THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

World
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Posted on Tue, Apr. 12, 2005
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Sharon dismisses Bush warning

GAVIN RABINOWITZ

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon brushed off a warning from President Bush not to allow further West Bank settlement growth, indicating Israel would continue to solidify its hold on areas it considers of strategic importance.

Sharon, speaking to reporters before flying to Washington for talks Tuesday with U.S. lawmakers and Jewish leaders, said the dispute was decades-old and did not mar the meeting between the two leaders, which he called a great success.

Sharon, who won renewed support for his plan to remove Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank at Monday's joint news conference on Bush's ranch in Texas, also dampened the president's expectations that the tempo of peace talks would pick up after the withdrawal.

At the ranch, Bush told Sharon that any further building on the settlements would be in violation of the internationally backed "road map" peace plan, which both the Israelis and the Palestinians have formally accepted, but which has been long dormant with both sides failing to carry out their initial obligations.

"I've been very clear. Israel has an obligation under the road map. That's no expansion of settlements," Bush said.

But later, Sharon said that while U.S. opposition to the settlements dated back to when Israel first captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war, Israel has nevertheless continued to build communities to keep a hold on the land.

"It was not to antagonize the U.S., but to keep areas that seem strategic to Israel," Sharon told reporters.

The latest dispute stems from differing interpretations of a statement made by Bush last year, and reaffirmed Monday, where he recognized Israel's need to keep large settlement blocs in the West Bank. Bush cited "new realities on the ground."

Israel believes this allows for expansion of exiting settlements, while the U.S. says this would endanger peace with the Palestinians.

The issue reappeared last month when Israel announced plans to add 3,650 homes to the West Bank's largest settlement, Maaleh Adumim. The plan would cut off Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. The United States objected.

Sharon said Israel will keep large settlement blocs like Maaleh Adumim. "The blocs will be part of Israel, with everything that that entails," Sharon said, indicating the construction that will link Maaleh Adumim to Jerusalem will continue.

At the summit Bush expressed optimism that Sharon's plan to withdraw from all 21 Gaza settlements and four others in the West Bank - which he praised as courageous - would jump start the tenuous peace process.

If Israel's withdrawal from Gaza comes off successfully, then, "I think we'll have a different frame of mind" more conducive to pursuing peace, Bush said. "To me, that's where the attention of the world ought to be, on Gaza."

But there will be no progress after the Gaza pullout unless "the Palestinians completely fulfill their obligations of stopping terror attacks, waging a war against terror, destroying the terror infrastructure and reforming their security services," Sharon said.

"I have no intent, in no way, of progressing with the road map ... until they fulfill all their obligations," he said.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who is set to meet Bush next month, has failed to confront militant groups, preferring to try and co-opt them through negotiations.

On Monday the Palestinians launched a jobs-for-guns program to grant gunmen government jobs in exchange for giving up violence.

Bush had praise for the Palestinian leadership, but also made clear more must be done. "We want to continue to work with them on consolidating security forces," he said.

At a lunch meeting following the news conference Bush and Sharon turned to other subjects, including European diplomatic efforts to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

Old media on Iraq: Good news not newsworthy
David Limbaugh (archive)

April 12, 2005

When it comes to reporting on the Iraq War, the Old Media might as well be an appendage of the anti-war wing of the Democratic Party. It is astonishing how little coverage we've seen of the positive trend there over the last few months.

I realize many just chalk up the media's emphasis on bad news as intrinsic to journalism: the attitude that if nothing is going wrong, it's not really newsworthy. But that just doesn't wash.

How could anyone seriously contend that a reduction in the anarchy isn't newsworthy? What could be more important than signs indicating we might have turned the corner on the "insurgency"?

While we heard a daily drumbeat of despair and an ongoing tabulation of American dead when things were looking bleaker -- a look, I might add, that was meticulously cultivated by the Old Media -- we hear nothing but a thundering silence today.

How can we but conclude that the media simply don't want to promote the good news out of Iraq? But why? Well, obviously, they suppress good news because it vindicates their nemesis, President Bush, and incriminates them and their liberal comrades.

