Back to Iraq

Let’s conduct a little thought experiment. “The media” here are fiercely competitive. Everyone of us is looking for any angle — any! — that will break news, make our stories stand out or otherwise distinguish ourselves. That’s what journalists do, and the corps here comes from the entire ideological spectrum, from the conservative to the socialist. But weirdly, this herd of cats — which is what we could be best be compared to — have all come to the same conclusion: Iraq is a mess.

It seems perhaps he has not encountered the logical fallacy of appealing to the people, by quoting the biggest number he can find. Everyone believes it eh? Well, I can make everyone believe that the Soviet Empire would not fall in 1989 too, but that doesn't mean reality would change. In fact, everyone did believe the Soviet Empire wouldn't fall, except Reagan.

I would argue that this prevailing view is the aggregate of a lot of professional reporting, mine but a small bit. If it gravitates toward a single viewpoint, well, that’s the way it is. Sorry, truth hurts.

This is what happens when you have reporters trying to use philosophy and say they have the "truth".

With a good propaganda apparatus, I can make the truth to be whatever I want it to be. With a propaganda apparatus as good as the ones the Palestinians and Al Qaeda have, I can bend reality to my will. Let alone fool these Baghdad Hotel reporters.

The Next thing he will start telling me is that if everyone believed Iraq had WMDs, that this then means the truth hurts and that Iraq has WMDs...

Cross out everyone with a lot of people, and it is the same thing.

and somehow I’m supposed to suddenly doubt my own observations and experience? Pardon me if I believe my lyin’ eyes instead of him.

This is the kind of person that terroists specifically target. A terroist would do their best to find this unit he is imbedded with, and then focus all their attacks on that unit. Would be quite an anti-American propaganda win for for the terroists to have an American reporter report heavy attacks and show images of burning American vehicles. If he says he believes his lying eyes, then the terroists will give him what he wants and lie to his eyes and show him all the attacks and violence in the world.

Before the invention of the camera and light speed satellites, the eyes never lied. Now they do. The truth hurts, but the truth is the truth. But seeing is no longer seeing the truth anymore, even if seeing is believing still stands.

Mr. Peters, you should be ashamed of yourself. Three Iraqi journalists have been killed this week alone trying to report the news, and the stringer who work for us are no less the journalists than the guys at the Iraqi networks.

I'm supposed to believe you that your stringers are like the patriots in the Iraqi networks? I'm supposed to believe your lying eyes over the evidence I see before me of systemic propaganda and infiltration attempts, designed to manipulate the international media?

The reason why Iraqis are killed and not foreign journalists, is because foreign journalists report the news in a way that the terroists like and the Iraqis don't. How could that be, if they use the same resources? For one thing, they don't use the same resources, and for another thing, because they don't report the same news.

Maybe Mr. Peters would like a nice chat with “Salih” from the Washington Post, who reported a story about the looting of Saddam’s palaces in Tikrit after the U.S. military turned it over to the Iraqi security forces. His reward? A $50,000 bounty put on his head by the head of security in Tikrit, Jassam Jabara.

Perhaps he’d like to talk to the family of Allan Enwiyah, the translator for the Christian Science Monitor’s Jill Carroll. He was killed when Jill was kidnapped Jan. 7, unprotected by American firepower. She is still captive, by the way.

The last time I checked, those weren't Chris's stringers. Either Chris is talking about strangers or he is talking about friends he knows and have worked with, obviously the latter precludes Chris's objectivity here.

How dare you, Ralph. How dare you question these men and women’s intentions and honesty.

*neck cracking* If Chris wants to play that game, then I hope his defenses are in strack.

…Sunnis were killing Shia civilians, and Shia, often under official cover, were retaliating. I asked Haidar if the rumors I’d heard were true — that the Ministry of Interior had been infiltrated and dominated by the Badr Organization Militia, the military forces of the radical Shia Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution, or SCIRI. Yes, he said, and added that Ministry of Interior members affiliated with Badr were assassinating Sunnis throughout Iraq. Sunni officers were being removed and replaced by unknown Shias.

How dare you, Chris. How DARE you question the loyalty and patriotism of Iraqis who are dieing by the tens of thousands. Former AP reporter.

Finally, I’ll let a former Army guy have the last word. This from a buddy of mine who was a Public Affairs Officer just a few short months ago:

Oh my god, dude. [Peters] is completely full of sh*t. That’s all I can say. Apparently that f**k hasn’t spent enough time down in the trenches here to understad the little bastards will run out and wave at any patrol for one reason — begging for choclate or soccer balls. They don’t care the Grunts are valiently coming to save the day. … He’s not aware of how f**king dangerous it is for gringos to roam the streets here.

The profanity is probably the reason Army PR doesn't know their ass from a MOAB bomb.

Chris, cares, he really really cares. But only about those people he has seen and worked with. Everyone else can go kill themselves.

However, Iraqi authorities are refusing to identify the other victims found around the capital because they fear fueling (more) sectarian violence. Based on my experience here, it’s likely most of these bodies are of Sunni men, killed in reprisal for Sunday’s car bomb attacks in Sadr City that killed 58 and wounded more than 200. The culprits are probably members of the Shi’ite-led security forces or members of the Mahdi Militia, based in Sadr City.

Spoken like Al-Qaeda's propaganda arm. Let's just speculate. Don't pay any attention to how these speculations have been paid for by Al Qaeda in blood.

But a guy who writes exclusively for publications that supported the war before it went down comes here and says things are fine, and somehow I’m supposed to suddenly doubt my own observations and experience? Pardon me if I believe my lyin’ eyes instead of him.

Allow me to answer in Chris's own words.

A reader -- I can't find the email now -- asked some months ago if I would change my mind on the war if it was proven that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction. I answered that no, I wouldn't, since I didn't -- and don't -- believe that the war was about WMD or an evil tyrant but about realpolitik plans for projecting American power into the Middle East. My response to this reader is to flip the question: "Do you still think this war was necessary since it may very well turn out that there are no WMD to be found?" (Mind you, I'm sure the U.S. will find some cache of chemicals or a few warheads, but President Bush repeatedly invoked a clear and present danger to the survival of the United States as a justification for war. A few dozen litres of mustard gas or even VX does not strike me as justification for shredding the U.N. Charter, demolishing NATO, harming further the United States' image abroad and increasing the risk of terrorism at home.)

There is no reason to believe any stories Chris, with paid Iraqi stringers, writes because Chris was always against the war.

Chris, the one who fell for Al-Qaeda and Sadr's Civil War propaganda project. Chris, the one who fell for the Democrat's "president said imminent danger" propaganda project.

Some guy that believed the war was unjustified because of the neo-cons, comes to Iraq, and expects me to believe him instead of my own logic and the events I have observed.