It becomes a reality question. Does the news present reality or not? Does it purposly present non reality? Is this free speech? I dont think politically tainted lies about what happens in the world are free speech.
That gets more complicated than it may appear, though. John Burns was on Fresh Air and Charlie Rose yesterday (he was in NYC to get some journalist award). He was asked by both of them about whether the Bush admin was justified in saying that the press focussed too much on negative news in Iraq and were ignoring the positive story. He basically said that yes both were happening, but it was difficult at best to know where the balance really lay. In Iraq today, if you ignore the security story, or downplay it, you are ignoring the reality that is on everyone's mind. Iraq today, he said, is unquestionably a more dangerous place than it was either during or even before the war. That part of the story gets reported more in good part because that is what is on everyone's mind, first and foremost. Not just reporters' minds, but Iraqi people's minds as well. Reporters would like to report the positive stuff too, and do their best achieve a balance, but it is impossible for them, their papers, or even the CPA to know where that balance truly lies.
The fact is that Iraq is a mess. This was predictable, and was predicted. The predictions didn't "make" it happen, and it isn't happening because there are people in the West paying attention to it. It is happening because (a) there is a power vaccuum, and (b) there are so many past scores to settle. There are about 5 million Sunnis there. They know that they are detested by much of the rest of population. Even if only half of the Sunnis actively participated in and benefitted from Saddam's regime, that is a lot of people. They were the trained Army officers. The army was disbanded. There is huge unemployment--it is impossible to get a good number, but I have seen estimates from anywhere between 50% and 80% of working men unemployed. A good number of those are former Army people. The Sunnis and perhaps especially many of those former Army people know that many people would like to take their lives, property and/or honor from them in retribution for past injustices. There has been no word that I have heard about any insitutional method of redressing past injustices, but I have read about numerous assassinations and property "retaking" in both the north and the south (the "quiet" areas--called "quiet" I suspect because the Americans and British aren't being targetted as much as former Saddam people). It is this history that is finally causing the insurrection, and will in the end I believe cause a civil war at some point, and make the current bloodletting look like playing in the sandbox.
That is the "reality" as I see it. Would the CPA shut me down for saying it if I was saying it in Iraq? My guess is yes, though it may depend on how I was saying it.
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