon that unlike constitution and elections have no solid foundations.

Of course our democratic foundations need a lot of work to meet our aspirations but we are walking this road and none of us is willing to go back and maybe the three thousands that were murdered last month tell that Iraqis are ready to pay the price and fight to preserve and improve our achievements. The magnitude of the change explains the confusion in some of our steps but we have not given up and we're not ready to surrender, not yet.

Read the whole thing. If only more Americans appreciated what Mohammmed is experiencing, and focused on the millions upon millions of Iraqis who are not in militias, not killing others over religious differences, trying to seize power by force, not kidnapping people for ransom. When you think about it, the numerical difference between the violence in Iraq and the criminal violence in California or Arizona or any major population center is in the thousands, out of many millions. So much of it is perception.

It would be interesting to have some details to understand why the polls here are so negative about this war. One thing I'm sure of, though, is that the media have become too slanted and too powerful in this country and our people have lost the vision of what we are fighting for and what we have to lose. There is no better evidence that we're succeeding in Iraq than blogs like Iraq the Model.