Do you think that's unfair? Would you prefer I conclude instead that they downplay positive developments because they abhor the march of democracy in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East? I'm straining for an alternative explanation for their one-sided coverage.

We heard barely a whisper from these naysayers when we witnessed the popular uprising in Lebanon against Syrian occupation. Rather, they chose to highlight counter-protests by Hezbollah-sympathizers -- as if the media were rooting against democracy and independence.

They don't even pretend to be balanced. Remember the early anti-administration reporting that accompanied the beginning of the ground war? There were predictions of quagmire, reports we were being greeted as occupiers and not liberators, exaggerated stories of museum lootings, complaints about our supply lines not keeping pace with our advancing troops and the like.

Don't forget the media hype over alleged coalition negligence leading to missing explosives in Al Qaqaa, nor the media's preposterous, relentless quest to pin the Abu Ghraib abuses directly on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The most egregious example of bias involved their conspiratorial joinder with Democrats to smear President Bush as a liar concerning his claims of WMD in Iraq. When we failed to find large WMD stockpiles after deposing Saddam Hussein, they helped Democrats portray a global failure of intelligence (assuming the weapons weren't there and moved before our invasion), as premeditated deception by President Bush. They've all repeated the lie so much now that it has become part of the "conventional wisdom."

Moving into the present, why aren't we hearing much today about how we have the terrorists on the run? The Washington Times -- decidedly not part of the Old Media -- reported that the U.S. Marines almost caught "Abu Musab Zarqawi, the most-wanted terrorist in Iraq," and he is still being pursued. "He's going from brush pile to brush pile just like a wet rat," said Lt. Gen John F. Sattler.

"Big deal," you say. "It's only newsworthy if they capture him." Wrong. It's newsworthy anyway, but especially if his near capture is more than blind luck. Indeed, it appears that any blind luck involved accrued not to coalition troops, but Zarqawi, who managed to escape only because of poor visibility brought on by bad weather.

Far from serendipitous, our tightening of the noose around Zarqawi was a natural consequence of our earlier military successes. Gen. Sattler told the Times that the "coalition has forced Zarqawi to work 'independently' by killing or capturing his first- and second-string lieutenants." A media at least marginally receptive to good news out of Iraq would be all over this story.

While we don't want to prematurely "count our chickens," it would seem that a media interested in reporting, rather than coloring the news would celebrate this story.

Similarly, how about the relative decline in American fatalities? How about reports that Iraqi security forces are maturing and strengthening each day? How about recent hints that if current trends continue we could begin withdrawing substantial numbers of troops toward the end of the year?

Perhaps Gen. Sattler's declaration in November that our victory in Fallujah had "broken the back of the insurgency" was not an overstatement. Only time will tell. But in the meantime, I suppose we'll not hear much from the Old Media until the next coalition setback.

In case you're wondering, I'm not saying the Old Media don't want good things to happen in Iraq -- but just not on President Bush's watch.

Now that's newsworthy.

McTag, Here's a prediction; once 40,000 US troops leaves Iraq, the insurgency will again increase, and we'll see more US soldiers and Iraqi civilians killed.

Ticomaya wrote:

cicerone imposter wrote:

McTag, Here's a prediction; once 40,000 US troops leaves Iraq, the insurgency will again increase, and we'll see more US soldiers and Iraqi civilians killed.

Do you think US soldiers should stay or go, c.i.?

Not my problem.

Tico, It's only my opinion. If you can't handle it, don't read it. ;( I also criticize our economy; doesn't mean I can cure its problems.

I'm not a "liberal." You're wrong on most things about me, so quit trying. The only thing I might be considered a liberal is my position on universal health care; otherwise, I'm a moderate.

cicerone imposter wrote:

I'm not a "liberal." You're wrong on most things about me, so quit trying. The only thing I might be considered a liberal is my position on universal health care; otherwise, I'm a moderate.

Of course you are.

Well its pretty hard to take a moderate seriously who has supported 99% of liberal positions posted on this board for the last year.